Max Brown Ku'Damm

You know you've found a great hotel when you can come in from an all-night party in time for breakfast, sit down for a delicious meal and a couple of bloody marys, then slink off to your room to sleep through the rest of the morning without anyone batting an eyelid, or banging on your door.

So it goes at Max Brown Ku’Damm. The hotel, located in upmarket Charlottenburg, is the second German outpost of the Amsterdam-based brand, following an opening in Midtown, Dusseldorf.

Ku’Damm, so named after the nearby shopping avenue of the same name, has already got a name for itself among locals since it opened in December last year. We arrive on Saturday morning to find a crowd of people out the door.

Benedict, the Israeli bakery on the ground floor, has fast become one of the hottest brunch spots in town. Well-heeled West Berliners wait with their coffee and their dogs on the pavement. Inside, opposite a wall cascading with live succulents, a couple play pool. Others lounge in velvet and leather chairs in the lobby, reading the paper. The check-in desk is barely visible, hidden behind shelves of quirky souvenirs, including cacti salt and pepper shakers, boomerangs and soft balls.

After a lightning fast check-in, we’re in our large room on the second floor, dressed in muted hues of blue, grey, yellow and green by Saar Zafrir, an Amsterdam-based designer. White window shutters, oak floors and bright rugs and throws add cosiness to the otherwise simple decor. Filament light bulbs, trailing from the the ceiling, have been artfully affixed to the wall above a jade sofa that flattens into an extra bed.

We are briefly mystified by a basketball hoop attached to the wall above the desk, until we later discover a soft basketball on a shelf above the bed in the adjoining room. It’s way too far away for me to score with my limited sporting abilities, but we have fun trying. On the same set of shelves, a vintage Crosley record player is stacked with three LPs, including a geographically appropriate Baltic Soul Weekender compilation.

The bathroom is visible through an interior window (thankfully, it comes with a blind). Scrumptious Dead Clean products containing argan and salvia oils and a powerful bronze shower make up for the poky space.

While there’s no minibar, Benedict welcomes guests for snacks or steak and chips through the night. Plus, from 5-9pm, you can get two-for-one cocktails – a generous happy hour by anyone's standards.

As we're still some way off cocktail hour, Mr Smith and I slink past the brunch crowd and out to explore Charlottenburg. The wide boulevards and tall, pale apartment blocks in this part of town are remnants of the prosperity of capitalist West Berlin in opposition to the formerly Soviet East.

Aside from shopping and Starbucks, there’s not loads to do in this part of town, so we hop on city’s convenient overground system, the S-bahn, and out to the far east of the city for a music festival called Pure and Crafted in an abandoned power station.

Berlin is awash with these empty industrial buildings and open spaces, making it the perfect city for artists and promoters looking for cheap places to host events. (Pro tip: you’ll find more about these festivals and other listings at Berlin.de.)

Pure and Crafted, mixes music from Interpol and Car Seat Headrest with custom-built motorcycles (it’s sponsored by BMW, after all). The crowd is an unlikely melting pot of handlebar-moustachioed bikers and preppy indie kids, queuing at independent food trailers and drinking beer at picnic tables.

Two clubs, Sisyphos and ://about blank (yes, really), are in the neighbourhood, with line-ups running from Friday to Monday with no break. We try our luck with both and end up in the forests out the back of ://about blank, chatting with locals on soft-covered chairs under the trees. Inside, we dance to techno in the crumbling rooms of this former illegal rave venue until dawn.

Hence the end-of-the-night breakfast at Benedict. Super-strong bloody marys, pots of tea and an endless bread basket are the perfect way to warm up after the journey back from East Berlin. I have the egg balls mostly out of curiosity and receive a steaming bowl of scrambled egg formed into gnocchi-like balls with creamy mushrooms, delivered with a side-salad. Mr Smith tucks into a thick slice of brioche, covered in spinach and cream cheese with two poached eggs in hollandaise sitting atop.

After breakfast among the yuccas, we head up a concrete staircase, neon yellow signs on navy walls leading us to our bedroom. Mr Smith slips a ‘Do not disturb’ sign outside the door just before the housecleaners clatter past. We block out the day with those big white shutters and slip beneath a cloud of duvet and pillows to rest, ready for the night.