Adding a twist to your Berlin experience: A hotel where Édith Piaf meets Oscar Wilde - review

Alex Urseanu enters the bar at the Provocateur boutique hotel in Berlin, and his arrival is electrifying. He is attired in a casual expensive white T-shirt, golden chain and watch, and a sweater around his shoulders and neck together with white branded sneakers. Numerous hotel employees gather around him. A waiter follows carrying a tray loaded with Grey Goose Vodka in small glasses. The entire group toast together loudly in German and consume the liquid in one quick shot. This is a traditional ceremony to welcome the hotel co-owner, who just arrived from Frankfurt for a weekend in Berlin.

The 53-year-old hotelier is quite a character. Urseanu was born in Bucharest. During his childhood, his mother moved with him to Israel, but he left for Germany later for the hospitality industry. He returned to Tel Aviv in the 1990s, where he worked at the Sheraton, but Germany called him to return again for the fashion industry. 

Love and passion for hotels, together with his business partner Micky Rosen, were apparently stronger. A hotel in Berlin, among others in different cities, was a lifetime dream. This vodka welcome was my first experience in the premises of what surely can be called one of the most provocative, unconventional and teasing hotels in the capital of Germany, which is not far from the posh Kurfürstendamm Street in the city’s west side.

THE HOTEL’S 1920s satirical theme is jaw dropping. A glamorous festively lit cover and door mark the entrance. The reception team at the miniature dark counter welcomes guests with a big smile, dressed in unconventional Hipster style with a sartorial rebellion look, showing off tattoos and bejeweled teeth.

The building’s original 1911 gold-clad elevator transported us upstairs. The alternative is the old style narrow staircase with red carpets, spread all the way up to the roof top floor. You might slow down, but not necessarily because of the steep stairs. Hung on the walls, large, intriguing photographs of the LGBTQ community might delay your climb. A total contradiction to the post-World War I atmosphere.

The Provocateur presents 58 rooms loaded with extravagant chandeliers and rich, illustrious red velvet walls. Once we entered our room on the 5th floor, we encountered an old-style bathtub with no walls around it, before witnessing the oyster-shaped king-size bed, a true symbol of Paris and France. To be honest, sleeping in it was a comfortable experience, also thanks to the heavy thick burgundy color curtains. 

When we woke up, we were astonished to see ourselves in the vintage mirror hooked to the ceiling above. The old style bathroom (no bidet by the way) was totally new and pampering, including the high-class aristocratic towels distributed generously.

Creating something different 

“My dream was to create an imaginary hotel where Édith Piaf meets flamboyant Oscar Wilde,” Urseanu tells me enthusiastically in fluent Hebrew. “During the design stages, I couldn’t help fantasizing about a free spirit hotel, where Piaf sings in French and Wilde reads Irish poems and drama texts,” he reveals. “We didn’t want to copy a standard hotel chain and its advertising strategies. We created something different here – a platform for our guests to create their own stories while discovering the Provocateur.”

THE OWNERS licensed Netherlands-based Israeli designer Saar Zafrir to create the hotel’s opulent interiors a decade ago. His work won the German Design Awards for Excellent Communications Design & Interior Architecture six years ago. “I had envisioned something totally different at first,” admits Zafrir, who travels constantly between Tel Aviv and Amsterdam. 

“Within the Berlin spirit, I wanted to design a hotel with a floor for men and a floor for women, but both Alex and Micky objected as it didn’t have a practical business future. Instead, I created a hotel design based on the renowned Parisian Costes Hotel, characterized by a sleek Napoléon III décor. I favored red and blue velvet-style rooms that feature video art projections in each one of them,” he said. 

“But the bar is for sure the highlight of the Provocateur,” the hotel designer says. Indeed the acclaimed U-shaped bar and the lounging in the red velvet booths are the climax here, especially on weekends, when DJs spin and the celebrations go on until the wee hours.

If Urseanu sounds like a dreamer, rest assured he knows the business of hospitality. The Provocateur is being offered to customers as part of Marriott Design Hotels™ properties, characterized by thought-provoking sheek. This also means a representation on the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program of 30 brands with over 196 million members.

Prior to planning your future stay in Berlin's Provocateur, a tip with a dilemma. Numerous challenges arise, as it is somewhat a time traveling back 100 years. The best rooms are offered on the rooftop 5th floor, but the elevator only reaches the 4th floor and the narrow wooden staircase is the only option. If you arrive with heavy luggage, this might be tricky as the hotel does not necessarily offer a porter service at all times.

All in all, this hotel is unique and definitely different. If you are a traveler with an open mind towards avant-garde hospitality with innovative approaches, and pushing boundaries of ideas and creativity, you are in for an adventure.

It will surely add a twist to your Berlin experience, a must travel city that blazes with color and invention.

The writer is the Travel Flash Tips publisher and was a guest of Provocateur Hotel.