Father Carpenter

What was the seed?

To elevate hospitality and gastronomy in Berlin by providing a positive, authentic and memorable experience to all guests, and to inspire others to follow suit. 

How did it grow?

Opened in January 2015 during the Winter Fashion Week we started with what could only be called 'a bang followed by its vacuum'. A rush of people far greater than our tiny team could handle followed by the more standard slow start to a new business year. The early days were purpose driven and well executed and relatively quickly Berlin accepted the new kid on the block. FC now feels more like a Berlin institution and we are still purpose driven.  

Our Breakfast Restaurant

Located in the historical center of Berlin on Münzstraße we have two cafe spaces bordering one another with a 60m2 kitchen joining the two. It is a strange setup, but it is built to serve over 110 people at maximum capacity and be able to close certain sections as it quietens down. 

Our menu is designed to be approachable, nostalgic and plant focused (although we do have a few meat dishes). With Kresten Thøgersen hailing from Melbourne, Australia, the menu was naturally orientated towards toasts, braises, pickling, and the Aussie brunch staples. 

We have baguette sandwiches pre-made and stocked in the front of house for people on the run or time poor, and everything else is a la carte. 

Our approach to Hospitality

The way we like to think of it is as follows: Service is to do something too someone - ie, give them cutlery before their meal comes. Hospitality is to do something for someone - ie. Noticing that they're left handed and so switching the cutlery around to suit them better. 

In the early days of Father Carpenter we had a lot of discussion about what we believed hospitality to be and it took quite a while for us to realise that becuase we serve a customer base with an incredibly diverse cultural background and upbringing, our version of hospitality may not be someone elses. Often we thought we were doing something for a guest and it would be met with friction rather than a smile and appreciation. Because of this we went back to the drawing board and went into further discussions and arrived at the following:

Our version of being hospitable is to focus our energy on reducing what we like to call 'negative sticky spots', or moments in the guests time with us that would not be remembered fondly. An example of this would be something like - guest arrives to FC for the first time, does not know if they should wait at the door to be seated, or take a seat themselves, whether to order at the counter or to wait for a waiter, etc. It was our priority number one to get in there before any negative emotion, clearly explain the process and what we do, and get that person feeling comfortable, as pleasure is simply existence without the negative. 

This is our version of hospitality - to reduce negative sticky spots. 

Our Coffee

We have a modern approach to coffee and coffee roasting, you could call it a romantic and puritan approach.

We believe that each of our green coffees has a peak potential for flavour and that flavour is intrinsic. It is our job to roast the coffee enough to be soluble, bright and sweet, while not roasting it so much that you taste flavours imparted by the roasting process. 

We believe that coffee should be bright, sweet and clean as a minimum requirement.

The brightness comes from retaining the acidity that is naturally present in the high altitude coffees that we buy. All drink and food that has acidity has life and vibracy. We keep this in our coffees. 

The sweetness comes from three factors: First, the coffee that we buy was picked at its peak ripeness and had a high Brix content (sugar content). Secondly, we develop the coffee (ensure the inside is roasted) enough so that there is high solubility and the water used to brew can access the available sugar, and thirdly, we roast our coffee light which means that reducing sugar (caramelizing) does not happen too much. 

A modern approach to coffee.