haar werk, flip flop, barbour, rodenthaler strasse Berlin. Photo / Visit Berlin, Philip Koschel
The capital of Germany is beloved by night owls, but is there much for early birds to enjoy? Michelle Tchea heads to Berlin to see.
Nightlife is part of Berlin’s DNA. Everything cool seems to happen when the sun goes down in Germany’s capital city – the best music is heard at night in the city’s coolest clubs and the best meals are late-night eats after a few drinks. However, 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, things are changing in the capital.
You’re now just as likely to see vibrant outfits as you are neo-black goth attire, clubs are operating as art galleries by day and traditional gasthaus’ serving fatty pork knuckles are now neo-bistros dishing up delicate knodels that melt in your mouth.
“Berlin used to be dark and most of the fun things happened at night, but the city has evolved,” says Tim Raue, chef of two-Michelin-starred restaurant Sphere.
The pandemic was an undeniable catalyst for much of this change, especially in the culinary space. Before 2020, the city was moving in the direction of elevating fine-dining experiences with nearly 30 Michelin-starred restaurants dominating Berlin’s food scene.
However, after the pandemic and following two years of recession, Raue says the restaurant industry “thinned out in the ranks” and Berlin is now seeing a huge influx of casual fine-dining restaurants, which Raue believes is a sign of Berlin’s evolving times.
“Berlin has always been a culinary city and we still are, but we are seeing how ‘dark’ Berlin with its clubs and bars is morphing into a whole different city with brunches, bakeries and neighbourhood dining,” Raue adds.
Always craving a visit to Berlin for its pork knuckles, currywurst and doner kebabs, I questioned whether Berlin’s DNA was truly evolving or just becoming yet another monotonous European city.
Raue agreed the city needed to forge its own distinct food identity and felt the new generation would be the ones to do it.
“Young chefs in the city have a much better sense of how to represent German cuisine in a modern way and one of those ways is to focus more on working regionally with local producers,” he says.
Part of Berlin’s brighter future as a less grungy and gritty city is its emphasis on vegetarian and vegan restaurants which have opened steadily in the city since 2020. Sebastian Frank, chef and owner of Horvath, a vegetable-focused restaurant in the trendy neighbourhood Kreuzburg is seen as a pioneer in the industry like Raue and celebrates Berlin’s push to innovate.
“Berlin basically forced me to be a vegetarian-based chef,” confides Frank who says that the lack of good quality meat and seafood producers in a landlocked city encouraged him to work to a different beat. “Elevating vegetables shows how simple ingredients can foster creativity and we are happy to be part of this movement.”
Other restaurants in the city that work to the same ethos as highlighting provenance as a main source of inspiration include vegan restaurant Oukan, run by Stephen Vick who thinks Berlin mellowing out doesn’t mean it is a less cultural destination for travellers.
“There is a resurgence of German cuisine in the city, coupled with a greater emphasis on locally sourced ingredients and this focus on local ingredients showcases the unique agricultural identity of Berlin,” says Vick. “I would even suggest that Berlin might be losing some of its former “cool” factor. Perhaps it’s a natural consequence of the city evolving, but some of the elements that once defined its unique appeal seem less prevalent.”
Restaurants aren’t the only places changing. After the pandemic, Berlin’s most loved institutions and nightclubs remained cultural spots for Berliners but rather than dishing out technos, hardcore drinks and drugs, they reappeared as art galleries and immersive museums.
But walk around Berlin and you won’t feel that it has lost any of its character or tenacity; things are just evolving as all good cities should do. Facets of Berlin’s late-night culture remain, but also permeate through the day with a strong focus on wellness and cultural spaces.
An example of the city’s transformation can be found at the iconic Adlon Kempinski Berlin. Still standing tall despite more than 135 years, it’s the city’s most opulent and historical luxury property with views across the Brandenburg Gate. After a multimillion-dollar transformation of the Roman spa, the 1000 sq m wellness centre is a place of relaxation with Arabian hammam, ice waterfall and plunge pools to complement the city’s largest indoor pool – whether you join locals in using it as a hangover cure or weekend staycation is up to you but wellness and slow living is part of Berlin’s culture now with the Waldorf Astoria also revamping their spa and newcomer Hotel Telegraphment opening a wellness Club offering holistic activities.
While some things change, others don’t and Berlin continues to be a deeply artistic city that challenges one’s expectations when it comes to art and culture. Case in point, after the pandemic world-famous club Berghain began hosting art exhibitions – expanding its reputation as a cultural hot spot for Berliners by day and night. Artists like Sven Marquardt and Danish ecological artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen have been featured in the former Berlin power plant.
Elsewhere around town, the former Kunsthaus Tacheles, which was originally a hub for artists after the Berlin Wall fell, has been transformed into Fotografiska, a photo museum which opened in 2023.
Wartime bunkers have also been repurposed as exhibition spaces with the Feuerle Collection housed in a former World War II telecommunications bunker now home to more contemporary southeast Asian artworks and sculptures, and Christian Boros, a German art collector has turned a former notorious techno and fetish nightclub of the ’90s into his own private art gallery.
Berlin, 35 years after its darkest time, is bright, cheerful and a delight to visit for people who want to enjoy Berlin’s counter-culture, coolness factor and anything else that sets the German city apart. No longer a city for night owls, the city has truly evolved.