Centre of Europe’s nightlife – Berlin becomes vibrant again

No city was fun in the darkest days of the pandemic, but there may be nowhere that could compete with Berlin for sheer gloom during that first Covid winter.

Even in good times, the city’s funereal greyness, its scant daylight and collective penchant for gallows humour and blunt negativity, known as the Berliner Schnauze (literally: Berlin snout), is only barely compensated for in the colder months by its abundant cultural offerings, thriving cafe and restaurant scene, and what is arguably the best nightlife in the world. Berlin in lockdown was not pretty.

But this summer, the city is back in full swing.

Berlin’s 178 museums, seven symphony orchestras and three opera houses are once again up and running. Bars, clubs and restaurants are operating at full capacity, and, with the exception of a mask mandate on public transport and in medical facilities, virtually all Covid restrictions have been lifted since 20 March.

Germany’s entry restrictions were also dropped, although there has been talking of renewed requirements if case numbers creep upward as winter approaches

Fraught openings and an extraordinary museum

Perhaps the biggest opening in town was the new airport, Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport, a blunder-riddled, 30-year project that opened at the end of  2020  after at least six missed deadlines and a budget that ran billions of dollars in the red. And now it’s finally here? Everyone seems to hate it.

The design is outdated. Logistics are dismal, food options grim. Clunky buses run between plane and terminal.

At least there seem to be more trans-Atlantic flight options and the airport is somewhat better connected with the city centre. But overall? Not a huge win.

Another fraught, long-awaited opening was that of the Humboldt Forum, the neo-Baroque reconstruction of Berlin’s long-dead City Palace conceived as Germany’s answer to the Louvre or British Museum.

The museum, which opened virtually at the end of 2020 and began its phased physical opening in 2021, has elicited criticism for everything from its tacky design to its insufficiently investigated links to the country’s colonial past.

Still, there are worthwhile exhibits to explore. In addition to covering the site’s history and contemporary topics such as climate change, exhibits include the German state’s extensive collec[1]tion of non-European art, includ[1]ing impressive holdings from the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art, much of which was acquired through imperialist plunder.

Visitors may be better advised to check out the extraordinary Neue Nationalgalerie, the iconic modern art museum designed by Bauhaus pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe which reopened last year after a six-year, $164 million (about R2.8 billion) refurbishment by David Chipperfield.

Dedicated to the art of the 20th century, the museum is particularly strong on early German modernism, from the expressionist Berlin street scenes of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Hannah Höch’s political photomontage and the glitter and doom of new objectivity portraiture masters Otto Dix, George Grosz and Max Beckmann.

Current exhibitions include works by Sascha Wiederhold, whose graphic, psychedelic abstractions were suppressed by the Nazis almost into obscurity.

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A flourishing food scene

While the pandemic was inarguably rough on local businesses, particularly as rents in the city continued to spike, extensive government support helped stave off much of the damaged – part of Germany’s €130 billion (about R2.2 trillion) stimulus package.

Covid didn’t stop the ascent of the city’s food scene, which is flourishing like never before as new restaurants and pop-ups by innovative chefs make it hard to remember that only a decade ago, it was not easy to find a great meal in Berlin.

Much of the recent action is concentrated in Prenzlauer Berg, the former East Berlin workers’ district turned bougey family enclave.

 Opened in July last year by Samina Raza and Ben Zviel, the duo behind the Berlin stalwart Robinson’s, Frieda is an all-day restaurant that takes a similar locavore, nose-to-tail approach to accessible fine dining, with a daily changing menu featuring faultless dishes, like line-caught tuna “Chateaubriand” in a black pepper reduction with triple-cooked fries, or heirloom tomatoes from a regenerative farm in Brandenburg served with AAA Cantabrian anchovies, drizzled in olive oil.

Above all, Frieda is vibey, with its cinematic open kitchen, on-tap natural wines and custom hi-fi sound system pumping vintage house and jazz vinyl (dinner for two with drinks, from €140).

In Mitte, the Dutch team behind Lode and Stijn opened a European fine-dining spot in the building of the Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house called Remi (dinner for two with drinks from €160).

More exciting is San, which serves what must be the best sushi in Berlin in a low-key minimalist dining room on a quiet Mitte side street (dinner for two from €100; a €50 prepayment is required per person to reserve).

Other notable additions include Chung King Noodles, a cultish Sichuan noodle joint opened in Kreuzberg by Chinese chef Ash Lee after a series of celebrated pop-ups (dinner for two from €45); La Côte, a Mediterranean bistro in Neukölln’s Schillerkiez, known for its oysters and wine list (dishes from €3.50 oysters to a €28 octopus dish); and Julius, a slightly dressed-down sister restaurant of the Michelin-starred fine-dining establishment Ernst, just down the block in Wedding.

Julius offers Japanese-inflected, meticulously sourced cuisine, but at a slightly lower price point and level of accessibility (€75 per person without wine pairing).

New and coming hotels

The city’s hotel scene has not been nearly as fertile as its gastronomic counterpart. The hotel group Amano opened a new location in Friedrichshain (doubles in August start at €121), and the architectural team behind the Former Jewish Girls School project in Mitte opened a boutique hotel called Wilmina in the Charlottenburg district which might have been appealing we women dissidents were jailed and interrogated by the Gestapo.

But anticipation is high for two hotels by local culinary institutions opening this year in Mitte: Chateau Royale, a 93-room interpretation of the classic grand hotel by the team behind Grill Royale (doubles in September start at €195), and Telegraphenamt, a hotel and members’ club by the owners of the 150-year-old Gendamenmarkt dining establishment, Borchardt (rooms from €200).

Night Life Returns

Then there’s the club scene, perhaps Berlin’s biggest tourism draw. Even before Covid, concern that rising rents and rampant property development were threatening its landscape of clubs rooted in its queer techno underground had led to a new term: Clubsterben, or club death.

These worries heightened as the pandemic forced clubs to close, remaining shuttered even when shops, museums and galleries began to open. Some clubs were repurposed as Covid testing centres or vaccination hubs.

Techno temple Berghain reopened as an art exhibition which saw the former power plant filled with works by local artists from the private Boros Collection.

In the end, not a single Berlin club closed for good, thanks to government grants and advocacy by the trade organisation the Berlin Club Commission.

Newer venues, like open-air clubs Oxi Garten and Æeden, and especially the culturally adventurous Trauma Bar und Kino, are breathing fresh energy (and diversity) into the city’s nightlife.

And the forest raves which spread through the Brandenburg countryside during that first lockdown? They seem to be one Covid-era development with staying power.

There’s no telling what the future might bring, but at least in 2022, there’s more dancing in Berlin than ever before.

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