From Köpenick to four Eisläden around the city, Süsse Sünde is a Berlin ice cream success story.
We arrive at Rosenthaler Platz on a conspicuously grey, non-ice-cream eating day. Still, the route to Süsse Sünde was marked out for us in a snaking (socially distanced) line of kids and parents, leading us directly towards the bright purple, sparkling gold – almost fairy-tale against the grey sky – shopfront of Süsse Sünde.
We were there to taste ice cream and it was our journalistic duty to skip the queue.
Berlin Ice Cream Week 2021.
Süsse Sünde is taking part in Berlin Ice Cream Week 2021. Between Thursday, May 6th and Wednesday, May 12th, 31 of the city’s best ice cream parlours will be showing off their best, special-edition flavours for just 1€ a scoop.
During the week, Süsse Sünde will be offering a sinful vegan sour cherry and chilli sorbet. Find out more about Berlin Ice Cream Week 2021 here.
Süsse Sünde – Sweet, sure – but where’s the sin?
Süsse Sünde makes decidedly German ice creams and sorbets, foregoing heavy creaminess or over-sweetness in exchange for lighter textures and tastes that promote natural fruit and raw ingredient flavours. If their ice cream is a sin, it’s a sin you could happily commit daily.
This explains their legion of loyal fans – the local kids. “Children love our Mango Mango ice cream and of course they drag their parents along with them,” 24-year-old manager, Ansgar, tells us before explaining that the ice cream tastes of so much mango that they had to name it twice.
With more vegan options than milk-based on their menu, Süsse Sünde has also been a long-standing proponent of vegan ice cream. “I think we make the best vegan ice cream in Berlin,” Ansgar states with quiet confidence. It’s hard to argue – especially after tasting their Avocado-Mint-Orange sorbet.
He went on to tell us that Süsse Sünde was perhaps the first ice cream parlour in Berlin to serve a vegan dark chocolate flavour – a recipe they developed and perfected over three years ago.
10 years and over 220 recipes.
The opening day of Berlin Ice Cream Week will coincidentally also mark the 10th birthday of Süsse Sünde.
A true family business, Süsse Sünde began with a restaurant and biergarten in Köpenick ran by Ansgar’s parents, Hans-Jörg and Kathrin. Wanting a break from the long days and constant late nights of gastronomy, they decided to move into the ice cream business. Ansgar has worked alongside them since he was 15 years old – and is now the manager of two of Süsse Sünde’s four branches. Even his little sister Helen, 15, helps out by making the brownies for the business.
“We are all very experimental. Over the years, we have tried more than 220 recipes. Many turned out very bad, but we quickly learned what works and how to perfect the ones that do.”
When Ansgar’s parents decided to escape the city and move somewhere quieter, they also moved Süsse Sünde’s production kitchen along with them – settling in Schöneiche bei Berlin.
What began purely as an ice cream factory to provide ice cream to Süsse Sünde’s other branches, this changed when the family noticed the local children had started gathering around the building, peering in through the windows to catch a fleeting glimpse of the whirring machines that created their favourite ice cream.
In some Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque turn of events, this convinced the family to knock the wall down entirely and invite the locals in to see how it’s made – and to try the ice cream themselves, of course.
Visit your local Süsse Sünde:
Weinbergsweg 21
10119 Berlin
Niederbarnimstraße 21
10247 Berlin
Am Goethepark 17a
Schöneiche bei Berlin
Am Thälmannplatz 1
Woltersdorf bei Berlin