Tulus Lotrek by Max Strohe: Berlin’s Most Disarming Michelin Star Living Room
15.01.2026 - 14:53:04
The first thing you notice at tulus lotrek is the smell. Not the sanitized neutrality of many a Michelin star restaurant in Berlin, but a heady mix of roasted bones, butter, and something lightly smoky drifting from the kitchen. Within minutes you understand what makes Max Strohe different: this is fine dining that smells like home, not like a laboratory. Can a Michelin-starred menu really be this casual, this loud, this fun, and still be among the most serious cooking in the country?
Reserve your table at tulus lotrek and discover Max Strohe’s current menu here
The dining room of tulus lotrek feels like walking into a friend’s slightly eccentric salon. Dark walls, art that looks collected rather than curated, tables set close enough to overhear the next great bottle of Riesling being opened. This is where Max Strohe practices his very personal idea of a michelin star restaurant in Berlin: a place where culinary intelligence is wrapped in laughter, where the clink of glasses is as important as the plated jus on your dish.
There are no hushed tones, no parade of synchronized service. Instead, there is co-owner and hostess Ilona Scholl gliding through the room with a glass in hand, joking, reading the tables, steering the evening with the kind of intuition you cannot teach. Foodies praise her as one of the city’s most charismatic front-of-house personalities, and it is this duet of Ilona Scholl in the dining room and Max Strohe in the kitchen that defines tulus lotrek’s particular magic.
Max Strohe’s path into this world of refined plates and perfect sauces was anything but straightforward. He is the opposite of the polished hotel school prodigy. A school dropout, he took the long road through busy kitchens, repetitive prep work, the daily grind that either breaks you or makes you. It clearly made him. His move to Berlin brought him into a city that loves its rebels and its star chef icons in equal measure, a city where you can be on TV on Sunday and still sling burgers in an improvised lockdown takeaway on Monday.
When Max Strohe and Ilona Scholl opened tulus lotrek, they were not trying to copy classic haute cuisine temples. They wanted a restaurant that felt like their living room: slightly chaotic in the best way, deeply personal, and unafraid of big flavors. Critics soon took notice. A Michelin star followed, and with it recognition that one of the most interesting faces of modern fine dining in Berlin was not hiding behind tweezers and foams, but behind sauce-stained aprons and a broad grin.
From rebel to star chef, the story of Max Strohe is a commentary on what it now means to be a leading figure in German gastronomy. He is known from television formats like “Kitchen Impossible,” he writes, he comments, he jokes. Yet inside his kitchen at tulus lotrek there is an almost old-school seriousness about craft. Stocks simmer for hours until they are dark and sticky. Sauces are reduced to the point where a single spoonful can carry a course. The garnish may be playful, but the backbone is classic technique rendered with rock-concert volume.
The cooking at tulus lotrek is, in essence, a rebellion against tweezer cuisine for its own sake. Instead of chasing microscopic leaves and perfectly aligned petals, Max Strohe chases depth. Fat is used as a deliberate flavor carrier, not an enemy. Acidity is turned up to keep even the richest dishes precise and energetic. A crackling crust or a shattering shard of something fried is there to set off the velvet of a purée or the silkiness of an emulsion.
On one evening, you might find a piece of fish nestled in an almost indecently glossy beurre blanc, sharpened with citrus so that the sauce cuts through the richness like a spotlight. On another, a slow-cooked piece of meat arrives cloaked in a jus so concentrated that it borders on syrup, lifted by pickled elements that whistle across the palate. This is not minimalism. This is feel-good opulence, calibrated by someone who understands that joy at the table often lies in abundance carefully controlled.
The once legendary lockdown burger from Max Strohe became a cult object in Berlin. When dining rooms were dark, this burger served out of necessity showed the same culinary intelligence as the multi-course tasting menus. The patty was carefully seasoned, the fat ratio tuned for juiciness, the toppings arranged not to impress on Instagram but to drip and crunch and balance. It was a michelin star restaurant berlin burger in spirit, if not in setting: every element thought through, but aimed straight at the craving center of your brain.
