Konnopke's Imbiss

Berlin, Germany

The oldest and most storied currywurst stand in Berlin, operating continuously since 1930 under the iron viaduct of the Schönhauser Allee U-Bahn in Prenzlauer Berg. Max Konnopke started the stand selling simple sausages from a handcart. His wife Charlotte later expanded it to a proper kiosk, and the family added currywurst to the menu in 1960. The GDR-era stand attracted long queues of East Berliners who treated it as a reliable neighbourhood institution rather than a tourist site. Reunification brought new visitors but the menu and spirit stayed the same. The ohne Darm version is the house speciality: a sausage without casing, finer in texture, always without the snap that western Berlin versions offer. The stand serves from early morning through late evening, and the queue at lunchtime rarely drops below ten people.

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Sausages served here

Currywurst

Berlin, Germany

Currywurst is Berlin's most consumed street food: a steamed and pan-fried pork sausage, sliced into rounds, blanketed in a curried tomato ketchup sauce, and dusted with curry powder. It is sold at Imbiss stands across Germany, but Berlin claims it as its own invention. The sauce is the point. The sausage is a delivery mechanism for the sweet, spiced, faintly vinegary tomato base that Herta Heuwer developed in 1949 at her stand on Stuttgarter Platz in Charlottenburg. Germans eat roughly 800 million currywursts per year, and Berlin alone accounts for about 70 million of those. Two versions divide the city: mit Darm (with casing, which gives a snap on the bite) and ohne Darm (without casing, softer and finer-textured). Most East Berliners default to ohne Darm; in the West, mit Darm is the classic choice. Both come on a paper plate with a small plastic fork and, almost always, a side of Pommes frites or a Brötchen.

porkBerlinstreet-food