Kismet in Berlin

The singers hit a flat note when they tried to recapture a magical moment

A charming corner in Nikolaiviertel, Berlin’s oldest residential neighborhood. Photo by Mark Orwoll

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I WAS IN BERLIN SEVERAL YEARS AGO for the annual ITB travel fair, which is the wildest, most exhausting trade show in the history of the planet Earth and beyond. Except for possibly the annual Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, which, by the way, is a difficult ticket to wrangle. At least, so people tell me.

Multilingual presentations (at ITB, not the Vegas Expo!) require you to wear translation headphones, wondering if the translator is inserting words of his own because he can’t keep up; folklorico performances that leave you curious whether the performers are making it up as they go; and earnest young travel reps in national costume from Eritrea, Kosovo, Moldova, and other vacation hotspots that will never be on your bucket list insist on handing you more brochures than you could ever find time to read, even if you managed to stuff them all into your backpack.

To say that this place is vast hardly does it justice: 1.7 million square feet of exhibition space. Thousands of exhibitors come from more than 170 countries to impress more than 100,000 travel agents, tour operators, and journalists with the travel attractions in their respective countries. The first time I attended, I wanted to run out of the place screaming, but it was so large that I got lost and gave up, left to simply whimper, in a heap, alone, in a far corner of the Palais am Funkturm, somewhat near the Uruguay Tourism booth playing disco-tinged samba.

The main exhibition hall of the Messe Berlin, designed in 1937 by Richard Ermisch. Photo by Taxiarchos228/Wikimedia Commons

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To make things even more bizarre, the entry to the so-called Messe complex is a stern, columned, 800-foot-wide main exhibition center designed and built under the Nazis in the cheery “submit to our authority” school of architecture.

I was there with two colleagues, Tom from Pennsylvania and RJ from the Netherlands via Thailand. We were exhausted after three days of ITB, but still wound up enough to want to celebrate our last night in the German capital. So we happily accepted an invitation from a small group of German magazine people to join them at the Grill Royal, one of Berlin’s restaurants of the moment and still one of the great German steakhouses.

We had no notion, of course, that we were about to witness one of those magical moments that sometimes happen when we travel, a fortuitous experience that can’t be planned, only enjoyed. Kismet.

The quays along the River Spree in former East Berlin now hold some of the liveliest restaurants and nightclubs in town, including Grill Royal. Photo by Plaksie/Wikimedia Commons

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Overlooking the Spree River from a quay just below fashionable Friedrichstrasse, the massive, elegant Grill Royal is renowned for its beef— entrecôte from Nebraska, Wagyu from Australia, specialty cuts from Argentina—a decidedly gourmet approach to steak. But the menu is varied, with choucroute (dressed sauerkraut, with sautéed diced bacon, dry white wine, Dijon mustard, and sour cream), oysters from the island of Sylt, bouillabaisse, and other regional delicacies.

The restaurant decor is minimalist, with spotlighted artwork on the walls, massive columns, and dark-wood banquettes. The real decoration comes from the diners themselves—chic, attractive, some young, others young-ish, all wearing fashions you’d find in the cutting-edge boutiques off Unter den Linden a few blocks away.

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Gleaming red hunks of Wagyu sat unmolested on their tines as diners remained motionless. Waiters and busboys stopped in their tracks to listen.

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That night, the restaurant was packed, lively. The noise level threatened at any moment to elevate from robust to boisterous, as if everyone had drunk one more glass of Pfälzische Spätburgunder than was good for them.

Slowly rising, a lone musical voice sliced through the din. It came from a young woman at a table near ours, a vaguely Eurasian beauty sitting with a group that I’d earlier picked out as something artsy from somewhere far off—an acting company from Hungary, say, or a dance troupe from eastern Russia. Not unusual in this cosmopolitan capital.

The singer was quickly joined by one of her companions, an equally exotic-looking woman with a sound as high and silky as the first. The two voices overlapped, harmonized, sang counterpoint, and gained in volume until I could clearly discern “O Sole Mio,” the schmaltzy old Italian chestnut that we’ve all heard a million times. But there was nothing corny in this rendition. It was soulful, spontaneous, seraphic. It was something I’d never heard before, and I was transported.

The duo ended on a stirring harmonized chord that literally sent a chill up my spine. Only as they concluded their aria did I realize that the entire restaurant had gone silent. Gleaming red hunks of Wagyu sat unmolested on their tines as diners remained motionless. Waiters and busboys had stopped in their tracks to listen. One of the chefs had left his station and was standing stock still in the kitchen doorway. Then, as if on cue, everyone in the Grill Royal broke into applause, stomping and whistling, shouting “Brava! Brava!” Some even rose to their feet in ovation. We all felt part of something special.

More dishes were ordered, more wine was drunk. A splendid evening continued onward.

Later, the two divas sang again from their table. But this time the melody felt a bit forced, the applause obligatory. I can’t even recall now the name of the song. The enchanted moment had arrived and evaporated, not to be recaptured. Berlin had gone from being magical to, as ever, merely amazing.

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And here’s the video version of this week’s column.