Château Royal Berlin

Berlin may be best known for cheap currywurst and a 24-hour no-holds-barred club scene, but a more laidback way of holidaying there is possible – of which the Château Royal is an exceptional example. Its looks are classic central Mitte: worldly and elegant on the outside, as befits a historic 19th-century building, but with an artsy Berlin twist, thanks to an impressive collection of contemporary art. The hotel is less than 10 minutes’ walk from the Brandenburg Gate and five minutes from Unter den Linden metro station.

I checked in on a disappointingly grey day and my spirits were instantly revived upon entry — its sensitively designed, warmly lit interiors feature handpicked art from local names and international bigwigs like Damien Hirst and Peter Savlile. Getting upgraded to a suite by the friendly staff helped, too. The enormous room featured a generous lounge area, a rain shower and a freestanding bath tub, along with products from the B Corp-certified beauty brand Saint Charles Apothecary. While its view onto the street is relatively unprepossessing, I was pleased to find that the windows are decisively soundproof, if a little hard to open. 

Before Mr Smith turned up, I did a little bit of sightseeing. Location-wise, Château Royal is within meandering distance of almost everything you’d want to check out — you can even see the iconic dome of the Reichstag from its rooftop garden. Joggers will be pleased with the gorgeously green Tiergarten on its doorstep, and history buffs should check out the revamped Humboldt Forum, a 15-minute walk away. I grabbed a restorative pho from Umami Mitte, an elegant Vietnamese restaurant stuffed with locals, and headed for nearby Checkpoint Charlie and the impressive Die Mauer panorama by artist Yadegar Asisi, which features a transportive insight into life behind the Iron Curtain. 

Mr Smith arrived just in time for our dinner reservation at the hotel's stylish restaurant, which serves seasonal Mediterranean-inspired dishes without neglecting Mitteleuropean tastes (grilled hake with the butteriest mashed potato? Yes, please). While the weather was too nippy for a drink on the roof, we were perfectly happy to hit the hay and rise early for breakfast, which was a generous Continental spread of cured meats, gravlax, cheeses, fruit, pastries, cereals and eggs on request, served in the airy hotel courtyard. Unfortunately we both had to send a few emails before exploring the city, but Château Royal is perfectly set up for digital nomads. The sleek lobby bar has quiet booths and does a mean matcha latte, and our room was more than equipped for WFH needs, with a Bose speaker, Paper & Tea teabags and Château Royal-branded filter-coffee drip bags. By lunchtime, we were starving, but luckily, the historic Borchardt is less than 10 minutes away from the hotel. This stately restaurant serves traditional yet elevated German cuisine — its schnitzel is unmissable.

After hitting the gym — the staff can give you a pass to a well-equipped nearby fitness centre — we visited one of the city’s many day spas. Liquidrom is a quintessentially cool Berlin take on a spa — it pipes ambient music into its indoor saltwater pool and you can grab cocktails next to the loungers. Bear in mind that all the sauna areas, as in all of Germany, are clothing-free. To get there, you can rent bikes from Château Royal or hop on one of the many Lime bikes or e-scooters scattered around the area. 

Suitably cleansed, we headed east to Friedrichshain to check out Berlin’s thriving multicultural food scene. Wuhlischstrasse (which becomes Kopernikusstrasse) is home to two of my favourite Middle Eastern restaurants in the world: Aleppo Supper Club and Aklé, where we were almost defeated by the biggest mezze spread I’d seen outside of Beirut, featuring delicious falafel and incredibly moreish mujadara (lentils and rice with caramelised onions). 

Mr Smith and I may not have been in Berlin to go clubbing, but we weren’t averse to a nightcap. Fortunately, neighbouring Kreuzberg is stuffed with bars, including Kwia, a buzzy listening-bar-inspired cocktail joint that feels like hanging out in your coolest friend’s living room; and the unpretentious Roses, a mainstay of Berlin gay bar culture, which is wallpapered with fur and camp as chips. After a few lethally strong cheap drinks at Roses, we took an Uber back to Château Royal and sank into bed ahead of our regretfully early departure the next day.

If you’re looking to partake of Berlin’s bustling nightlife, most of which is centred at the opposite end of the city, a hotel in Mitte might not be your first bet. But for a more genteel, exploratory view of the city, it's hard to beat the delightfully designed and great-art-packed Château Royal.