KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, "department store of the West") is Berlin's best-known department store, on Tauentzienstraße at the end of the Kurfürstendamm. Opened in 1907, it spreads luxury fashion, accessories, beauty, homeware and, on the 6th floor, a delicatessen with more than 30 restaurants, bars and food counters over more than 60,000 m² and eight levels. Entry is free: many visitors come mainly for the food floor and the glass-roofed restaurant on the top floor. Travellers who live outside the European Union can claim back the VAT on their purchases.
Highlights
The building and its history
The merchant Adolf Jandorf opened the store on 27 March 1907, in a building designed by the architect Emil Schaudt. Taken over in 1927 by the Hermann Tietz group, whose Jewish owners were dispossessed by the Nazi regime in 1933, KaDeWe largely burned down in 1943, when an aircraft shot down during a bombing raid crashed onto the building. It reopened on 3 July 1950, at first on two levels. After its operating company became insolvent in 2024, the Thai group Central Group became sole owner of both the building and the store.
The Sixth, the food floor
The 6th floor, the Feinschmecker-Etage that the store calls "die Sechste", is lined with counters of fish and seafood, lobster, caviar, cheese, exotic fruit and in-house pastries. You can eat on the spot at the counters: an oyster bar, French, Vietnamese or Thai cooking, currywurst, and the Berlin pralines of Sawade, made since 1880. A dedicated lift serves the restaurants and bars after the store closes.
Wine, tea and coffee
According to the store, the wine department of the Sixth has the largest selection of wines and sparkling wines in Berlin, from German estates sorted by region to French grands crus, with a wine bar and a champagne bar. The tea, coffee and confectionery departments round off the offer; the gift basket service puts together hampers on the spot.
The Wintergarten
On the 7th floor, under a large arched glass roof, the Wintergarten restaurant works as a food market with seven stations: seafood, steaks and burgers, Berlin specialities, home-made cakes. Here you sit down to eat, unlike at the counters on the floor below. It is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 8pm.
Fashion, beauty and home
The lower floors bring together international luxury brands, leather goods, watches and jewellery, then fashion, beauty (with treatment rooms on the 3rd floor) and homeware. Since the redesign by Rem Koolhaas's firm OMA, completed in 2022, the store is organised in four sections around light wells.
Tax-free shopping
If you live outside the European Union and take your purchases out of the EU, Global Blue, on the 5th floor, refunds the VAT minus a service fee. Ask for the Global Blue Tax Free form at the till. German customs only stamp the form for purchases over 50 € per receipt, and the goods must leave the EU within three months of purchase.
Services
At customer service on the 5th floor: free cloakroom and luggage storage, free gift-wrapping of purchases, information on Berlin restaurants and hotels, wheelchair loan. There is a cash machine on the 3rd floor. Paid guided tours of the store, for up to 10 people, are offered Monday to Friday on request at customer service.
Opening hours and prices
Free entry. The store is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 8pm, closed on Sundays and public holidays (including Saturday 3 October 2026 and 25 and 26 December 2026). Special opening on Sunday 4 October 2026 from 1pm to 8pm. Some bars and restaurants on the Sixth stay open later: Casa Beef until midnight, the wine bar and the champagne bar until 10pm Monday to Thursday and 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Hours checked in October 2026.
Infos pratiques
Tips
Keep your passport with you if you plan to claim the tax refund, and have the form stamped by customs before checking in your luggage when leaving the EU. Sunday openings are rare and can be cancelled at short notice: check the store's website before you go. The store's car park on Passauer Straße is closed for rebuilding; come by U-Bahn. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Kurfürstendamm are less than 10 minutes' walk away.
How to get there
Tauentzienstraße 21-24, 10789 Berlin (Schöneberg district). U-Bahn U1, U2 and U3, Wittenbergplatz station, opposite the store. Buses M19, M29 and M46, stop U Wittenbergplatz. From the central station (Hauptbahnhof), take the S-Bahn to Zoologischer Garten, then the U2 or bus M46; Zoologischer Garten station is also about 10 minutes' walk away.
Opening hours
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