Schwarzreiter

Rating: 16
Author: Gault&Millau

Marstallstraße, 80539 Munich, Germany

16/20
Remarkable Restaurant

BOOK

1 PHOTOS

Chef: Franz-Josef Unterlechner
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | German | Local | Seafood | Vegetarian
Services: Accommodation | Electric charging station | Private Parking | Private Room
Style: Bar | Elegant | Exceptional setting | With friends

Gault&Millau's review 2025

The Schwarzreiter is a freshwater fish, a dwarf breed of Arctic char, which occurs almost exclusively in the Königssee in the Berchtesgadener Land and is caught and eaten in small quantities. The gourmet restaurant of the Munich luxury hotel "Vier Jahreszeiten" is named after this rare speciality, supposedly the favourite dish of Bavarian King Ludwig II. Noble interior with Murano glass and Nymphenburg porcelain, each table is adorned with small porcelain black riders as knife rests that can be bought. Chef Franz-Josef Unterlechner completed the splendid stages of his career without exception in Upper Bavaria, which gives his style unmistakable grounding and seriousness. Fashionable extravagances are not to be expected from him, nor is Euro-Asian Chi-Chi. German-Bavarian-French classics are still celebrated here, a reference to Alfred Walterspiel (1881–1960), the German "Escoffier", who had helped the "Four Seasons" to world fame since the mid-twenties. Fish seems to be particularly good for Unterlechner's team, which was demonstrated by a raw marinated sardine on parsley root salad with pecans as a harmonious, unobtrusive amuse, as well as a juicy plaice fillet with lardo sauce in the style of the "Finkenwerder plaice", which is often so greasy in the original that you don't feel like it after just two bites. Everything was wonderfully light and deep here. But the saddle of lamb with fresh peas and chanterelles, rolled up in the style of a ballotine in a savoy cabbage leaf together with a lamb sweetbread farce, was also a wonderfully tasteful stomach filler - the portions in the "Schwarzreiter" are truly not small. A few irregularities such as a somewhat musty-tasting fried zucchini blossom with real Ossietra caviar on the suckling veal tartare or the unfortunately unpeeled peaches in a peach-melba reinterpretation without raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream can only slightly cloud the harmonious overall impression. Wonderful home-baked bread, noble, albeit not very original wine list, service appropriate to the fame of the house by a sympathetic team of young ladies. With a heavy heart, we renounced taking the small Nymphenburg Schwarzreiter with us for the stately price of 120 euros.