10 exciting reasons to visit Berlin in 2018
From Michelin resaurant openings to a new nightclub in a former power station, our Berlin expert, Paul Sullivan, offers some good excuses for a trip to the city in 2018.
1. Check into a new designer bolthole
Recently opened Orania.Berlin is set inside a gorgeously restored historic building that dates back to 1913. The rooms and public areas are stylish and subtly exotic, with handmade Iranian carpets, designer lights and furniture throughout. The chic ground floor hosts a stage for regular live music concerts, a dapper restaurant and handsome bar. Buzzy Kreuzberg is right outside the hotel door.
Read the full review: Orania.Berlin
Double rooms from €290 (£255) in low season; Oranienplatz 17, 10999 Berlin (00 49 30 69539680; orania.berlin)
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2. Experience new-wave Michelin-starred cuisine
One of the newest Michelin-starred restaurants in Berlin, Golvet matches fine dining to stellar 14th-floor views across Potsdamer Platz and beyond. The cuisine – regional, seasonal, experimental – spans immaculately presented dishes like king crab, venison and yellow-finned mackerel and the 13-metre-long bar knocks up killer cocktails.
Potsdamer Straße 58, 10785 Berlin (00 49 30 89064222; golvet.de)
3. Party in a former power station
Berlin isn't exactly lacking in clubs, but its notorious nightlife landscape just got a new hotspot anyway. Housed, like the notorious Berghain, in a former power station, the club is called OST – the German word for east – and is indeed situated in a semi-industrial area of former East Berlin. With room for around 600 punters and a Pioneer Pro Audio soundsystem, it looks ready to throw some serious parties throughout 2018 and beyond.
Alt-Stralau 1-2, 10245 Berlin (clubost.com)
4. Watch world-leading music acts at Lollapalooza
September 8 and 9
This relatively new festival continues to go from strength to strength, drawing 85,000 visitors to the city's Rennbahn Hoppegarten every day. This year's edition will feature such prestigious headline acts as Kraftwerk, The Weeknd, The National and Liam Gallagher. There's also an open-air gallery with art installations, festival for children called Kidzapalooza, street theatre, and wine bars.
Lollapalooza, Olympic Stadium, Olympischer Platz 3, 14053 Berlin (lollapaloozade.com)
5. Hit the shops – in an erstwhile brewery
Set to help put the lesser-known district of Moabit on the map when it opens in 2018, the Schultheiss Quartier is a brand new commercial shopping and leisure project that's set inside a striking 19th-century former brewery. The project will offer around 100 stores, plenty of cafés and restaurants, office and artist studio space, plus a Meininger hotel on the second floor.
Indira-Gandhi-Straße 66-69, 13053 Berlin (00 49 30 96090; schultheissquartier.de)
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6. Bed down at Berlin's most 'provocative' hotel
Another of Berlin's swanky new boutique hotels, Hotel Provocateur is located in a quiet part of West Berlin (Wilmersdorf to be precise). Decorated in seductive blacks and reds, with splashy chandeliers and designer furnishings chosen by Israeli designer Saar Zafrir), it offers 59 sensual rooms, a fabulous Asian-themed restaurant by celebrated local chef Duc Ngo and a glamorous bar with regular DJs and fashion events.
Read the full review: Hotel Provocateur
Double rooms from €150 (£132) in low season; Brandenburgische Str. 21, 10707 Berlin (00 49 30 22056060; provocateur-hotel.com)
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7. Immerse yourself in a colourful theatre spectacular
Until July 25
Justifiably famed for its Jean Paul Gaultier designed costumes, The One is a striking piece of theatre that spans singing, dancing and acrobatics. Written and directed by Roland Welke, the production features over a hundred performers, cost around €11 million (£10 million), and is inspired by Berlin's underground club scene and the historic Friedrichstadt Palast itself.
Friedrichstadt Palast, Friedrichstraße 107, Berlin (00 49 30 2326 2326; palast.berlin)
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8. Explore this year's most hotly anticipated exhibitions
Take a trip to Potsdam before summer and you’ll catch a couple of excellent Germany-related exhibitions at the recently opened Museum Barberini. A retrospective of Max Beckmann ('The World as a Stage', until June 10 2018) showcases the works of one of the country's most influential 20th-century German painters.
Humboldtstraße 5-6, 14467 Potsdam (00 49 0331 236014499; museum-barberini.com)
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9. Delight in a pioneering take on Thai food
Thai food is fairly ubiquitous in multikultiBerlin, but Kin Dee takes it to another level thanks to pioneering chef Dalad Kambhu. Curry pastes and condiments are all made in house, and local ingredients such as kohlrabi and apple are used in place of traditional ingredients to keep things more sustainable. The tasting menus range from seven to nine courses, most of them breaking some kind of ground while remaining authentically Thai in spirit.
Lützowstraße 81, 10785 Berlin (00 49 30 2155294; kindeeberlin.com)
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10. Marvel at a revolutionary photography exhibition
Until March 5
This fascinating exhibition at Berlin's Bauhaus-Archiv looks at the revolutionary photography work of the New Bauhaus in Chicago, which was founded by László Moholy-Nagy in 1937, five years after the German Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis. Run by teachers such as György Kepes, Aaron Siskind and Arthur Siegel, the exhibition spans photos, films, publications and documents from the legendary school of photography.
Klingelhöferstr. 14, 10785 Berlin (00 49 30 2540020; bauhaus.de)