“Eiscafé Kibo”: everything with a wink…

This was miss­ing in the Afri­can quar­ter – an ice cream shop whe­re you can also get home-made cake and deli­cious coffee.

Often, ice cream shops are cal­led after the sno­wy Dolo­mi­tes. “This doesn’t work in the Afri­can quar­ter,” says Ramo­na Groth-Toia. She tur­ned the for­mer restau­rant into a chic but mini­ma­list oasis and cal­led it after Africa’s hig­hest moun­tain, the Kili­man­ja­ro, dub­bed “Kibo” by the locals. The 33-year-old and her hus­band live clo­se-by, so they know exact­ly that a pro­per Café was lack­ing in their Kiez. The­re are some oases alre­a­dy in Wed­ding, but defi­ni­te­ly not in every Kiez. “It would be gre­at if we could mana­ge to crea­te some­thing beau­tiful in the Afri­can quar­ter as well,” says Peter Groth. He met his wife in Roma­nia and moved to Ber­lin with her. During her paren­tal lea­ve, Ramo­na had the idea to try and open her own busi­ness. “I did some semi­nars and lear­ned how to make ice cream out of natu­ral ingre­di­ents only,” she tells us and proud­ly points at the new ice cream machi­ne. You can find up to 17 dif­fe­rent fla­vours at once at Café Kibo, and many of them are quite crea­ti­ve. Ramo­na knows that her ice cream has to be of a bet­ter qua­li­ty than others to make the café at Trans­vaal­stra­ße a success.

The ice cream menu is depic­ting Wedding’s diver­si­ty – most of the crea­ti­ons have invent­ve names such as “Alba Neagra”, the Roma­ni­an word for thim­ble­ring. “Or Matri­mo­nio,” says Peter Groth, laug­hing, “that’s Ita­li­an for Wed­ding!” Fun­ny, but not mun­da­ne – ever­y­thing is to be unders­tood with a wink. The for­eign aspects and lan­guages fit into the Afri­can quar­ter, the Ger­man-Rumani­an cou­ple belie­ves: “Most of the peo­p­le here come from dif­fe­rent count­ries,” says Peter. “The­re are peo­p­le here of all dif­fe­rent colours – and you can take that lite­ral­ly”. What could be a Roma­ni­an ele­ment for this inter­na­tio­nal mix? “The love of life,” the two belie­ve. “That’s a cli­ché that is true for Romania.”
They want to have the café open throug­hout the who­le year – Ramo­na could ima­gi­ne to host lec­tures in win­ter, for exam­p­le, and to offer cho­co­la­te fon­due during the cold months.

The design of the place with its mode­st but chic colours is meant to not ham it up: A bit of urban style and some love of life in an almost-sub­urb – just for the ice cream alo­ne it’s alre­a­dy worth for you to make your way to “Kibo”, clo­se to Volks­park Rehberge.

Eis­ca­fé Kibo
dai­ly 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Trans­vaal­str. 13

Trans­la­ti­on: Danie­la Hombach

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