City Chicken vs City Chicken: Berlin's Bloody Rotisserie Feud
Sign in<br>Subscribe
Halal hell has broken loose in Neukölln.<br>Have you ever wondered why, just a block away from each other on Sonnenallee, there are two near-identical-yet-slightly-different rotisserie chicken shops – "City Chicken" and "Nhas City Chicken"? The story is more dramatic than you'd think, according to a ZEIT profile published over the weekend that exposed Berlin's bloody rotisserie chicken war. The piece details the friendship and fallout between the owners of the two joints – which ended with one would-be chicken king in prison for torture.<br>The cameras kept rolling, capturing Ramtin beating his victim for hours.<br>The two late-night poultry purveyors have "almost identical names and [offer] the same thing: half a chicken prepared according to an Arabic recipe, with hummus, garlic sauce, and coleslaw," ZEIT wrote. "They are, in a way, a bit like the Albrecht brothers, who made their fortunes with Aldi Süd and Aldi Nord."
Give us your email to read the full story
Sign up for free<br>Already have an account? Sign in
HEIST is a worker-owned online magazine, founded by writers and editors who after years working across Berlin's media landscape believed something essential was missing.
Anyone living here has felt a growing gap between the city as it actually is and the version being served up by mainstream outlets. We experienced that disconnect firsthand. We saw political censorship shape coverage decisions and felt the weight of billionaire ownership land directly on our work. It reached a point where we could either keep going along with it, or try to build something better.
That's why we created HEIST.
And look at you: scrolling, clicking, squinting at blurred text just to get a little further. If you'll go to that much effort to read HEIST, you can surely give us one email. That's the whole price, and the rest of the story is right behind it.
Real journalism costs money. We commission the hard-hitting, well-reported, long-form work everyone wants to read but nobody seems to publish anymore.
The future of this city is still in the balance. We intend to be part of that struggle. We hope that you'll join us.
Continue Reading
HEIST © 2026
Cookie Preferences
Powered by Ghost