Restaurant Sparkling Bistro

Rating: 16
Author: Gault&Millau

Amalienstraße 89, 80799 Munich, Germany

16/20
Remarkable Restaurant

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1 PHOTOS

Chef: Jürgen Wolfsgruber
Cooking: Austrian | European | Local | Vegetarian
Services: Garden | Private Parking | Private Room | Terrace
Style: Casual | With children | With friends

Gault&Millau's review 2025

The Amalienpassage is a place of peace in Munich's lively university district. The shopping arcade was built in the mid-seventies by the Munich construction magnate Fritz Eichbauer, who also launched the "Tantris". Thanks to Eichbauer, an old-school gourmet with the courage to try something new, the passageway between Amalienstraße and Türkenstraße has always been a place of upscale cuisine. Franz Haas, chef de cuisine at "Tantris" from 1991 to 2020, maintained his cooking school here, and the "Bistro Terrine" diagonally opposite enjoyed cult status. The "Terrine" is history, but the somewhat hidden restaurant has found a worthy successor in Jürgen Wolfsgruber's "Sparkling Bistro". Recently, the likeable Austrian opened a second address in Haas' former cooking school, the "Tschecherl", as an inn with a down-to-earth menu at "resonable" prices is called in Vienna. Down-to-earth, strictly product-oriented and a bit Austrian is also Wolfsgruber's gourmet cuisine. Many products come directly from Wolfsgruber's homeland from producers he knows personally: Marchfeld asparagus, venison from the Salzkammergut, porcini mushrooms from the Mühlviertel. Contrary to the trend, "Sparkling" is a wasabi-free zone – "We don't use Asian spices," says Wolfsgruber. That doesn't mean that his guests get bored: an extremely juicy Breton lobster is aromatically spiced up on the charcoal grill and with crumbles of fermented kohlrabi; the wonderfully crunchy first porcini mushrooms of the year gain an additional umami kick with sherry foam and Arabica coffee oil. A strong dash of cream in the intense jus, enriched with chanterelles, which was generously spooned over a slice of butter-tender saddle of venison, seemed almost old-fashioned. The specific taste of the main product is always in the foreground, which is only accompanied by sauces, foams, soups and purees, but never masked. In view of the handsome menu price, the dessert was a bit disappointing: strawberries of the old Mieze Schindler variety with wheat grass sorbet and vanilla whipped cream, to which a pinch of salt was added, perhaps a little too large. A signature dish of the house are the almost unseemly buttery sourdough buns sprinkled with fennel seeds and sea salt. The service is as attentive as it is casual, the interior tidy and elegant. The wine list is awaiting a realignment after the sommelier's departure.