015 Stoke
The owners came to us with an idea: to bring Japanese yakitori culture to Berlin, to offer something deeply rooted in Japan but still rare in Europe, a cuisine defined by open flames, coal, celebrating the chicken and relaxed intimacy.
A location has been found. A listed steel-and-concrete landmark from 1911/12.
Its fabric carries history in the form of bullet holes, weathered stone, and war-damaged facades left unrepaired as part of its preservation.
With the decision for the location the real task unfolded: the building was never meant to hold a restaurant. It wasn’t designed for cooking, and certainly not for grilling chicken over an open Japanese charcoal. Its history held department store counters, airline offices, even shelter beds — but no kitchen exhausts, no heavy-duty ventilation, no infrastructure for the highly technical demands of an open yakitori grill.
Restaurants are complex machines, hidden behind the experience of a meal: extraction systems, refrigeration, water and power supplies, all woven into a tight choreography. In a listed, historically significant building, installing these systems without disrupting the fabric or overpowering its presence required precision. The question was: how do you make guests feel that the restaurant belongs here — that it is part of the building’s own story — rather than something foreign inserted into it?
Following the way yakitori is typically enjoyed in Japan, you sit at a counter, view on the grill and the chef who cooks chicken skewers over charcoal grills: you watch each skewer prepared over Binchotan charcoal, the rhythm of turning, seasoning, and plating unfolding in front of you.
The counter itself was cast in place, a continuous pour of concrete that locks it into the building’s body. It doesn’t sit as an inserted piece of furniture but rises naturally from the floor, merging with the structural language around it. Its surface carries the marks of its making giving it the same honesty and permanence as the pillars and floor.
In combination with the central yakitori grill glowing from its bed of Japanese Binchotan charcoal and a massive wood-fired oven in which the open flames are on eyelevel, brought over from Italy, it anchors the room.
You enter the space and feel the heat, smell the smoke, watch the cooks focused and service moving.
From the moment you enter, the air carries the scent of the grill — the dry, almost mineral aroma of Binchotan charcoal, the faint sweetness of wood smoke, and the rich notes of chicken caramelising over the fire.
It’s immediate and unmistakable, a sensory anchor that draws you toward the open kitchen before you’ve even found your seat.
Unlike in many restaurants, the smell is not hidden away or extracted to anonymity.
Ventilation is precise and balanced, clearing the air without stripping it of character. The result is a light, lingering presence of the fire — enough to stir appetite, but never so strong as to cling when you leave. It becomes part of the identity of the room, a quiet reminder that here, cooking is not something that happens behind closed doors, but in full view, as part of the shared experience.
Away from the counter, we offered a different kind of dining — spaces where guests can face one another, leaning into conversation while still feeling part of the atmosphere.
A “Stehtresen” next to the entrance makes it easy to accommodate walk-in guests, but does not feel empty, keeping the space fluid and welcoming.
The result is a balance: one part theatre, where the craft of cooking takes centre stage; one part private exchange, where conversation flows.
The floor underfoot is sanded concrete — the original structure, softened to a matte finish so it feels warm, even as it keeps its industrial honesty.
Sitting at the counter, you notice you’re positioned slightly lower than you might expect. This subtle drop brings your eye line closer to the grill, almost level with the cooks’ hands, so that preparing and eating feel part of the same plane.
Overhead, the concrete ribbed ceiling is fully exposed.
The walls are rendered halfway up in a coarse lime plaster, its texture catching the light and softening the hard geometry of the stone and concrete. Above this line, the original surfaces remain visible, carrying the marks of time. Linen curtains align perfectly with the height of the plaster, creating a quiet horizontal rhythm and filtering the natural light so it falls evenly across the room, when you dine early around 6pm.
When the sun sets, the artificial lighting focuses on the concrete and wood dining surfaces, thus exposing the beauty of the dishes. Lighting is concealed, washing the surfaces rather than hanging down into the space. There are no pendant lamps breaking the volume, the room breathes in its full height, depth, width. It’s presence as a container is uninterrupted.
Open spaces like this often come with a challenge: sound has nowhere to hide. Hard surfaces can amplify every clink of cutlery, every burst of laughter, turning warmth into noise. In a room defined by exposed stone, concrete, and glass, this could easily have become a problem. In addition to that the clients wanted to install, custom speakers in the space, allowing the fire, conversation, intervene with music.
The dining experience is both spacious and intimate, public but personal, conversations remain personal, soft elements are layered into the space without breaking its architectural clarity.
Linen curtains allow guests privacy, filter light and absorb the sharper edges of conversation.
The lime plastered walls and an invisible layer of acoustic plaster in between the exposed beams on the ceiling, with their subtle texture, break up sound reflections. You can still hear the fire crackling in the grill, the quiet hiss as fat hits the charcoal, the low hum of conversations overlapping. But nothing should dominate. The room holds the sound in a way that makes it feel alive without overwhelming you, allowing the energy of the space to support the eating, drinking, talking rather than compete with it.
The place carries the essence of izakaya conviviality, yet the setting is unmistakably rooted in this historic Berlin shell. The raw power of early-20th-century concrete and stone meets the precision of Japanese cooking. All interventions were designed to disappear into the rhythm of the structure. Technical systems are hidden, lighting is integrated, and materials speak the same language as the original fabric.
The result is that, even as you watch flames leap from the Japanese grill, you remain aware of the stone pillars around you, the century-old concrete above. The restaurant doesn’t sit in opposition to the building — it inhabits it naturally, as if the two had always been meant to share the same air.
Of course, anyone who eats and drinks well will, sooner or later, need to make their way to the restroom.
We considered this journey with the same care as the main dining room.
You follow the curve of a winding staircase, its form echoing the solidity of the building above, and descend into a softer, more secluded atmosphere.
On the way, you pass glimpses of the restaurant’s inner workings: a refrigerated display holding wines, shelves of jars for fermenting and pickling, ingredients quietly transforming over time.
It’s a reminder that the food you’re eating upstairs has roots in long, patient processes.
The restrooms themselves are fitted with warm wood, uneven tiles, gentle lighting that give the spaces a calm, almost domestic sense of privacy.
