Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
-
Eat Weisswurst before noon
Veal and parsley sausages that are poached, never grilled, and served in their hot water with sweet mustard and a pretzel. The skin is not eaten: either slit it and lift the meat out, or suck the sausage straight from the casing.
The old rule says a Weisswurst must never hear the noon bell: they were made fresh each morning without preservatives and eaten before lunch. Many Gasthäuser still take them off the menu at twelve.
-
Order Schweinshaxe pork knuckle
A pork shank roasted until the crackling is glassy, served with a potato dumpling and braised cabbage. One portion is built for a very hungry person, and splitting it between two is entirely normal.
Look for places with a rotisserie or wood oven: a knuckle from a combi steamer can come out soft, and the entire point is crackling that cracks under the knife.
-
Try Schweinsbraten with a dumpling
The Sunday roast: pork shoulder with a dark caraway gravy glazed with beer. It comes with a dumpling, either potato or made from stale rolls, which exists mainly to mop up the sauce.
Do not cut a dumpling with a knife; break it with a fork or it goes dense. The crisp top layer of skin is called Kruspelspitz, and it is fine to ask for it specifically.
-
Try Obatzda cheese spread
Overripe camembert mashed with butter, spring onion, paprika and a splash of beer — a spread invented to rescue cheese that had gone too far. It is eaten with a pretzel and radish in the beer garden.
Good Obatzda is orange with paprika and slightly lumpy, not a smooth tub paste. In a bring-your-own beer garden you can carry it in yourself and buy only the beer.
-
Get a fresh Brezn pretzel
A lye pretzel with a thick salted belly and thin, blistered arms. It is only good for about three hours, so buy the morning batch at a bakery or take one from the basket seller in the beer garden.
Break it by hand and spread it with butter and it becomes a Butterbrezn, a menu item of its own. Munich bakeries also sell a small Brezerl made for drinking.
-
Eat a Leberkäse roll
A dense meatloaf sliced hot into a bread roll and smeared with sweet mustard. This is the Munich snack on the move, sold in butchers' shops and at the station from morning to night.
Despite the name there is neither liver nor cheese in it. Ask for a Leberkässemmel: the slice should be warm with a browned crust along the edge.
-
Try Käsespätzle
Soft egg noodles layered with mountain cheese and buried under fried onions. This is the region's main vegetarian dish and the best thing to eat after a long day in the mountains.
A green salad with vinegar dressing almost always comes alongside, and it is there to cut the richness. The portion is heavy, so one between two works as a main.
-
Have Leberknödelsuppe
A clear beef broth with one large liver dumpling and a generous scatter of chives. It is the classic starter before a roast, and a whole lunch in winter.
If liver puts you off, order Pfannkuchensuppe: the same broth with sliced pancake ribbons. Both appear on almost any Gasthaus menu.
-
Try Steckerlfisch grilled fish
A whole mackerel or whitefish on a stick, rubbed with herb butter and grilled over coals until the skin blackens. It is festival food: look for it at Oktoberfest, in beer gardens along the Isar and at spring fairs.
You eat it with your hands straight off the stick, pulling flesh from the backbone. It is deliberately salty: this is food built around a litre of beer, not a standalone meal.
-
Order a Radi radish
A giant white radish cut in a spiral and salted until it weeps. A beer garden snack with an honest business model: the saltier the radish, the sooner you order the next mug.
The spiral is cut in front of you with a special Radi cutter. Salt comes separately on the table, and adding more is entirely expected.
-
Try Wurstsalat
Boiled sausage cut into strips with onion, pickles and an oil-and-vinegar dressing. A light summer lunch, ordered in beer gardens instead of a hot dish.
The Swiss version, Schweizer Wurstsalat, adds grated cheese; the Bavarian one does not. A pretzel or dark bread always comes with it.
-
Eat a grilled Hendl chicken
Half a chicken with salt and parsley butter, turning on a spit in a glass booth. Oktoberfest and beer garden food alike: order a half and eat it with your hands.
In a beer garden you collect it at the self-service counter and carry it to the table on a cardboard plate. Napkins are scarce, so bring your own.
-
Try Apfelstrudel Desserts and pastries
Hand-stretched pastry with apples, raisins and cinnamon, served warm with vanilla sauce or whipped cream. In a good Konditorei the dough is pulled by hand until you can read through it.
Ask for it mit Vanillesauce if you want it warm: served with cream it often arrives cold. Order coffee with it, not beer.
-
Try a Dampfnudel Desserts and pastries
A yeast bun steamed in milk and butter so that a caramel crust forms underneath. It arrives hot in a pool of vanilla sauce and is a dessert the size of a lunch.
Its cousin is the Rohrnudel, filled with plum jam. Both are seasonal and show up on menus mostly in autumn and winter.
-
Drink a Radler Non-alcoholic drinks
Beer cut half-and-half with lemonade, invented for cyclists who did not want to weave home. In summer it is the beer garden's second most ordered drink.
The alcohol-free version, Alkoholfreies Radler, is available almost everywhere. Made with wheat beer it becomes a Russ, softer and less sweet.
-
Drink a Maß of Helles Local alcohol
Munich's everyday pale lager: soft, malty, with little bitterness, and drunk by the litre. Beer gardens pour it into a Maß; indoors a half-litre is more common.
In a beer garden you carry your own beer from the counter and return the empty mug for your deposit token. Six historic breweries serve the city, each with its own Helles, and comparing them is the local sport.
-
Try a Weissbier Local alcohol
Wheat beer with notes of banana and clove, poured into a tall curved glass. This, not Helles, is what goes with the morning Weisswurst.
It comes as Hefeweizen, cloudy with yeast, or filtered Kristallweizen. The sediment left in the bottle is meant to be swirled and topped up into the glass.
