Jenny Valentish admires the cuckoo clocks – and the marinated chicken – at a classic German watering hole.

Bratwurst be blowed! The Berliners love other farmyard animals just as much as the Schweine, thanks, and the chicken truly has its moment in the sun at Henne in Kreuzberg. While this is a Berlin Kiez in which you usually can’t move for artists, musicians and the curiously attired, Henne’s like a capsule of anti-fashion fustiness.

The tavern has a hunting lodge feel — oil paintings, tartan tablecloths, a cuckoo clock and antlers on the wall — which lends it a snug feel (the Germans call it a Wirsthaus).

The menu is minimal, as you’re here to get the specialty of the house, the 1/2 Jungmasthähnchen. This translates as half a chicken, with crunchy, well-marinated skin, served with a sole slice of bread with which to mop the juice from your fingers (Henne laughs in the face of cutlery)… so pad it out with side orders of potato or cabbage salad, and Wurst if you’re starving.

To drink, there’s Berliner fassbrause (lemonade produced in a keg with fruit and spices), tankards of foamy beer, and the altogether more warming schnapps selection.
Expect to bunk up and share tables, whether inside or in the front beer garden… and a word of warning: don’t come here if you’re in a hurry — because the staff won’t be.
Prost!

Leuschnerdamm 25, 10999 Berlin, Kreuzberg.
Website http://www.henne-berlin.de