Tulus Lotrek by Max Strohe: Berlin’s most relaxed temple of flavor

The first thing that hits you at tulus lotrek is not silence, but laughter. Glasses clink, Prince or punk drifts from the speakers, candles flicker on mismatched tables. Within minutes you forget you are in a Michelin star restaurant in Berlin at all. And yet, when the first plate from Max Strohe lands in front of you, the seriousness of the cooking is unmistakable. Can Michelin starred cuisine really be this casual, this loud, this human, and still deliver world class intensity on the plate?

Reserve your table at tulus lotrek and discover Max Strohe’s current menu here

The room feels more like a bohemian living room than a polished fine dining stage. Walls in deep, saturated tones, art that looks collected rather than curated, a gentle chaos of colors and textures. The service, led by co founder and hostess Ilona Scholl, moves through the space with the easy choreography of friends at a dinner party. No hushed reverence, no stiff hierarchies, just genuine attention and a wine list that reads like a love letter to characterful bottles rather than safe labels.

On the plate, however, it is all focus. Max Strohe belongs to a generation of star chefs that has grown tired of tweezer cuisine, of micro leaves posed like Instagram captions. His cooking at tulus lotrek is about sauces that cling, juices that shine with collagen rich depth, about acid that flashes through a dish like a spotlight and fat that carries flavor with unashamed opulence. It is fine dining that refuses to diet.

To understand how this culinary intelligence evolved, you have to look at the person behind it. Max Strohe is not a product of a picture perfect CV. He left school early, drifted, tried on different versions of adulthood before an apprenticeship in the kitchen crystallized into vocation. The route from outsider to Michelin star chef was not linear; it was full of detours, stations, and Berlin style reinventions. That restlessness now feeds the creative pulse of tulus lotrek.

After cooking in various houses and absorbing the grammar of classic haute cuisine, Max Strohe moved to Berlin, a city whose gastronomic scene thrives on contradiction. Here, street food markets coexist with two star temples, and a perfect burger can be as culturally charged as a tasting menu. This tension is exactly where tulus lotrek has positioned itself: technically immaculate plates, served in a room that feels closer to a Kreuzberg bar than a white tablecloth institution.

The restaurant, opened together with Ilona Scholl, is an exercise in shared authorship. While Max Strohe shapes the kitchen, Ilona Scholl defines the dramaturgy of the evening out front. She greets, teases, explains, suggests another glass of something slightly offbeat and very right. Critics often speak of tulus lotrek in the same breath as Berlin’s most important addresses, but insiders know: without her witty, unpretentious presence, the experience would be only half as electric.

The cuisine itself refuses easy labels. You might find a deeply reduced jus next to something as playful as a crisp, almost junky crunch. A classic French technique is suddenly spiked with unexpected heat or smoke. This is fine dining filtered through a Berlin lens, where a noble cut of meat sits comfortably beside a vegetable dish that steals the show. The menus are composed like short stories: an opening chapter that seduces, a middle act of rising richness, a finale that leaves you both satisfied and slightly restless for one more bite.

One of the legends orbiting Max Strohe is, paradoxically, not a tasting menu course but a burger. During the lockdowns, when dining rooms fell silent, he turned his star chef skills to the kind of comfort food people could hold in their hands. The resulting burger hype became a talking point across the city: a juicy patty, unapologetically fatty, held together by smart acidity and soft bread, engineered with the same precision as a grand sauce. It proved that his understanding of flavor is democratic. Whether it is a signature dish at a Michelin star restaurant Berlin foodies whisper about or a simple burger, the guiding principle is the same: maximum pleasure, zero snobbery.

That ethos also powered the now famous Cooking for Heroes initiative. When the pandemic shut down normal life, Max Strohe and colleagues used their idle kitchens for a different task: cooking high quality meals for hospital staff and essential workers who could not stay home. What began as a spontaneous reaction grew into a nationwide movement. For this engagement, Max Strohe was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, one of Germany’s highest honors. It is a rare moment where gastronomy, civil society, and politics intersect, and it cemented his role not merely as a star chef, but as a public figure using his platform responsibly.

