KaDeWe

The Kaufhaus des Westens — Department Store of the West — opened on Berlin's Tauentzienstraße in 1907 and became continental Europe's largest department store, its name compressed by Berliners into KaDeWe. The building carries the century visibly: bombed in the war when an aircraft crashed into it, rebuilt as a symbol of West Berlin's resilience, its food floors a Cold War demonstration of Western abundance. The sixth-floor Feinschmeckeretage remains the store's glory — one of the world's great gourmet halls, with counters for oysters, wurst, chocolate, and cheese where Berliners actually eat lunch — crowned by the glass-roofed winter garden restaurant above. The fashion floors below cover luxury through mainstream comprehensively. Go for the sixth floor above all: eat at a counter among the shoppers, then descend. Few stores carry a city's political history in their sales floors this legibly.

Come hungry and lunch standing at the sixth-floor counters as Berliners do; the winter garden above is the sit-down reward when time allows.