Claudia Wassenegger thinks back and forth for a long time when you ask her what word she would use to describe her restaurant on Munich’s Türkenstrasse. “Café Zeitgeist” is written on the facade and in the menu. “But it’s not a classic café,” says Wassenegger. The restaurant is open from morning until late at night, serving breakfast, cakes, burgers, pasta and cocktails. “It’s not a bar either,” Wassenegger continues to think aloud. The place is listed in Google as “Bar & Grillrestaurant”, but that doesn’t really apply either. “It’s not a real restaurant,” says Wassenegger, still searching for the right term by exclusion.
There are not many options left, the restaurateur finally gives up. “There is no name for this type of restaurant,” she says. “I always call this place my mutant.” So what.
Mutant, that hits it in several ways. Not only because the café once started as a fashion store, as Wassenegger says. When the clothing business no longer ran, the owner, who comes from a restaurant and hotelier family, converted the shop: it has been known as Café Zeitgeist for more than ten years.
Sophia Wassenegger, daughter of the owner, is also busy with the zeitgeist.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf / Stephan Rumpf)
Looking at the menu, you feel reminded of a mutant: In addition to South American, Indonesian or American influences, there are also Bavarian classics such as white sausage. In the café you get that jungle feeling: chairs are made of bamboo, tables are made of wood and hanging plants grow under the ceiling (unfortunately only made of plastic).
The concept is also inspired a little by Scandinavian influences, says Wassenegger. Everything comes together here. As in trendy cafés in Copenhagen, you can indulge in the zeitgeist according to your own taste and hunger breakfast board with three, five or seven items put together, a kind of mutant breakfast. In addition to the classic bread basket with butter and jam, you can choose from, for example, croissants, scrambled eggs with cress, avocado with nuts, brie with cranberries, salmon with cream horseradish, serrano ham with melon or mascarpone cream with blueberry compote (make sure to plan as a breakfast dessert).
The image of mutants suffered greatly during the Corona crisis because the malicious virus repeatedly takes on new, even more contagious forms through mutations, most recently as an omicron variant. As a guest in a café, however, it can only be right if the furnishings and menu do not stop at a certain point in time, but instead continue to evolve under new influences. That is the essence of the zeitgeist.
The breakfast selection is plentiful.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf / Stephan Rumpf)
What is there and what does it cost?
The varied breakfast selection ranges from the hip açai bowl with banana, granola, chia seeds, coconut and vegan milk (8.90 euros) to the classic omelette with tomato, goat cheese and herbs (8.90 euros) to white sausages with mustard and pretzel (7.90 euros) – you don’t always have to bow to the zeitgeist. It is particularly recommended to have the brunch in the form of a breakfast boards put together individually. Depending on how hungry you are and the size of the group, you can choose between three (8.50 euros), five (12.90 euros) or seven (15.90 euros) small dishes. As with tapas, they are served in bowls that can be pushed back and forth on the table so that everyone can try. The scrambled eggs from fresh eggs, which, according to the menu, come from free-range farming on a farm on the outskirts of Munich, tastes really good. With avocado bread with salmon (10.80 euros), the thin slice of bread under the lavish topping of avocado cream, salmon slices and pieces of tomato seemed quite overwhelmed.
Who do you meet there?
Students, tourists, work colleagues, groups of friends. The target group, says owner Claudia Wassenegger, is between 20 and 35 years old. But even some senior groups like to head for the zeitgeist because they serve delicious cakes with coffee in the afternoons. In the evening, the average age drops again when more refreshments and cocktails land on the tables.
The guests also sit outside in the green.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf / Stephan Rumpf)
What is particularly noticeable
You cannot make a reservation, either online or by phone. It used to be possible, says the boss, but groups kept booking a table and then didn’t show up, the table remained empty – to the annoyance of guests who couldn’t get a seat. That’s why Wassenegger is now leaving it, it is going so well, she says. However, if you got into the zeitgeist shortly after 9 a.m. on the Sunday before Christmas, you didn’t have to worry about a reservation: the restaurant was almost empty and only gradually filled up just before 10 a.m. Mutants also need some rest.
Café Zeitgeist, Türkenstrasse 74, 80799 Munich, Mon. to Thu. 9 a.m. to 1 a.m., Fri. and Sat. 9 a.m. to 3 a.m., Sun. 9 a.m. to midnight.