Zur Festwiese — Restaurant in Munich

We tried this restaurant as it was close to our hotel and other reviews were positive. We walked in and were greeted by a waitress who sat us at one of the non-reserved tables and let us know our waiter would be by soon. Our waiter seemed friendly at first but shortly after taking our meal order came by and asked us to leave the table and sit at the bar as he had a reservation. This was after four other walk in parties were seated at non-reserved tables and there were several tables with reserved signs on them still open. We were understanding and moved to the bar. However we were then ignored by both the bartender and our former waiter as tables were served and received their food while we were still waiting. After ignoring our attempts to catch anyone's attention for nearly 30 minutes (we were debating just walking out at the point and leaving a few euros for the drinks) we finally stopped the waiter who acted as if he had never seen us before and proceeded to ask us our order again (an hour after we placed it the first time). I was very dissappointed in the service and would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. They clearly did not want us there and we weren't going to wait another...

This place serves traditional Bavarian fayre. I've frequented another over on a different street which was packed the first night (and I was advised to make a reservation for the successive night if I wanted a table) so I reserved a place here, but found it wasn't as busy when I approached.

The seats were hard wooden benches with a fairly deflated cushion, not greatly comfortable (and probably discourages staying for much longer) but I didn't visit for comfort but for eating. They had English menus; I'd looked up some of the photos already and pointed to one - thinking it was the "pork cutlet breaded in brewer's grains" - but it seems that was an older dish they no longer served. I went for this cutlet anyway, and it resembled schnitzel (two flattened boneless pork steaks in breadcrumbs), served with chips and a slice of lemon.

I found it crispy and crunchy, but quite dry - I had senf (mustard) then ketchup but it could have done with some sauce or veg to break it up... and got jealous when a table over received some gravy just when I was finishing up!

It worked as an evening meal, but may consider something less...

We are constantly surprised by German dumplings. The spinach dumplings were rocking and the soup (?) was light yet buttery rich like a parmigiano “water” one would find in a fine dining establishment. Spinach, beetroot and cheese dumplings, all with different tastes and textures but the spinach was our fav.

The Käsespätzle, written as Bavarian Mac & Cheese had a cheesy complexity only achievable thru probably the local alpine cheeses here. Crispy onions with Mac and cheese are a match made in heaven and it comes with a side salad. Add some of the salad dressing to the Mac and cheese to give it an acidity boost and you will be in flavour heaven.

The braised ox cheeks were perfectly cooked, not too fall apart soft and not too hard. Sliceable with enough texture to bite into as it falls apart. The bread dumplings weren’t our cup of tea but it makes sense to use it as a trencher for all the sauce. We were too full at this point to appreciate it.

Service was again brisk and friendly. The server’s efficiency in single handedly serving all customers for the early dinner sitting...