YOUR LIFE IN BERLIN.
MINUS THE BULLSHIT.

Schöneberg

Schöneberg is the historic foundation.

Schöneberg is the historic foundation. Whoever moves here has largely traded the need for nights in dark basements for a reliable bakery and a property manager who answers. The area around Nollendorfplatz breathes history, even if today it often hides behind the façade of an organic supermarket where the legendary Eldorado once stood. It is refined, intergenerational and pleasantly unexcited. A Sunday here means coffee on Motzstraße followed by a long walk across Viktoria-Luise-Platz.

Surprisingly good

How utterly normal everyday gay life is here.

Overrated

Expecting to still find revolutionary subculture here.

Kreuzberg

Chronically exhausted, stubbornly relevant.

Kreuzberg is chronically exhausted but stubbornly refuses to become irrelevant. Between Mehringdamm and Kottbusser Tor the district swings between brutal tourism and a tenacious local scene. You still find excellent queer bars here, holding out in tiny rooms against soaring commercial rents. It is loud, dirty and often architecturally unforgiving, but it works on a deeply practical level. When friends visit from out of town, Oranienstraße is still a must.

What grates

The eternal nostalgia for the 90s.

What stays

A density of places to eat and drink that has no equal in Berlin.

Neukölln

The epicentre of queer club culture, until the rents arrived.

For the past decade Neukölln was the undisputed epicentre of queer club culture, until property prices hit hard. The painful loss of SchwuZ, which had to leave Rollbergstraße after its insolvency, left a huge gap. Still, the district keeps pulsing, carried by a very international, English-speaking crowd that now organises in smaller collectives. A place to live for people who tolerate noise and accept the Späti as their primary food source. Schillerkiez on a Sunday is one long exercise in seeing and being seen.

Surprisingly good

The density of excellent little natural wine bars that survived the death of the classic corner pub.

Friedrichshain

Berghain casts a long shadow.

Berghain casts a long shadow, and Friedrichshain has settled very comfortably into it. The district lives off the streams of weekend tourists in black outfits making the pilgrimage across the Warschauer Brücke. Away from the party strip around the RAW site, though, the area around Boxhagener Platz has become surprisingly bourgeois. People who live here value being close to the nightlife, and use it about once every three months.

Overrated

The Sunday flea market at Boxi: too crowded, too expensive, too geared to tourists.

Good to know

The quiet corners of the northern part around Forckenbeckplatz offer a surprisingly high quality of life.

Prenzlauer Berg

Comfortably settled into defeat.

The district lost the fight against gentrification twenty years ago and has made itself very comfortable in defeat ever since. Queer life here happens less on the street and more behind closed, well-organised doors. Historic anchors like the Sonntags-Club on Greifenhagener Straße remind you that East Berlin once had a defiant scene of its own. Today the oat-milk aesthetic rules. People who move here want peace and quiet, renovated old buildings and infrastructure that works.

Surprisingly good

Professional hospitality. If you want a relaxed meal without being ignored by the staff, this is the place.

Mitte

Historic centre, hardly any everyday queer life.

Mitte is a paradox. It is the historic centre, yet it has become largely irrelevant to everyday queer life. Rents have successfully pushed anything subcultural to the edges, leaving flagship stores, galleries and crowds of tourists around Rosenthaler Platz. Whoever lives in Mitte probably works in tech and values being close to upmarket gyms. A walk across Museum Island or along Auguststraße is architecturally brilliant, but you will look in vain for a queer neighbourhood feeling.

Tiergarten

Green lung with a diplomatic fringe.

Tiergarten is less a residential district than a vast green lung with a diplomatic fringe. Historically significant for its memorials and the steadfast Schwules Museum on Lützowstraße, after dark the area is known mainly for two things: total silence and the sprawling cruising areas in the park. Living on the edge of the Tiergarten means paying for discretion and long-established neighbours. Kumpelnest 3000, on the border with Schöneberg, provides the necessary, wonderfully trashy contrast to the neighbourhood's otherwise serious air.

Charlottenburg

The West is back.

The West is back, partly because the East has become too exhausting. Charlottenburg increasingly attracts people who no longer romanticise Berlin's rough edge and simply value tidy pavements, good restaurants around Savignyplatz and excellent transport links. The queer scene here is discreet, older and very established. A weekend starts with a visit to the Paris Bar or an excellent Asian dinner on Kantstraße.

Overrated

The Ku'damm on a Saturday lunchtime.

Wedding

Rough, industrial and more honest than the rest of the Ring.

Wedding stubbornly clings to its reputation of not being fully gentrified yet. It is rough, industrial and more honest than the rest of the districts along the Ringbahn. Rents are (still) a bit more bearable, which has led to a slow but steady migration of queer artists and collectives to the north of Berlin. If you live in Wedding, you spend Sundays at the Plötzensee lake or in the quiet, sprawling parks. There is little dedicated gay infrastructure, but plenty of room for your own initiatives and easy-going neighbours.

Moabit

The island: extremely central, consistently overlooked.

The island. Surrounded by waterways, Moabit is extremely central and yet consistently overlooked. The Arminiusmarkthalle is a culinary highlight, and the old buildings around the Stephankiez are architectural masterpieces. The queer presence is quiet here, but the neighbourhood fabric works surprisingly well. Living here feels like escaping the Berlin hype while being ten minutes by bike from the main station. A neighbourhood for pragmatists.