Stuttgart is Germany’s greatest wine city. The Bavarian capital of Munich, by contrast, is the home of beer, white sausages (Weisswurst) and pretzels. It’s also where nouvelle cuisine landed when it left France. Munich used to be known for the quantity, rather than the quality, of its food. But roughly a quarter-of-a-century ago, that reputation began to change when the Guide Michelin bestowed three stars on the restaurant Aubergine (since closed).

Munich Gourmet Restaurants 

Aubergine got its third star in 1979, when it was barely a year old. Its chef-owner, the Austrian Eckart Witzigmann, had cooked at Tantris, which opened in 1971, and earned two stars there. Tantris (Johann-Fichte-Strasse 7. T. +49 89 361 9590) still has two stars, and probably Munich’s greatest restaurant in a city hardly lacking high-class places, such as the Garden-Restaurant in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Königshof and especially the Ederer, in Kardinal-Faulhaberstrasse 10 (T. +49 89/24231310.www.restaurant-ederer.de. Three-course meal approx. €62). Also of note is the “G”, at Geyerstraße 52, serving funky German food, and the one-star Südtiroler Stuben, or South Tyrolean Rooms (Platzl 6-8 80331), where TV cook Alfons Schubeck cooks an haute cuisine version of traditional Bavarian fare such as Fleischpflanzerl (meatballs), Bauernente (farm duck) and Rehpflanzerl (venison). Many of the city’s best bars and cafes are around the Schwabing area. Try the arty but unpronounceable Tresznjewski (Theresienstraße 72, T. +49 89 282 349), jam-packed after midnight, or cocktail bars such as Schumann’s (Odeonsplatz 6-7). In the trendy Gärtnerplatz quarter, there’s also the Ksar Club (31 Müllerstraße), Holy Home (21 Reichenbachstraße) and Lizard Lounge (1 Corneliusstraße).

Throughout Bavaria, impressively hearty meals are served in beer gardens, brewery houses and country pubs.

Non-Bavarians are confronted by unfamiliar dishes like Wammerl mit Kren (belly pork with horseradish), Obatzta (seasoned cream cheese) or Leberkäs (literally, liver-cheese, but actually a meatloaf, the colour of Spam, containing no cheese and rarely liver). But every German understands the culinary importance of the sausage, whether it’s the Nürnberger Rostbratwürstchen) or the white sausage (Weißwurst). With a dollop of sweet mustard and a pretzel, this is a meal regularly eaten by locals as a second breakfast, washed down with a Helles or Weißbier (a light or white beer). “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!”, as they say. Happy days.