33 spots I actually send people to. The beer gardens, the Wirtshaus classics, the market stalls, the three-star table, the late bars and the lake that is forty minutes away.
Munich is small enough to walk and stubborn enough to reward it. This is the hit-list I hand to friends: the beer garden where you bring your own food, the sausage stand with irregular hours, the gelato worth the queue, the three-star dining room and the country inn half an hour east that justifies the drive. Every entry has a map link. No prices, no opening hours, they change faster than this page.
The queue on the corner of Theresienstraße is the tell: this is the gelato Munich argues about least. Order two scoops and a small taster of a third arrives on top, unasked, which is how most people end up discovering the hazelnut. Two further branches sit in Seidlstraße and in Lehel if the line here has gone round the block.
A Sicilian espresso bar at the gates of the Englischer Garten, beans roasted in Sicily, cornetti gone by mid-morning. Take it standing at the window like the regulars, then walk fifty metres and you are in the park. Three more branches have opened around Schwabing since, all with the same short and serious counter.
The old-school ice cream café on Kurfürstenplatz, where prams, pensioners and students have been sharing the same terrace for decades. Prices have stayed sane and the sundaes still arrive under a roof of wafers. Sit down and order properly, the tables are not there for takeaway cones.
A family bakery in Solln that still bakes its own bread and serves a proper Weißwurst breakfast with warm pretzels and sweet mustard. It sits far south of anything you came to see, which is the point: this is where Munich actually has breakfast. Come before noon, the Weißwurst tradition does not survive the afternoon.
Munich’s daily food market, two minutes from Marienplatz and still the best single hour in the old town. Work the outer stalls for cheese, honey, fish and Bavarian sweets, then take a bench in the beer garden under the maypole. The next two entries are inside it.
A potato stall that grew into one of the market’s best lunches, with a short list of toppings that changes through the week. Order at the hatch, carry your bowl to a bench and accept that you will be sharing it with strangers. Stock runs out, so this is not a late lunch.
A one-window sausage stand at the edge of the market, run by people who will happily walk you through the order in English. Weißwurst with sweet mustard and a pretzel, eaten standing at a high table, is the whole idea. The opening days are irregular, so if the shutter is up, take your chance.
A dark, wood-panelled Wirtshaus in the shadow of the Frauenkirche, pouring Augustiner straight from wooden kegs. Order the grilled Nürnberger sausages with sauerkraut and let the room do the rest: regulars greeting each other across tables, waiters who have worked here for decades. Book if you want a table in the evening.
The address for Schweinshaxe, roasted until the crackling shatters and served with a dumpling the size of a fist. It sits in a historic house two minutes from Marienplatz, which explains the crowd and does not spoil the food. Come hungry, or share one knuckle and keep room for Kaiserschmarrn.
A big vaulted Wirtshaus beside the Residenz that has been feeding the city for generations, white sausages in the morning and a five-sausage plate at any hour. It is busy and unapologetically traditional, and the front rooms are far louder than the back. Ask for a table towards the rear if you want to hear each other.
Bavarian cooking with the dust brushed off: the same pork roast and schnitzel, a lighter hand, a menu that moves with what the region has. The room is traditional without the costume, and it fills with people from the neighbourhood rather than tour groups. A good first Bavarian dinner if beer-hall theatre is not your thing.
A small Schwabing pub with a reputation built almost entirely on schnitzel, including a house version they call the Ludwig. There are not many tables and they know it, so call ahead or turn up early. Portions are built for people who skipped lunch.
A Schwabing corner near Münchner Freiheit run like a neighbourhood living room, where everyone ends up at the same long tables whether they planned to or not. The kitchen does honest local food and the salads are better than they need to be. Come early, the good seats go first.
The beer garden everyone means when they say beer garden: long benches under chestnut trees, a band playing up in the wooden tower, a Maß that arrives cold whatever the queue looked like. Use the self-service side, where you may bring your own food and pay only for the beer. Go for the setting and the ritual, not for the kitchen.
Directly on the shore of the Kleinhesseloher See, with rowing boats crossing in front of you and a self-service terrace right at the water. The full-service restaurant is the expensive half; the counter next door gets you the same view for a fraction. Twenty minutes north through the park from the Chinese Tower.