In the structured tasting menus at tulus lotrek you can sense echoes of that burger philosophy. A rich course may be followed by something unapologetically fresh and sharp, perhaps a vegetable-focused plate that turns humble roots into high cuisine through roasting, pickling, and clever spice work. Contrasts in temperature, texture, and intensity are orchestrated so that no dish becomes a heavy blanket. Instead, the meal moves with the rise and fall of a good playlist.
The wine list mirrors this attitude. Do not expect only safe, classical labels. Food-savvy guests appreciate that Ilona Scholl and the team are as happy to pour an elegant German Pinot Noir alongside a sauce-laden main as they are to open something wild and natural with fermented notes that flirt with the more adventurous plates. It is pairing as conversation, not dogma, and it amplifies the feeling that tulus lotrek is less a shrine and more a home for contemporary fine dining.
Beyond the plate, Max Strohe has become an important voice in how gastronomy sees itself in society. During the pandemic, when restaurants across Germany were struggling, he co-initiated the “Cooking for Heroes” campaign. Under this banner, chefs cooked for hospital staff, supermarket workers, and others who kept the country functioning. What began as emergency solidarity quickly grew into a movement that inspired countless colleagues.
The Federal Cross of Merit awarded to Max Strohe for this work elevated him from beloved star chef to public figure with moral weight. It was a recognition that culinary excellence and social responsibility can, and perhaps should, go hand in hand. Cooking for Heroes showed a different side of culinary intelligence: the ability to mobilize logistics, donors, and cooks with the same precision usually applied to a Michelin-starred service.
This public role has been reinforced by his media presence. On shows like “Kitchen Impossible,” Max Strohe appears as the slightly anarchic Berlin chef who laughs loudly, curses affectionately, but never jokes about flavor. Television and books have broadened his audience, turning his name into a brand in the best sense of the word: recognizably human, imperfect, and approachable. Crucially, the media buzz has not hollowed out the core of tulus lotrek. Instead, it sends curious viewers into a dining room where the cooking comfortably stands up to the spotlight.
Positioned within the dense landscape of top gastronomy in the capital, tulus lotrek has carved out a unique niche. Berlin boasts many glittering addresses, yet few manage to unite this level of technical mastery with such nonchalant charm. In a city that often celebrates the cool, Max Strohe and Ilona Scholl offer warmth. The restaurant is young, wild, and at times delightfully irreverent, but beneath the jokes and tattooed forearms lies the discipline of a kitchen that respects classic craft. It is this tension that makes tulus lotrek one of the most talked-about restaurants in Berlin.
Who should go? Anyone who wants to experience what fine dining can be when it sheds its armor. If you are drawn to complex sauces, bold seasoning, and menus that dare to be sensual rather than puritanical, you will feel at home. If you enjoy a wine pairing that surprises more than it confirms expectations, you are in the right place. And if you believe that a michelin star restaurant berlin should feed your soul as much as your Instagram account, tulus lotrek will probably become one of your reference points.
For all its accolades, the essence of tulus lotrek is disarmingly simple: it is about pleasure shared at the table. In an era of conceptual gastronomy and endless tasting menu minimalism, Max Strohe chooses to cook food that hugs you. The plates are refined, sometimes intricate, but never cold. The hospitality is intuitive rather than choreographed. The room is a little loud, a little wild, and very alive.
In the end, that is why Max Strohe matters so much to today’s gourmet landscape. He embodies a shift from distant luxury to intimate intensity. He has shown that a star chef can host like a friend, campaign like an activist, perform like a TV personality, and still remain laser-focused on flavor. tulus lotrek stands as living proof that top-tier gastronomy can be both politically awake and hedonistic, technically precise and emotionally messy in the best way.
If you are planning your next culinary trip to Berlin, put tulus lotrek high on your list. Come for the Michelin star, stay for the umami-soaked sauces, the laughter between tables, and the sense that you have briefly slipped into someone else’s deliciously chaotic living room. And when you leave, pleasantly dazed, you may find yourself thinking that this is exactly what modern fine dining should feel like.
