café
Spielwiese
Berlin's first board game library with a cafe, where you borrow unusual games and play them at your table. Includes new and used titles, and tables can be pushed together for groups.
Date ideas in Berlin you probably haven't tried.
Not the usual dates
- restaurant
SpreeArche
A floating restaurant on the Müggelspree, reached by a raft shuttle, known for its own smoked fish.
- park & garden
Naturpark Schöneberger Südgelände
A nature park on a former railway yard, with a locomotive hall, water tower, turntable and steam locomotive among wild plants and marked walking routes.
- museum
The Feuerle Collection
A contemporary art collection in a former WWII telecommunications bunker in Kreuzberg, with works from ancient to contemporary art shown without labels. Visits are quiet and guided every full hour.
- walking route
Gertraudenhain
A walk-in miniature forest on Leipziger Straße, built as an artwork by Christof Zwiener and still growing with neighbours' involvement.
- workshop
Monopol
A former Reinickendorf distillery being turned into an arts, food and digital campus, open now for exhibitions, performances and workshops during its planning phase.
- museum
Polyrama
A Charlottenburg museum of recorded life stories, where you listen to personal audio narratives from its archive. The current story is about a retired teacher who moved from Israel to Berlin and talks about schooling and a multicultural childhood.
- museum
Uhrenmuseum
A small clock museum in a vaulted cellar under a Friedenau jewellery shop, tracing 3,000 years of timekeeping. The only one of its kind in Berlin, reached by a spiral staircase.
- museum
Erdemuseum
A Neukölln art project built from jars of soil sent in by people around the world, presented as one shared earth. Contributors describe the soil they brought and why it matters to them.
- galleryHidden gem
Kunstbruecke Am Wildenbruch
Contemporary art in four small rooms of a former public toilet by the Wildenbruch bridge, a converted building that keeps its original use visible.
- restaurant
NaNum
Fully vegan Korean-inspired restaurant near the Jewish Museum, built on fermentation, with the owner's ceramics on the tables and her studio upstairs.
- theatre
Theater im Palais
Small theatre in Mitte staging portraits of Berlin personalities, literary readings, operetta and musical shows.
- restaurant
Buddha Haus
Buddhist-style restaurant in Schöneberg serving Nepali, Indian and Tibetan-inspired dishes, known for steamed momos and Nepali highland tea sold to support Ilam farmers. Courtyard seating with about 80 seats and a summer terrace.
- restaurant
Fischer & Lustig
Regional Berlin cooking with fish and meat dishes such as Rotbarsch, Labskaus and Königsberger Klopse, in the Nikolaiviertel. The courtyard beer garden is shaded by old trees and looks onto the Nikolaikirche.
- restaurant
Beba
A restaurant inside the Gropius Bau museum serving Jewish-inspired and Levantine dishes, with a weekend all-you-can-eat brunch.
- museum
Culinarium
Germany's first permanent exhibition on the cultural history of food and drink, from 1850 to today, in a renovated early 19th-century horse stable. Three levels of hands-on stations trace farming and staple foods to modern eating habits.
- museum
Mauermuseum
Museum at Checkpoint Charlie covering the Berlin Wall and the crossing between East and West. It displays the hot-air balloon from the 1979 escape that inspired the film BALLON, and tells how the wall was built from 13 August 1961.
- restaurant
Pizzahütte
Small Prenzlauer Berg pizzeria open since 2009, baking in a wood-fired oven said to be the only one of its kind in Berlin, with a beer garden.
- museum
Berliner U-Bahn-Museum
Museum in a former signal box at Olympia-Stadion station, its main draw the large lever bank in the biggest room.
- museum
Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung
Free documentation centre on the former Anhalter Bahnhof site, covering flight, expulsion and forced migration, with a contemporary witness archive and a quiet reading room.
- park & garden
Jenseits der Natur
An outdoor green space in Wedding run as a democracy project, where plants, animals and fungi are treated as citizens. A parliament of living beings meets once or twice a year, and many events are free.
- museum
Museum Lichtenberg im Stadthaus
A local history museum in Lichtenberg with four rooms on work, daily life and change in the district, including a wall of old products and a historic egg-cutter.
- barHidden gem
Lovis Restaurant & Bar
A contemporary German restaurant with a bar in Charlottenburg, set among gardens, reinterpreting traditional dishes with seasonal regional produce.
- restaurantHidden gem
Piadin'Arte
Restaurant serving warm piadina, a thin Emilia-Romagna flatbread, with fillings like ham, cheese, arugula or grilled vegetables.