Munich was definitely not the easiest place to eat gluten free. I did research before and it seemed like there were not really specific restaurants you could go to with gluten free menus, but suggestions of places or things to eat which would be celiac-friendly… and well, I don’t necessarily need a list of places to eat if I have to wing it like that.
The first night we got there we wanted to go to something like the Hofbräuhaus, but going to this typical German-style restaurant with beer and wurst is really hard for me. We ended up at Augustiner-Keller which was all right, but nothing special.
The waiter was a little abrasive. When I asked about a gluten free menu or gluten free possibilities, he reacted like, “What? You can’t eat bread or flour? What can you eat? Can you eat anything??”… kind of like, well… you’re going to be a difficult customer, what are you doing in my section of the restaurant?
We noticed later on that he seemed to be the roughest of all the servers. He really just wanted to take our orders and serve us our food quickly and make a tip and I can’t really fault him for that, but I always appreciate when waiters and cooks are sensitive and understanding about my diet. I can’t help it and yes, it sucks, but please don’t make it worse for me!
I couldn’t order from most of the menu, but I ended up with good old potatoes (celiac classic), lamb without sauce and some fresh horse radish, which was honestly the most flavourful part of my dish. I also had some mediocre wine because gluten free beer is not to be found in any Keller in Munich.
Breakfast at our hotel was better. I picked the NH Hotel Group which we first stayed at in Madrid. I had booked this hotel before Madrid, hoping that it is a nice chain and it does not disappoint.
The German version of the hotel offers even more gluten free options, including packaged bread, gluten free muesli, fresh veggies, deli options, etc.
On the last day at the Deutsches Museum, I wanted to go to a restaurant early before our bus at 6pm, but even after we scrambled to get there on time, it was not open yet at 4:30. We ended up running back to the train station where I was almost crazy hangry. I ended up breaking down and ordering my very first döner box. I have been really afraid to eat döner since going gluten free, but I just ordered it in a box and I didn’t seem to react, so I think it was OK without the bread and watching out for the base. Kay asked if I wanted couscous or rice, and of course couscous has gluten so that’s a no!
I felt a lot better after the döner. We picked up a few more snacks for our 4 hour ride back to Zurich and were on our way.