Berlin Nightlife Tips by antistar

Seven Lounge Cocktail Bar: Seven Lounge Cocktail Bar

"After the long footslog back to the apartment, we quickly ventured out on another mini-odyssey, this time over to Mitte-Berlin, and the Seven Lounge. After many hikes, tram journeys and U-bahn trips, including a brief pause to stare at the fireworks over der Alex, we finally arrived at the 7L cocktail bar. This proved to be as cramped as the entrance to Hanno's apartment, but with plenty more style and character. The four girls who seemed to be running the place were particularly distinctive. First there was the DJ with the goggles reeling off a series of classic lounging tracks from the decks crammed into one side of the confined corridor. Secondly there was the pig-tailed bar maid, frantically serving up complex cocktails for the crowded gangway. Finally, and most strikingly, were the two girls who ran the length of the narrow passage taking orders and delivering drinks. The first was a shaven headed black girl, with taut cheekbones, and the second an Asian girl with huge hair, plucked straight from the 5.6.7.8.'s garage rock band in Kill Bill." - from my travelogue

This is a stylish and very comfortable lounging bar, at least if you can get a seat in the busy and narrow gangway. The place is free to get into, and is open from 8pm until 4am at weekends, and until 2am the rest of the week.

Address: Ackerstr. 20, Berlin-Mitte

Directions: Map

Other Contact: seven-lounge@web.de

Phone: +4930 - 27 59 69 79

Theme: Other

Website: http://www.seven-lounge.net/

Scotch and Sofa: Late night lounging whisky bar.

"If I'd gone home then, I would have got just enough sleep, and would have been sober enough to avoid a hangover of any note. This would have left me perfectly placed for the long action packed day ahead of me. Instead, Hanno's friends were up and active, and we were soon sat down, drinking beer and pretending to read from the tatty-edged German pulp-fiction romance booklets scattered about, with names like "Der Pirat und Die Dame". "One beer", I tried to tell myself, "just one more beer and no more." But soon the complimentary schnapps came out, plus the complimentary free beer and more free beer, and the “boy was I going to have a headache the next day” free beer. Craig and Martin had a glass of burning absinthe each, because they just didn't care." - from my travelogue

It was very late when I got to this bar, and so it wasn't very full, but the staff were extremely friendly. The place had an interesting 50s style to it, and was a very comfortable place to sit down and enjoy a late drink, after a hard night clubbing.

Address: Kollwitzstraße 18, Prenzlauer Berg

Directions: The Senefelder Platz stop on the S-Bahn

Theme: Other

"Roter Salon": The Red Room

"So, less one sleepy Italian, we headed off on the second of our cross-town treks with Hanno. After seemingly endless tram journeys and a quick marathon walk, we arrived at the "Roter Salon" in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The club was advertising itself with posters as some kind of Indie Britpop noise session, which sounded worth the six euros the grumpy door staff were charging. However, once inside, we found that we'd been conned. It was not Indie Britpop at all, but DJ Thomas Bohnet with his Tour de France blaring out never-before-heard-by-non-francophone tunes in unfathomable French. Hanno was despondent. I was enthralled. Craig and Martin couldn't care less as long as they had beer in front of them.

Hanno was upset because the place was relatively empty, and wasn't playing the music he'd brought us to listen to. He was unhappy that we weren't being entertained in proper Berlin fashion. I, on the other hand, was enchanted by the idea of Berliners so eclectic in their musical taste that not only would they come along to a Französicher Musik night, but they would also be such regular patrons of the event that they knew all the words to sing along to. I tried to impress this upon Hanno, but he was too far gone. Nothing was going to change his mood while we were in that club. Craig and Martin were staring, goggle-eyed like the train obsessed boy on the ICE to Berlin, at a young couple as they enthusiastically made passionate virtual love to each other on the bar, behind the bar, on the dance floor, on the sofa, before finally disappearing behind a meter high stall." - from my travelogue

This is a happening little club in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, which seems to have quite an interesting line up of events. The Friday we went it was French night, and the following Saturday was the far more popular Britpop Indie night. You can find out what's on at their website, linked below, although it is invariably Indie, or something very similar.

Address: Volksbuhne, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

Directions: Line 2 of the U-Bahn.

Phone: + 49 (0)30 240 65 806

Theme: Nightclub

Website: http://www.roter-salon.de/