With climate catastrophe looming, we’re all likely to need more swimwear than we’d like anytime soon anyway. And if we still want to do something about it, then vegetarian nutrition is not so wrong if you believe the experts. In this respect, the department store Ludwig Beck on Marienplatz did a lot right when it brought the Green Beetle Café into the house. As is well known, the Käfer delicatessen opened a fine dining restaurant with vegan and vegetarian cuisine two years ago in the immediate vicinity of its parent company, called Green Beetle. And because Käfer once had a small café in the Beck department store, albeit on the first floor, the delicatessen is now returning to this department store in the heart of the city with a new branch: the Green Beetle Café, one floor up, in the swimwear department .
The opening is celebrated here on Wednesday evening, with lots of little sandwiches and appetizers, all vegetarian and vegan, as it should be. Around 150 invited guests came. Thomas Mang and Stefan Mauritz, of course, the two interior designers who already equipped the Green Beetle restaurant with strictly sustainable materials and also worked in the Beck. Clarissa Käfer as boss; She went to the New York marathon with her husband Michael a few years ago and happened to stop at a vegan restaurant there. Both were immediately enthusiastic, and that’s how the idea came up to open something like this in Munich.
Husband Michael is absent that evening, however, his party service was already busy at the reception for the Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and then at the awarding of the Bavarian Order of Merit to Angela Merkel. But Clarissa Käfer has good advice for all wives: “You can park the gentleman in our café and try out the swimwear in peace and quiet in the meantime!”
Even the Munich economics officer Clemens Baumgärtner (CSU) apparently likes to be parked here. Otherwise he likes to get angry when he hears the term “vegetarian” because he immediately has to think of the “Aktion Faire Wiesn”, which rebels against Oktoberfest chicken from torture breeding. This evening it’s obviously completely different: “I’m glad that there’s a Oktoberfest landlady here who shows me that you can survive with vegan food.” And the CEO of Ludwig Beck AG, Christian Greiner, also received a lot of praise from Baumgärtner, who says retail in the city center is very important: “Others are dismantling department stores, you are building them up, and that’s nice!”
As a big lover of sweets, Baumgärtner is probably particularly interested in the delicious macarons and berry tarts from the Käfer patisserie, whereas the salads and bowls on the menu are more likely to be something for Laila Nöth, the daughter of the late cultural hall operator Wolfgang Nöth. As a former Munich Kindl from 2015, it naturally fits perfectly in this location within sight of Marienplatz. The connection to the American Consul General Timothy Liston can probably be established via the New York marathon. He chats with star sommelier Justin Leone (formerly Tantris), who this time shows up in a jacket that is surprisingly unadorned by his standards. But he probably saved his best brightly colored suit for the opening of his new wine bar on Clemensstrasse in early July.