If you like your hotels to be oozing with glamorous history, there’s really only one place to stay in Berlin, and that’s the newly-reinvented Hotel Zoo. The building on Kurfürstendamm started life as a private home in 1891, before being converted into a hotel in 1911. In the 1950s it became the official hotel of the Berlin International Film Festival, welcoming the stars of the day in that capacity until the 1970s, and now the hotel is ready to perform its next starring role after a major reworking from American designer Dayna Lee.
The Hotel Zoo lobby makes a fittingly grand entrance. Highlights include a bespoke jade green carpet decorated with crouching leopards designed by Diane Von Fürstenberg to resemble a catwalk which leads to reception, running beneath a giant pair of two-tonne lilies on the ceiling. Elsewhere the venue’s public areas benefit from the work of Tom Dixon (wingchairs) and Baxter (club chairs) among others, and the stylish Grace Bar channels the hotel’s history in offering cocktails fashionable throughout the venue’s heyday from the Roaring Twenties onwards. Within the 145 guest rooms – including two luxurious sixth-floor penthouse suites – you’ll find towels and nightwear from Maison Martin Margiela, and bathroom supplies from Berlin artisan Tanja Bochnig of April Aromatics in collaboration with Uslu Airlines.
