What to eat in Munich

Munich food runs by the clock: Weisswurst is eaten before noon, and lunch in a beer hall is Schweinsbraten — €18.90 at the Hofbräuhaus. The cheapest good meal is not in a beer hall but in a beer garden, where Bavarian regulation lets you bring your own food and pay only for drinks.

The Weisswurst and the noon bell

The white sausage is heated in hot water and never smoked, so before refrigeration it had to be eaten fresh — hence the rule that it must not hear the noon bell. It comes with sweet mustard and a pretzel, and the skin is not eaten: you either slit it lengthwise and lift the meat out, or suck it from one end. At the Hofbräuhaus a pair is €8.20, and the menu lists it with a note: while stocks last.

The beer garden is defined by law

Under a 1999 Bavarian ordinance, what separates a beer garden from an outdoor restaurant is the guest's right to bring food and eat it free of charge. The right applies in the self-service part; on the waited terrace you order. The easiest place to use it is the Viktualienmarkt: cheese, bread and radish from the stalls, then into the beer garden in the middle of the market, where the beer rotates among six Munich breweries every five or six weeks.

2 daysThe Viktualienmarkt and the Chinese Tower in a weekend plan:Munich in 2 days →

What to order, and what it costs

• Schweinsbraten — roast pork with crackling, a dark-beer gravy and a potato dumpling. With a litre of beer, lunch at the Hofbräuhaus comes to €30.50 a head.
• Obatzda — ripe soft cheese worked together with butter, onion and paprika, spread on a pretzel. It was invented to use up old cheese; the Hofbräuhaus makes it with Brie and serves it with onion rings.
• Leberkäse in a bread roll — the Bavarian kind contains neither liver nor cheese: a baked meat loaf, cut into thick slices and eaten in a roll, at the butcher's counter, standing up.
• Kaiserschmarrn — a torn, caramelised pancake under icing sugar; €13.50 at the Hofbräuhaus, with apple purée.

When to goWhen the gardens are open — and when they are not:The best time to visit Munich →