A 4,000-bottle basement wine bar a block from Friedrichstrasse — the Berlin Mitte cellar that two of the city's best sommeliers run themselves.
Freundschaft sits in a basement on Mittelstrasse, the side street that runs between Unter den Linden and the Spree behind the Humboldt University library. Willi Schlogl (formerly of Cordobar) and Johannes Schellhorn (formerly of Nobelhart and Schmutzig) opened it in late 2018 as their own project; the room is built around a large round wooden bar that seats about forty, with a single long table off to one side. Berliner Zeitung's restaurant critic called the format "drinking that connects" in their review headline; Falstaff Germany has covered it repeatedly as one of Mitte's serious wine programmes.
The right visitor wants to sit at the round bar, hand the list back to Schlogl or Schellhorn and be poured something they would not have ordered themselves. The wrong visitor wants a cocktail list, a quiet table for a date, or a bottle under twenty euros. Freundschaft is wine-first, loud at midweek peak, and unafraid of the high end of its cellar.
Down a flight of steps from Mittelstrasse, the room opens to the round wooden bar at its centre, with the cellar wall visible behind. Mit Vergnugen Berlin counted "over 4,000 bottles" stored on site when they covered the opening; Falstaff describes the layout as "deliberately built so the sommelier can pour for ten people at once without standing up". The single long table is for groups; everyone else sits at the bar, which is the seat to ask for.
The Austrian list is the headline. Schlogl's Cordobar tenure shows in the depth of Burgenland reds, Wachau Rieslings and Steirischer Sauvignon by the glass; Schellhorn's Nobelhart and Schmutzig training shows in the German low-intervention picks alongside. Star Wine List has Freundschaft on its Berlin top-10 ranking. By the glass tends to run €7–14; magnums and rarities are pulled with notice.
Bar food is from chef Stefanie La, an Austrian of Vietnamese descent; insiderei and Creme Guides both single out her bar plates as the right thing to pair with the wine programme. Order the bone marrow or the seasonal pate to start, the Austrian-Vietnamese small plates to share. Skip the cocktail list — there isn't a serious one. The website's name "istdeinbesterfreund.com" (literally "is your best friend") is the joke; the wine is the answer.
Tuesday and Wednesday from 21:00 the room is mostly Berlin restaurant-industry, with a thin layer of regulars who come for a glass and stay for three. Thursday is the press-and-finance night per Mit Vergnugen's coverage; Friday and Saturday widen to mixed Berlin and visiting professionals. The Creme Guides writeup describes it as "Berlin's most cheerful serious wine bar" — the music is moderate, the conversation is the point, and the bar staff have time to talk about what they are pouring.