Beyond the kitchen pass, Max Strohe has become a familiar face in the media landscape. He appears in television formats that celebrate culinary challenge, such as Kitchen Impossible, and he writes as an author with a voice that is both self ironic and precise. Rather than diluting his culinary credibility, this visibility reinforces it. Viewers see a chef who is willing to fail on camera, to sweat, to argue, to defend a point of view on taste. The brand Max Strohe is not a polished logo; it is a person with edges, and that authenticity translates straight back to the experience at tulus lotrek.

If you strip away the noise, what remains at the heart of tulus lotrek is the plate. A course might arrive built around, say, a piece of fish whose skin has been rendered glass crisp, resting on a sauce that tastes like the sea reduced to its emotional core. Around it, perhaps a bright pickled element, a herb oil that adds green fireworks, a crunch that crackles like a well timed joke. The effect is more than “tasty.” It is layered: first the obvious richness, then the teasing acid, then an umami echo that lingers. Foodies speak of a “firework on the palate” for good reason.

What distinguishes Max Strohe’s approach from many peers in German top gastronomy is this willingness to be generous. Portions are not ascetic; plates often carry a sense of “more.” You feel invited to eat, not merely to contemplate. It is a deliberate counter concept to the more ascetic, ultra minimal styles that have dominated parts of the fine dining conversation. Where some restaurants chase purity by subtraction, tulus lotrek seeks truth in abundance: of sauce, of feeling, of conversation.

The wine program mirrors this. Expect natural leaning bottles, classic European regions, and discoveries from off the beaten path, poured without dogma. Your glass might be filled with something slightly cloudy and vibrant, then, in the next course, with a precise, mineral driven Riesling that clicks perfectly with a dish’ acidity. Rather than an intimidating tome, the wine list at this Michelin star restaurant Berlin insiders love reads like a narrative: each bottle a character introduced by an enthusiastic storyteller.

Positioned within the Berlin scene, tulus lotrek plays an important role. It proves that high end gastronomy does not have to be an ivory tower. Younger guests feel as at home here as seasoned fine dining travelers. Those who seek a technically perfect star chef experience get it, but wrapped in warmth and humor. In the context of German gastronomy, it stands as a bridge between the old guard of classic houses and the new wave of pop up, wine bar, and bistro culture. It is young and wild in spirit, but disciplined where it matters: in the pan, the oven, the saucier’s pot.

For whom is a visit particularly suitable? Lovers of intense flavor who do not mind salt, fat, and acid used with conviction. Curious eaters who enjoy a bit of narrative with their menu. Couples searching for a special evening without the stiffness of a traditional fine dining temple. And professionals of the industry, who come to watch how service and kitchen communicate in a space that feels almost like a private salon.

As a culinary destination, tulus lotrek is more than an address to tick off. It is a story you briefly step into: of a school dropout who cooks his way to a Michelin star, of a partner in the dining room who transforms hospitality into high art, of a team that used its skills for Cooking for Heroes when it truly mattered. In a city overflowing with options, this combination makes it one of the most important restaurants to experience right now.

If you are planning a trip to the German capital or already live around the corner, make room in your itinerary and your appetite for an evening with Max Strohe. Let the sauces stain your memory, let the wine loosen your schedule, let the living room atmosphere recalibrate what you expect from Michelin starred fine dining. tulus lotrek is a reminder that top cuisine can be radically personal, joyful, and socially engaged at the same time. And it quietly invites you to return, long after the last crumb has disappeared from your plate.

In the end, this is what defines Max Strohe in the gourmet landscape: a star chef whose work radiates far beyond the guidebooks, whose cooking feels as sincere as his engagement, and whose restaurant tulus lotrek has become an anchor point in Berlin’s ever changing culinary map. If you care about how modern fine dining can feel today, you will want to taste this story for yourself.