The Frauenkirche, seen from the Altstadt rooftops.
A note before we begin: this guide is ever-evolving. We add to it as we discover new corners of the city, revisit old favourites, and hear from friends whose taste we trust. Consider it a living document rather than a finished list.
Munich is a city that rewards patience. It does not present itself in a single grand gesture — there is no skyline moment, no signature view to be photographed and forgotten. What it offers instead is a slow accumulation of small, well-made things: a bakery that has been doing one croissant the same way for forty years, a bookshop where the owner still writes the staff picks by hand, a tailor whose father trained his father. We have lived and made things here long enough to have favourites. This is the Munich we send friends to.
The premise
What follows is not a list of the city's most famous addresses. The Hofbräuhaus, the Englischer Garten, Marienplatz — these need no further introduction. This is the Munich of the second visit: the streets you walk when you have already done the obvious things and want to find what the locals quietly love. It is shaped by our own routine — a studio in Schwabing, suppliers in the south, partners across the centre — and by the years we have spent looking for the kind of restraint we try to put into our own work.
Mornings
A good Munich morning begins with coffee that is taken seriously, in a room that doesn't try too hard. The city has, in the last decade, developed a quietly excellent specialty coffee scene — but the best places remain small, tucked into side streets, run by people who know their roasters by first name.
Where to walk
Munich is a walking city in a way Berlin is not. Distances are humane; the river is never far; the rhythm of the centre is set by people on foot and on bicycles, not by cars. We send first-time visitors not to Marienplatz but to a small loop that takes in the river, the museum quarter, and one of the city's quietest residential streets.
“Munich rewards the second visit more than the first. The obvious things are good; the unobvious things are better.”
Where to stay
Munich is not a city of large hotels. The best stays are small, owner-run, and built around a particular point of view. Two we know well, because we work with one of them and admire the others from a respectful distance.
Where to shop
Munich's retail scene is, like the city itself, more discerning than loud. The best addresses are not on Maximilianstraße — though that street has its own pleasures — but in the smaller commercial pockets of Schwabing, Glockenbach, and the side streets behind Odeonsplatz. Look for shops where the owner is on the floor, where the edit is small, and where you could happily spend an hour without buying anything.
Lunch & dinner
Munich eats well, but it does so in a particular register: hearty, regional, slightly conservative. The new wave of younger restaurants is changing this — but the best meals in the city remain the ones that lean into Bavarian tradition while quietly modernising it.
When to come
Spring and early autumn are when the city is most itself: the light is generous, the river is warm enough to swim in, the beer gardens are open, and the restaurants are still bookable. December has its own particular pleasure — the Christmas markets are real, not theatrical — but it is cold, and the days are short. We would never recommend Oktoberfest to someone who has not been before; the city becomes a different, louder, less interesting place for two weeks.
A note on the city
Munich is sometimes accused of being conservative, and it is — though we would argue that a certain kind of conservatism is what allows craft to survive. The bakery that has done one thing for forty years, the family hotel that has not been sold to a fund, the workshop where the third generation is now apprenticing: these things require a city that does not constantly rebuild itself. We make Plainly here because the same instinct that produced these institutions seemed worth participating in. We hope, when you visit, that you find some of what we found.
