Cafe Wintergarten im Literaturhaus

Just a few steps down an elegant side street off Berlin's famed Kurfürstendamm is the Literaturhaus, a literary salon that hosts readings and exhibits housed in a turn-of-the-century villa. There's a bookshop at the ground level, while the top floor of the villa houses an atmospheric cafe that is especially lovely at breakfast time. The breakfast offerings range from smoked salmon on rye with a glass of champagne, to two poached eggs with a roll; and from quinoa and amaranth müsli to waffles with fresh berry compote and cream. Walk off your breakfast with a stroll through the garden or peek into the Villa Grisebach, Berlin's famed auction house, next door.
• Fasanenstrasse 23, Wilmersdorf, +49 30 882 5414, literaturhaus-berlin.de. Mon-Sun 9.30am-1am (breakfast served until 2pm)

Brot & Butter

Watch a white-hatted baker pulling crusty loaves of bread out of an oven before you move on to ogle the array of artisanal cured meats, local cheeses and fresh breads and pastries . Stay for a breakfast of crusty slices of freshly baked sourdough rye, spread with creamy quark and flavoured with chives or raw milk butter and pink curls of cured ham. In summer, they might even make you a fresh buttermilk-strawberry milkshake to wash it down, if you ask nicely.
• Hardenbergstrasse 4-5, Charlottenburg, +49 30 2630 0346, brot-und-butter.de. Mon-Fri 8am-8pm, Sat 8am-6pm

Café Aroma

Nestled into the Rote Insel part of Schöneberg, Café Aroma is run by what seems to be an assortment of Italian friends, both in the kitchen and out front. The restaurant specialises in rustic Italian food that is simple and pleasing and functions as a gallery for photography shows. On the weekend, the restaurant opens at 11am and boasts a groaning board of tiny meatballs in tomato sauce, lovely roast potatoes, poached salmon and roasted peppers, stuffed mushrooms and cauliflower in homemade bechamel, wedges of frittata, breadcrumb-stuffed calamari and many other delectable Italian dishes. A post-prandial stroll past the nearby cemetery where the Brothers Grimm are buried is recommended.
• Hochkirchstrasse 8, Schöneberg, +49 30 782 5821, cafe-aroma.de. Mon-Fri 6pm-1am, Sat 2pm-2am, Sun 11am-1am

Barcomi's

This deli and coffee bar owned and operated by Seattleite Cynthia Barcomi is in a beautiful courtyard in Mitte and does a roaring business in American-style coffee and baked goods. Head here for bagels with lox, granola and some of the city's best cheesecake (if you're the decadent breakfasting type), as well as several different kinds of coffee, roasted in-house, or a long list of herbal teas. Then move on out to survey the neighbourhood's myriad art galleries.
• Sophie-Gips-Höfe, 2nd courtyard, Sophienstrasse 21, Mitte, +49 30 2859 8363, barcomis.de. Mon-Sat 9am-9pm, Sunday and public holidays 10am-9pm

Restaurant Weinrot

If you're feeling flush, have a very good reason to celebrate, or need to conduct business over breakfast, head to the Savoy Hotel and its wine-red dining room with gleaming parquet floors for what may be Berlin's swishest breakfast buffet. At €19 a person, it's among the most expensive, too, but the breadth and quality of the offerings make it worth the expense. The proof is in the details: perfectly wobbly soft-boiled eggs, tender poached salmon, seasonal fruit, good bread, imported teas and very good service.
• Fasanenstrasse 9, Charlottenburg, +49 30 311030, weinrot-restaurant.com. Breakfast is served seven days a week from 6.30am-11am, and until noon on Sundays

Alpenstück

It's no secret that southern Germany's food is considered by many to be the best in the country. Luckily for Berliners, Alpenstück, a restaurant specialising in regional cooking from the south (and Austria), has opened a bakery and cafe selling homemade breads and pastries to go, as well as breakfast fare served on traditional wooden boards. The cafe is tucked into a quiet side street around the corner from noisy Torstrasse and the serene greys and wood tones of the restaurant help soothe a big city dweller's ruffled nerves. Don't miss the Mutschel, a sweet yeasted roll studded with pearl sugar, or the freshly baked pretzels.
• Gartenstrasse 9, Mitte, +49 30 2175 1646, alpenstueck.de. Mon-Fri 7am-7pm, Sat-Sun 9am-6pm

Manstein

The breakfast menu at Manstein is admittedly small (though the German standard, two poached eggs in a glass with toast, is represented, as is a platter filled with assorted cheeses and meats for layering on buttered bread), but having breakfast at Manstein is more about the location than the food. Situated on a sunny street corner in a residential area to the west of the city, Manstein is across the street from Charlottenburg's Lietzensee park. In warm weather (and even in not-so-warm weather, as evidenced by the blankets hung on the back each chair) the cafe's outdoor tables fill with neighbourhood folk who come to drink milky coffee, chat and squint into the sun before heading off for a stroll around the lake.
• Witzlebenstrasse 32, Charlottenburg, +49 30 3011 2521, no website. Sun-Fri 10am-midnight, Sat 10am-7pm

Cafe Rix

Berlin's layers of history and culture brush up against each other in this hidden gem on the gritty streets of Neukölln. A former 19th century ballroom, it was carefully restored in the 1980s and now functions as a bustling cafe, gallery and restaurant. Tables spill out into the leafy, serene courtyard where diners can sit under a large chestnut tree in good weather, ordering from the breakfast menu until 5pm in the afternoon. Reservations are a must for the weekend brunch, which costs €8 per person and includes a glass of orange juice.
• Karl-Marx-Strasse 141, Neukölln, +49 30 686 9020, caferix.de. Mon-Thurs 9am-midnight, Fri-Sat 9am-1am, Sun 10am-midnight

Eiffel

This spacious restaurant lies at the sleepy end of the Kurfürstendamm, far away from boutiques, department stores and crowds on the other end, but is popular with the well-heeled denizens of the neighbourhood. Young families and neatly polished mothers and daughters populate the tables, sipping their breakfast drinks and eating what may be the best egg dishes in Berlin. Superior eggs Benedict and fantastically sweet and creamy scrambled eggs with cherry tomatoes and chives are among the standouts.
• Kurfürstendamm 105, Charlottenburg, +49 30 891 1305, eiffel-berlin.de. Mon-Thurs 9am-midnight, Fri-Sat 9am-1am, Sunday 10am-midnight

Cafe Morgenland

The weekend brunch is legendary at this Kreuzberg institution and features a rotating selection of middle eastern and Turkish salads, dips, meatballs and stuffed vegetables alongside more prosaic offerings such as eggs and crepes. As with most Berlin cafes, weekend brunches are a rather languid affair: you won't be rushed out (though reservations are a must at the weekend) The cafe's central Kreuzberg setting makes post-eating strolls a piece of cake – head down to the river, strolling through the streets of the surrounding Wrangelkiez on your way.
• Skalitzer Strasse 35, Kreuzberg, +49 30 611 3291, morgenland-berlin.de. Mon-Fri 9am-1am, Sat-Sun 10am-open end (weekend brunch served 10am-4pm)

• Luisa Weiss is a former cookbook editor; she blogs at The Wednesday Chef