What to eat in Munich
Munich food without the tourist traps: white sausages before noon, pork knuckle, pretzels, beer by style, and how a beer garden actually works.

[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] Try Apfelstrudel
    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.
[ ] Try a Dampfnudel
    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.
[ ] Drink a Radler
    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.
[ ] Drink a Maß of Helles
    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.
[ ] Try a Weissbier
    Wheat beer with notes of banana and clove, poured into a tall curved glass. This, not Helles, is what goes with the morning Weisswurst.

Checklist from Unload: https://unloads.me/c/food-munich