Dancers gyrate at a Berlin discotheque. Photograph © David and Peter Turnley/CORBIS

When in Berlin
By Peter Ross Range

Set your post-sightseeing sights on Mitte, a neighborhood flush with new galleries and cafés.

In the heart of Mitte, Berlin's central borough, people flock on sunny afternoons to a café called Strandbad Mitte—Mitte Beach. Beach? With the nearest sea 250 miles away?

"I called it ‘Beach' because I always want to go and never have the chance," says owner Andreas Krämer. "Besides, in the summer, we have sun here from morning till night." Sure enough, German sun worshipers fill the Strandbad's window benches and yellow beach chairs every dry day, sunglassed faces tilted to the free tanning rays between sips of cassis milk shakes.

Strandbad Mitte is part of an eclectic palette of bars, restaurants, galleries, and studios that has sprung up in recent years around Auguststrasse and Sophienstrasse, Berlin's new Soho. Once a crumbling neighborhood of war-scarred buildings in east Berlin—you can still see shrapnel marks from World War II, though they're now being face-lifted with ochre facades—this old Jewish quarter today teems with artists, intellectuals, and Germany's new yuppies, cell phones a-tingle.

Courtyards are a staple of Mitte. Built to accommodate the explosion of new workers during Berlin's fast industrial growth in the late 19th century, these chains of interior spaces were hotbeds of poverty—and socialism. For the 40 years of communist rule they remained dismal. Today they've been reinvented as design studios, offices, galleries, shops, and eateries. One of the more striking of these courtyard complexes is the Hackesche Höfe, opposite the Hackescher Markt elevated-train (S-Bahn) station. A maze of art deco buildings linked by eight courtyards, it houses everything from crafts shops to movie theaters. Spring through fall, special events turn the place into a carnival of outdoor theater and art. A new cabaret venue, Chamäleon Varieté, has also put this complex on Berlin's busy nightlife map; try to stay for the popular midnight show, when other acts sometimes drop by and new talent takes a turn.

In fact, nighttime Mitte pulses with a wild assortment of restaurants and bars running the gamut from star-ceilinged Al Contadino Sotto Le Stelle—a noisy trattoria where you can't go wrong with the thick bean soup and mozzarella appetizer—to Fournier, a minimalist wood-on-wood restaurant tilting heavily toward Pacific Rim specialties (try the green curry or salmon-and-mushroom entrées). I chanced upon a hideaway bar called Don De Lion in the Heckmann Höfe courtyards just off Auguststrasse, drawn by the improbable thump of reggae music. A dimly lit little place, Don pumps out Caribbean and African-American hits while serving beer from Jamaica and the United States. "Many Americans come here looking for German beer, but we don't serve any," laughs owner Thorsten Zirkeir, a German who often travels to Chicago to buy the music for his disc jockey.

Sixty-six years after its troubles began with the collapse of German democracy, a neglected neighborhood has found new life. In fact, the exhilarating mix of contemporary conversation in a historic setting is emblematic of the dual nature of Berlin itself, a new/old city that is reincarnating, once again, into the capital of Germany.

Best For: Adults and students; some of the restaurants and galleries are small and crowded, so not ideal for families.

Basics: For more information visit www.germany-tourism.de.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.