Sun-warm, then cosy
Munich on a warm July Saturday has a particular kind of confidence to it — the city knows exactly what it wants to do with a day like this, and it involves being outside for as long as possible before the afternoon clouds have their say. The English Garden will be operating at full capacity by mid-morning, the Eisbachwelle already drawing a crowd, and the beer gardens filling with people who have been waiting all week for exactly this. There's a generosity to Munich in summer that's hard to name — something about the Bavarian willingness to take pleasure seriously, to treat a good afternoon as a civic duty. Tonight, once the rain rolls in, the city pulls inward in the nicest possible way.
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You're looking at a pretty wet day, so definitely bring an umbrella—there's rain scattered throughout, especially from late morning through the evening with some gusty winds picking up. The good news is it'll warm up nicely to the mid-20s°C by afternoon, so if you catch those brief sunny spells between showers, it'll actually feel pleasant enough for a walk. Just dress in layers since it starts chilly and the wind will kick up later in the day, particularly this evening.
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Dallmayr on Dienerstrasse, two minutes from Marienplatz, has been a delicatessen and coffee house since 1700. The ground floor is a cathedral of Bavarian food excess: smoked fish, aged hams, forty varieties of cheese, the freshest white asparagus in season, Bavarian speciality chocolates, and a coffee counter that has been blending its own roasts since before the American republic existed. The upstairs restaurant is Michelin-starred and expensive. The ground floor is for everyone. Buy a bag of their house blend and a piece of something you can't identify. You won't regret either. The ground floor delicatessen stays open into the evening; pick up something for later tonight.
If you're eating in the Altstadt tonight, Augustiner Stammhaus on Neuhauser Strasse is where you should be — not the Hofbräuhaus, which is a spectacle, but this, which is a meal. The flagship beer hall of Munich's oldest brewery (founded 1328), it still serves Augustiner Edelstoff straight from wooden barrels, which gives it a softer, rounder flavour than the same beer from steel tanks. Order the Schweinshaxe if it's your first time; order the Tafelspitz (boiled beef with horseradish) if it's your third. In July the back courtyard opens up — quieter than the main hall, a little cooler, and you can hear yourself think. Reservations recommended for the evening but the bar seats are always walk-in. The evening rain has cleared; settle in for a proper meal as the city quiets.
If you eat in one beer hall in Munich, make it the Augustiner Stammhaus on Neuhauser Strasse — not the Hofbräuhaus, which is fine as spectacle and mediocre as food. Augustiner is the oldest independent brewery in Munich, and the Stammhaus is the real thing: dark wood, long tables, regulars who've been sitting in the same seats since the 1980s. Order the Schweinshaxe (roast pork knuckle, crackling like a drum), the Kartoffelknödel alongside it, and a Mass of Augustiner Helles, which many serious beer people consider the finest lager in Bavaria. The pork knuckle is ordered by the half-kilo. The Stammhaus serves late into the evening—order the Schweinshaxe and settle in for the night.
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