Munich

Munich does not need to prove anything. Tantris, with its orange-and-black dining room, has been the German temple of haute cuisine for more than fifty years; the Bayerischer Hof, Dallmayr and the Mandarin Oriental keep starred kitchens as a matter of course, and Jan Hartwig, the country’s most decorated chef of his generation, opened his own house in Nymphenburg. The result is a city where three stars feel almost normal.

The Munich style is generous rather than austere: butter, game, Alpine cheeses, long wine lists and rooms that were built for celebrating. Yet the new generation, Tohru Nakamura in the historic Schreiberei, Max Natmessnig at Alois, cooks with a lightness that surprises anyone who expects Bavaria to mean dumplings.

Between the great tables sits the city’s second life: Käfer’s legendary Schänke in Bogenhausen, Brenner’s open grill on Maximilianstraße and a Japanese scene that stretches from Matsuhisa to tiny izakayas in the Glockenbach. Munich prices are Germany’s highest, but so is the level.