“Zum Alten Markt” in Munich: New Bayer at the Viktualienmarkt – Munich

Neo-Bayern should be treated with caution. A Neo-Bayer is an inn that wants to spice up the classics of Bavarian cuisine. Unfortunately, neo-Bavarians are sometimes quite funny and jolly, and obsessively so – as a folk song puts it in its refrain: “I’m jolly, jolly, jolly, I’ll lick my ass until Teifi comes for my poor soul!” You have to like that.

In a way, the Wirtshaus Zum Alten Markt – yes, it’s more of a tavern, although it calls itself a “restaurant” – is a neo-Bavarian. It used to be a nasty dive bar called the Blue Night. In 1985 the landlord Josef Lehner took over the restaurant and turned it into a decent bar and restaurant, at the end of 2020 he retired. Now the landlady couple Kristina and Ninja Höfler have taken over the restaurant. It’s true that they didn’t work with the large apostrophe scatterer on the menu like other neo-Bavarians. But unfortunately the starters go under “A Mongdratzerl”, the desserts under “Was Sias zum Finally” and the spread plate is called “Heimatgedeck – I Schmier da oane”. So much badass spelling usually doesn’t bode well.

Fortunately, the old market is wrong. To start with the appetizers: The Heimatgedeck (8.95 euros) in the form of three scoops, which turned out to be the house version of Obazdn, a sour cream with chanterelles (called “Reherl” in Bavaria) and lard with apples, goes well with fresh pretzels are an excellent way to start an evening in the beer garden. This also goes well with the “pig sty”, commonly known as roast pork, which is made fresh every day and is therefore only available until it is finished. Of course, the Höflers, who previously jointly ran the Schillerbräu on Schillerstraße, know that the roast pork is the ultimate indicator of the quality of an inn. And that’s why it comes from them “from the Bavarian alpine country pig with dark beer sauce, potato dumplings and homemade bacon salad”, but otherwise it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be: a pure pleasure without a lot of chichi and fanfare for a fair 14.85 euros.

Sturm was not quite as satisfied with the Munich schnitzel (17.95) with fried potatoes, which had been correctly creamed with horseradish and mustard, but the pretzel breading was a bit too rich. On the other hand, the “Beef” (24.95), a first-class onion roast, where the onions were happily softly stewed in (probably) red wine and went well with the dark beer and onion jam was excellent. Normally, the Bavarian chef simply tips a handful of commercially available fried onions from the large plastic bucket over the meat, which tastes like fried beer felt. In the Alter Markt you can see that there is a different way and that it then tastes much, much better.

Also worth mentioning: There are four vegetarian dishes (13.75 to 18.65), even if they are variations of creamed mushrooms, cheese spaetzle and fried goat’s cheese. However, they are modified imaginatively. Sturm’s companion, on the other hand, criticized the only fish dish of the day, a char fillet with crispy fried skin in combination with a shrimp, served on tagliatelle: “The tagliatelle are ready-made.” Homemade would have been better in this case, since the Crémant crustacean sauce, the leaf spinach and the saffron foam didn’t help either. “Fish ahoy” costs 23.95 euros. The lunch dish fish noodles (18.95) was similar, it was simply penne rigate with pieces of redfish, pollock and cod, if we’re not mistaken. In any case, the cost of goods does not justify the price here.

Open detailed view

Sometimes people go about their work in the Alter Markt in an overly ambitious manner. It’s true that the eye eats too, but sometimes you want to say to the Höflers: “Guys, if I want to see something, I go to the cinema and not to eat!” The onion roast beef, for example, is served with a martial cleaver on a plate that looks like the bottom end of a spade – perhaps a reference to the house’s beer brand, which some Munich residents somewhat disparagingly call “Schaufelbräu”? And the thoroughly delicious dessert “Papa’s Darling” (8.65) brings together a vanilla liqueur shot, dark crème bavaroise with raspberry sorbet and various other berries, powdered sugar and other things on a wooden board, which seems a bit overloaded.

Complaining on a high level, admittedly. The feeling of visual saturation may also come from looking inside the inn. The fully wood-panelled guest room – said to be a 400-year-old councilman’s room from South Tyrol, which was once moved here – is reminiscent of a ski hut, of yeast dumplings and Kaiserschmarrn. But there is still a long way to go before the joys of winter. The Höflers are now taking their summer vacation, so the Alter Markt will be closed from August 1st to 15th.

restaurant To the Old Markt, Dreifaltigkeitsplatz 3, 80331 Munich, phone: 089/29 99 95, email: [email protected], opening hours: Monday to Saturday 12 p.m. to midnight

The SZ taster

The restaurant review “Tasting” of Süddeutsche Zeitung has a long tradition: it has been published weekly in the local section since 1975, and has also been online for several years, with a rating scale. About a dozen editors with culinary expertise from all departments – from Munich, science to politics – take turns writing about the city’s gastronomy. The choice is endless, the Bavarian economy is just as important as the Greek fish restaurant, the American fast food chain, the special bratwurst stand or the gourmet restaurant decorated with stars. The special thing about the SZ taster: The authors write under pseudonyms, often with a culinary touch. They go into the restaurant to be tested unnoticed about two or three times, depending on how long the budget given by the editors lasts. Iron basic rules: a grace period of one hundred days for the kitchen of a new restaurant to familiarize itself. And: Never get caught working as a restaurant critic – to be able to describe food and drink, service and atmosphere impartially.