Restaurant 181

My wife and I got a voucher for this restaurant as a wedding present, designed to go there for our 1 year wedding anniversary - which we did.

Beginning was promising, entrance of the tower we were greeted and congratulated (so they were aware of the occasion). Upon arrival at 181m height, we were seated at a table, next to each other, so both of us could appreciate the beautiful view over Munich.

Then I apparently made the big mistake: I asked if I could upgrade from what the voucher specified (simple 3 course set menu) by paying the difference to the other listed prices (4 course, 5 course, 6 course menus, wine accompaniment per course, ...). The restaurant is expensive but for this special occasion this would have been irrelevant, we simply wanted to have a good time with a spectacular view, good food and good drinks.

This was not well received. The waiter snubbed us by saying that upgrades were not possible - likely because we needed to make sure we'd leave on time before 8pm (2 hours slot) before the next reservation for the table would be. While I could understand this for an additional course, this does not make sense to me why I couldn't get wine accompaniment to the food. (And I would have without a problem paid for the 2x44€ for this). In any case, service quality suffered. We ordered two aperitifs and a bottle of still water, as my wife can't stand fizzy water. We got: a bottle of fizzy water. When we remarked this, the waiter didn't immediately respond to our complaint but first left to CHECK HIS NOTES WHAT WE ORDERED. Wow. After a brief moment he came back and admitted we were right (how nice to imply we might have been lying about a bottle of water...) and replaced our bottle with a bottle of still water.

The food was not stunning but perfectly fine, We liked both the first courses (grilled baby octopus, truffle agnolotti) and our main courses (beef & veal, fish) and the plates were beautifully arranged. The lack of wine was disappointing though. (Interestingly, the table next to us DID get the wine accompaniment but the wine consistently arrived after the course was finished, so we ended up being kind of lucky that we did not have it, after all.)

The dessert was nicely presented as well but very sweet. I would have liked to have a cup of coffee to it but the staff was nowhere to be seen.

The final moment was when we paid - the ticket machine at the park deck below the tower does not accept cards, so we tipped an amount that would have resulted in a few coins change. The waiter just shrugged and said he'll have to keep it all because they DO NOT HAVE COINS out of principle. Oh, nice. After such an evening it is so lovely to have to find a way to pay for the parking ticket.

Honestly, I don't understand what was going wrong here. Everyone in the business knows that it's mainly drinks where the profit comes from. Maybe we were judged as not rich enough because we had a voucher - but then again, I won't apologize for having received it as a wedding gift.

Final verdict: -1 for the lack of wine -1 for the service.

Otherwise, stunning location and reasonably good food - this could be easily a very great experience with a bit more of staff quality.