Leave it up to the debauchery of Berlin’s nightlife scene to name a venue after a character from Goethe’s Faust who commits matricide, fratricide as well as infanticide in order to justify an illegitimate love. Set up by the same forces behind Icon, the club Gretchen intends to offer a music venue that’s larger than the dark dungeon of its Prenzlauer Berg cousin.
Located in the 19th century stables of Queen Victoria’s Prussian 1st Guards Dragoon Regiment, Gretchen features a high cross-vaulted ceiling in its cavernous main room that has acoustics to match. Though it caters to a scene that is decidedly prim and hip, things easily get wild and raucous once Djs and live acts start thumping their sounds through the system. Just as Faust’s once supposedly incorruptible Gretchen found her way astray, don’t be surprised if you’re led here to wildly riotous nights here.