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Run by Robert Goff and Cassie Rosenthal, this gallery in Mitte is an offshoot of New York City’s Goff+Rosenthal. They represent such talent as German-born painter Susanne Kühn and Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, who lives in Berlin. Currently on view: new drawings by New York-based artist Scott Hunt.

An important contemporary-art institution in Berlin is the Hamburger Bahnhof. Built in 1845 as a train station, it is now home to a permanent Joseph Beuys exhibition and the Friedrich Christian Flick collection, which the controversial art patron lent the gallery in 2004. It includes masterworks from Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Dan Graham, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. The museum’s café, overseen by notable chef Sarah Wiener, is one of the city’s insider secrets. Closed Monday.

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A few months before his death in 2004, renowned fashion photographer and Berlin native Helmut Newton donated 1,000 of his images to the Helmut Newton Foundation. It’s now a museum that shows his work, in addition to select temporary exhibits.

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The largest of its kind in Europe, the Jewish Museum Berlin traces Jewish history from the end of the Roman Empire to the present. Daniel Libeskind designed the striking building in the zigzagging shape of a deconstructed Star of David, and it commands at least as much attention as the exhibits. The restaurant is a perfect place for a break.

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Located in a former margarine factory, the Kunst-Werke Berlin features some of the city’s most provocative contemporary exhibitions. Tucked away in a serene courtyard in Mitte, the gallery, which often collaborates with New York’s P.S. 1, also has an attractive café. And don’t miss the slide that starts on the second floor and takes visitors whizzing, feet first, to the gift shop.

The Museumsinsel (Museum Island) is a not-to-be-missed complex of five world-class museums on an island in the Spree River. Conceived by King Friedrich Wilhelm III in the early 1800s and damaged during World War II, the Museumsinsel was designated a World Heritage Site in 1999. It’s currently in midst of a $1.5 billion renovation, which began with the Alte Nationalgalerie, in 2001. The Bode Museum, which has a collection of 1,700 sculptures, as well as an extraordinary collection of Coptic art, is the most recent building to reopen. The Altes and Neues museums are in the process of being refurbished, and the entire project is expected to be completed in 2015 with the restoration of the Pergamon, the jewel of the complex with one-of-a-kind Greek and Babylonian structures, including the Ishtar Gate.

In a landmark glass cube designed by Mies van der Rohe you’ll find the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) and its significant collection of 20th-century European paintings and sculpture, including works by Munch, Picasso, Klee, Dix and Kokoschka.

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Lucio Fontana and Frank Stella are among the artists represented at Sammlung Hoffmann, a private contemporary-art collection displayed on two floors of a former factory. Open Saturday by appointment.