Today’s Schwabing was first mentioned in a document in 782 under the name Suuapinga, which means something like settlement of the Swabians. Suuapinga is therefore much older than the city of Munich itself. This does not apply to the new café of the same name on Herzogstrasse, but the name nevertheless appealed to the three operators, Peter Baumann, Lucas Wiltfang and Emanuel Etzersdorfer. Suuapinga, on the one hand it sounds a “bit southern”, says Baumann, on the other hand a “bit angular, a bit angular”. Somehow just right for a café that doesn’t just want to sell perfectly normal coffee, but has dedicated itself to the art of coffee preparation and is at the heart of Schwabing.
In the meantime, with the Sweet Spot in the city center, Café Bla in der Au, Beaver Coffee in Westend and a few others in Munich, there are already a handful of shops that place a similar emphasis on coffee preparation, but an oversupply can in a city of this size is far from being a question.
Emanuel Etzersdorfer, Lucas Wiltfang and Peter Baumann (from left) wanted to open a café for the district with the Suuapinga.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
The operators of Suuapinga – all three of them in their mid, late 20s and just finished their studies – got to know each other through working in a café – and thus also fell in love with coffee. Despite the pandemic, they weren’t too worried that their dream of having their own café would not work out. So when they were accepted for the tiny shop in Schwabing, they didn’t think twice about it.
“We wanted to do something of our own, which is not just gastro,” says Baumann on the phone. That is why they not only sell their coffee beans, which they purchase from the Munich roasting company JB-Kaffee, in the shop with the clean design, but also through their online shop. There are still only three varieties, and three more are to be added soon, which will be roasted especially for the Suuapinga. What they all have in common is the light roast, which makes the coffee taste more fruity than bitter in the end.
What is there and what does it cost?
As befits a café that specializes in good coffee, there is of course one thing above all in Suuapinga: good coffee. And not only that: The three operators have dedicated themselves to “Specialty Coffee”. That is also in bold letters above the entrance door.
In Suuapinga there is so-called “Specialty Coffee”.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
But what exactly can you imagine by that? Put simply, coffee lovers like Baumann, Wiltfang and Etzersdorfer are interested in pouring the complexity of the coffee bean into the cup. As a result, your coffee suddenly no longer tastes bitter and strong, but also fruity, aromatic, complex. In which form you want to try this taste experience is up to each guest.
In addition to classics such as Flat White (3.80 euros), Espresso (single 2.20 euros, double 3.20 euros) and Americano (3.30 euros), there are also filter coffee (2.80 euros), cold brew (4 euros) and Espresso Tonic (5 euros) on the minimalist menu.
The latter are served in a small glass decorated with an orange peel. Not only does it look pretty, it also adds even more flavor because you have the feeling that you not only smell the orange, but also taste it. The small glass bottle in which the cold brew coffee is filled is also pretty.
The food should not mask the taste of the coffee.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
You can’t really have a decadent breakfast at Suuapinga, the menu only has two dishes: cinnamon rolls and sandwiches (3 euros each). But for those who are hungry in between meals, they are just the thing. The snails are freshly baked daily with a lot of cinnamon by the operators themselves. The bread and butter consists of the best organic bread from the Gürtner bakery in Dachau, with lots of butter and tomato salt on top, which Peter Baumann also prepares himself. When choosing the dishes, it was important to them that they not whitewash the taste of the coffee but complement it, he says.
Who is going there?
Already now, just a few weeks after opening in June, Suuapinga has numerous regular customers. According to Baumann, especially Schwabinger, who just seem to have been waiting for a café with good coffee to finally open in their neighborhood. Standl 20, which also offers “Specialty Coffee” at Elisabethmarkt, is not too far away and of course there are many other cafés in the immediate vicinity, but this type of coffee preparation is also a kind of philosophy.
Although Baumann, Wiltfang and Etzersdorfer did not originally come from Schwabing, that was exactly what was important to them: opening a café for the district, a “Neighborhood Coffee Shop”, as Baumann calls it. A place where people come together, where they like to linger.
It is still a bit difficult to linger due to the corona, because the spaces inside and outside are limited and no pub garden could be approved due to a cycle path. But the guests know what to do: when all the seats are taken, everyone grabs their cup and cinnamon bun and quickly turns one of the window sills not far from the café into a storage area. There’s something so wonderfully casual about it that you can really only hope that the sometimes rather narrow-minded Munich residents won’t complain at some point.
Suuapinga, Herzogstr. 85, 80796 Munich, opening times: Mon. to Fri. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., [email protected]