Small but mighty. That perhaps describes the “Coeur” best. Because the day bar on Theresienstrasse, which was previously home to Café Barcelona for more than four decades, is really not big. A huge white pendant light in the middle of the room and walls that are covered with chromated steel and glow green, blue, yellow and pink make the bar a real eye-catcher just visually.
If you look closer, you might see parallels to the interior of the “Trisoux” on Müllerstrasse in the Glockenbachviertel in the warm colors and lighting concept. This is no coincidence, as the designer in both cases is Martino Hutz. The operators are also the same: Philipp Fröhlich and Benjamin Bauer – and once again they didn’t leave anything to chance in terms of design or any other detail. For example, courteous waitresses keep adding more water.
The two restaurateurs took six years to open their second bar. And if you understand Fröhlich correctly, then it could probably take that long before you can expect a new store from them. He and Bauer consciously don’t want to build restaurant after restaurant, they focus on “sustainable growth”. And a well-thought-out concept that doesn’t yet exist very often in Maxvorstadt, which is teeming with cafés and bars: a day bar.
The drinks on the menu change depending on the season. Many of them currently taste fruity and sweet and almost as if you could use them to preserve the summer.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
When setting it up, the operators paid a lot of attention to details. As with Trisoux, they commissioned Martino Hutz to do this.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
For the Coeur this means: in the morning there is breakfast, at lunchtime and in the evening you can linger at the bar or one of the few tables until midnight, enjoy a drink and perhaps a cheese plate or a sandwich, but not until the early hours of the morning sink there. Instead of mindless excess, Fröhlich and Bauer focus on conscious enjoyment. This goes hand in hand with a reduced menu, which, according to Fröhlich, will not only focus on seasonality in the food in the future.
Now in late summer you can find drinks with citrus, honey and bergamot notes like the “Coeur Gimlet” (12.50 euros) or the “Hydra” (13.50 euros). They are fruity, sweet creations that give you hope that you could perhaps preserve the summer after all – but also make you curious about what bar boss Fröhlich will think of for autumn or winter.
By the way: You can still easily get a place at Coeur even on weekends. On the one hand, this may be due to the Oktoberfest, and on the other hand, because the bar has decided on a so-called soft opening, i.e. an opening without much advertising. From mid-October, when the bar officially celebrates its debut, it could get a little more crowded. After all, there isn’t much space in the Coeur.
Coeur day barTheresienstraße 38, 80333 Munich, opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 8 a.m. to midnight, Saturday 10 a.m. to midnight, Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m