Berlin, Germany – A unique urban garden in Berlin is reconnecting diners and residents with forgotten flavors and the medicinal power of plants. Rötzel’s Monk Garden, established in 2022, cultivates between 150 and 200 varieties of herbs, leaves, and trees, many unavailable in typical German supermarkets.
The 2,000 square meter (21,530 square feet) garden, located in Marienfelde on Berlin’s southern edge, supplies high-end restaurants seeking locally-sourced, flavorful ingredients. Founder and owner, Rötzel, a former hotelier and dancer, also hosts “wild herb walks” and workshops teaching participants how too create items like skin cream, wine, and herbal remedies.
Rötzel’s passion for plants stems from childhood, beginning around ages four or five with collecting wild herbs, and was further deepened during a personal illness 13 years ago. He credits herbal teas with aiding his recovery. This experience led him to establish a medicinal monastic garden adjacent to a church in Berlin, modeled after similar gardens maintained in the Middle Ages for food and healing purposes.
“At some point, the knowledge was lost,” Rötzel explained, attributing this decline to “the industrialization of food.” He estimates that “something like 99% of people don’t know a single name of a plant.”
The garden’s offerings include numerous varieties of mint, oregano, and cilantro, alongside hyssop, New Zealand spinach, four-leaf sorrel, yarrow, and a local variety of tarragon. Beyond restaurant supply, Rötzel hosts occasional dinners *within* the garden itself, featuring five-course meals paired with different herbal teas.
Recent diner Britta Rosenthal, after enjoying a first course of crayfish and peas with basil, expressed a desire to learn “what herbs can do” and “perhaps to become a bit more valiant preparing food, not just with pepper, salt and paprika but also with green fresh stuff.”
Rötzel finds particular satisfaction in rekindling forgotten culinary memories. “many people, above all older generations, grew up in a way that they still know some things that no longer exist today,” he said. “It’s a pleasure for me when people remember something really special.”
The Monk Garden represents a growing trend toward hyperlocal food systems and a renewed interest in conventional herbal knowledge, offering a tangible link to a past where plants played a central role in both sustenance and well-being.
Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.