A Schwabing garden restaurant that treats Bavarian cooking as something to refine rather than repeat, down to veal meatballs stuffed with mountain cheese. In summer the terrace under the trees is the entire argument. Walk the streets around it afterwards, this is one of the prettiest corners of the district.
An osteria that has been making the case for real Italian cooking in Munich since 1983, these days from a quiet street behind the Platzl. The menu changes daily, the wine list runs to hundreds of bottles, and the staff will read the whole thing to you if you let them. Not cheap, and worth it.
A slice of Paris on Hohenzollernstraße: oysters, steak frites and croques under brass lamps, served by staff in proper uniforms. There is no reservation book, so arrive when the doors open or take your chances at the bar. Tables are close enough that you will hear the next conversation whether you want to or not.
The Greek address in Schwabing that locals book rather than discover, full on a Tuesday and generous to a fault. Order mezze for the table, and the Kalypso plate if you skipped lunch. Reserve, or you will be standing on Agnesstraße watching other people eat.
The Chinese kitchen Munich actually queues for, with the best dim sum selection in the centre and a menu long enough to need a strategy. Peking duck takes time, so order it as you sit down or not at all. Go in a group, the whole place is built for sharing.
A small Schwabing trattoria with a short menu and no interest in decoration, doing the plain things properly: lasagne, ravioli, bread that arrives without being asked for. There are barely a dozen tables, so book. Closed at weekends, which tells you exactly who it cooks for.
Jan Hartwig opened here in 2022 and has held three Michelin stars since the year after, which makes this the highest table in the city. The cooking bends French technique back towards German memory: meatloaf, egg in mustard sauce, Handkäs, all rebuilt from the ground up. Book months out and take the long menu.
Two cooks, two people on the floor, one five-course menu that keeps changing, served at a counter where you watch the whole thing happen. It is loud, which is a feature, and what lands on the plate for the money is the best argument in Maxvorstadt. Ask for the counter seats, not the tables.
Two friends, one small dining room in the old town, and a kitchen that never left classical cooking: terrines, cod with chive sauce, everything precisely made. Dinner is a set menu, lunch a shorter and much gentler proposition. The wine list is deeper than the room lets on.
Bogenhausen’s grown-up Italian, with white cloths, a terrace for the summer and a service team that has clearly been doing this for a very long time. This is the restaurant for an evening that is supposed to matter. Closed at the start of the week.
The bistro inside Käfer’s delicatessen, which means you eat surrounded by the most expensive groceries in Bavaria and leave carrying a bag of them. Breakfast and the beef tartare are the reasons to sit down. Go up one floor to the Käfer-Schänke if you want the full theatre instead.
The garden restaurant inside the Bayerischer Hof, glassed in and planted, five minutes from Marienplatz and a world away from it. The set lunch is the sensible way in; in the evening it becomes a proper hotel dining room. People come for the schnitzel and stay for the room.
Charles Schumann has been running this bar for more than forty years and it still sets the standard in the city: drinks made without ceremony and put in front of you fast. The small kitchen matters as much, roast beef and Leberkäs that hold up at midnight. Closed on Saturdays, which is the most Schumann’s thing about it.
A dim, wood-heavy room off Hartmannstraße with a cocktail list that runs for pages and bartenders who will happily go off it. Olives and pretzels arrive unordered, which sets the tone for the evening. Late, unhurried, and easy to walk past twice before you find the door.
Close to four square kilometres of park running from the old town north along the Isar, larger than Central Park and used like a back garden. Watch the surfers on the Eisbach wave beside the Haus der Kunst, then walk north until the traffic noise finally disappears. Sunbathing here is famously unbothered by clothing, so do not be startled.
The baroque summer palace west of the centre, with a park behind it that runs far longer than anyone expects: canals, swans, hidden pavilions, gravel paths and almost no crowd once you are past the first lawn. Palace, carriage museum and porcelain collection come as one combined ticket. Give it half a day, not an hour.
Forty minutes on the S6 and you are at a lake with mountains standing behind it, which is the single best argument for living in Munich. Starnberg is the easy end for boat trips and a first swim; the quiet shores are a few stops further along. Take a towel from May onwards and do not plan the return train too tightly.
Half an hour east of the city in Forstinning, and the reason Munich people get in the car: Bavarian cooking handled with a fine-dining hand, plus a wine list nobody expects this far out. The garden is the summer version, the panelled rooms the winter one. Book, and work out the way home before the first bottle.