Gainsbourg

Address: Jeanne-Mammen-Bogen 576/577, Berlin, 10623, Germany
Tel: +49 30 313 7464
Website: view Gainsbourg’s website
Door: Open door/walk-ins
Style: Lounge bar
Food: Bar Snacks

Review

Gainsbourg is an ‘American’ bar named after Serge Gainsbourg, the French poet, singer-songwriter and actor. It carries the American moniker due to its cocktails, but is actually more Parisian in look and feel.

The hedge-bordered front terrace is a great place to relax on a clement evening, but the real atmosphere is to be found inside. As you part the red velvet curtain you'll be hit by a jazz-filled, smoky, dimly red-lit atmosphere. Dirty beige/clay-coloured walls are hung with black and white photographs of the eponymous singer. This is a real bar-goer’s bar.

Few would bracket Gainsbourg in with Berlin’s leading cocktail bars and the ubiquitous Mojito and Mai Tai are among the best sellers here. Krombacher Pils is on draught and served with a suitably thick head. However, Gainsbourg is the perfect setting to experience Berlin's signature drink, the Berliner Weisse mit Schuss. This is basically a wheat beer flavoured with a shot of flavoured sugar syrup. You'll be presented with a tricky choice: green or red – red being raspberry-flavoured (himbeere) and green flavoured with woodruff (waldmeister).