After Vienna, Munich pales slightly in terms of interesting vegan restaurants open during the winter holidays. We find enough places, though, so we don’t have to visit the same spot twice. With one exception—a sweet one.

A Dessert Wins Us Over in Munich, Too

I told you in a previous review about eating the best strudel in Vienna. Well, quite unexpectedly, a dessert blows us away in Munich, too. We find it at the vegan bakery Patisserie Siessl, and we don’t give it much chance initially. 

A braided dough with some reddish fruit topping catches our eye much more. It’s called Monkey Bread. The dough is super fluffy, and the sweet-tart raspberry layer balances the sweetness of the dessert wonderfully. For my taste, there is a bit too much dough. But let’s not forget it has the word bread in its name, so that’s understandable.

On the same plate, we have a walnut puff pastry. This one exceeds all expectations. Generous filling, tempered sweetness, crispy dough. A more than successful combination. So successful, in fact, that it determines us to return before leaving Munich, just for it. Will we find it again? Will it taste just as good the second time we devour it?

But before we get back to Patisserie Siessl, we have about two days of vegan culinary discoveries in Munich. Some more mundane, others quite interesting.

Soy Vegan: Does It Live Up to the Hype? 

Of all the photos found online, Soy Vegan looks the most promising of the entire trip. Both the space design and the dishes with their presentation attract me. But when we arrive, I realize the restaurant has become so popular that it has lost some of its personality.

It is big. An open space full of tables and people, which scares me because it comes with noise. Luckily, we are seated at a two-person table in a booth. Phew, I can eat in peace.

There are many waiters, and they are fast. It gives me more of a fast-food vibe, which is definitely not the atmosphere I want. Still, the service goes well. 

After a long analysis of the stuffed menu, we choose fried dumplings and two daily menu options—one with soup, the other with curry.

Appetizers: More Generous Than Expected

The five fried dumplings sit on a cabbage salad, next to a carrot that reminds me of the decorations on beef salads from my childhood. We dip them one by one in the sauce and taste. The dough is super crispy, and the filling is well-cooked, just as it should be. After a few seconds, the flavor floods our senses. There is something there I haven’t felt before in any other dish. A deep aroma, similar to meat, earthy yet fruity. Only when I check the ingredients on the menu do I see the filling is a combination of vegetables, tofu, and morel mushrooms. It is my first time eating these mushrooms, but I hope it won’t be the last. Given their intense aroma, I must find out where to get them!

Compared to the first one, the second appetizer pales. Included in the ordered menus, there are two generous spring rolls in transparent rice paper, with peanut sauce on the side. Good, but nothing spectacular about them. I stop halfway through one to save room for the soup.

One Classic Main Course, One More Experimental

The Pho soup comes with rice noodles, expanded tofu, broccoli, carrots, green beans, soybean sprouts, zucchini, and green onions. Although it promises an intense vegetable broth, the soup’s taste isn’t quite as deep as I would like. True, you can hardly go wrong with such a soup—it always turns out good—but this one lacks something to truly shine.

Much more interesting, however, is the second main course ordered: curry with vegan chicken medallions. The faux chicken is first coated in batter and fried, then sliced. It looks appetizing, and the texture seems quite tender. The taste doesn’t blow us away, but in combination with the curry, it is just right.

The lemongrass aroma comes through the curry, but the spiciness immediately steals it, preventing me from fully enjoying the dish. The green beans and carrots, cooked through but not mushy, complement the dish, along with green onions, saffron, and the rice in the separate bowl. What I don’t understand, though, is what fresh salad and cabbage are doing, squeezed in a corner of the plate, looking like they belong to a different landscape.

We leave Soy Vegan so stuffed that we plan to have dinner only late in the evening. The restaurant probably deserves 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Finally, We Switch Gears Entirely with Some Pizza 

I am so happy to find vegan pizza with creatively combined ingredients. The best vegan pizza I’ve ever eaten is one from Budapest, but the varieties at Pretty Pizza in Munich don’t seem to lag behind.

We order one with parmesan, mozzarella, mushrooms, bacon, tomato sauce, and basil. I can’t identify the tomato sauce, but instead, we get an extra spoonful of what seems like a dense cream with some reddish specks on top, plus olive oil. The crust is perfect, and the ingredients combine successfully. Tasted separately, the bacon is a bit salty, but alongside the cheeses, it calms down immediately. I don’t regret the choice, although the potato pizza at the neighboring table is winking at me.

The second variety we order is less daring: the classic combination of tomato sauce, basil pesto, and buffalo mozzarella, plus cherry tomato confit and olive oil. Once the mozzarella and pesto are spread on the crust, they give the dish a pleasant freshness. Although it doesn’t have anything spectacular, it is a variety good enough that I can’t decide which one I like more.

Anyway, next time—if there is a next time—I will choose the potato and truffle pizza, because at Pretty Pizza, it seems taken to the next level compared to what I know from Romania. 4.5 out of 5 stars, as the decoration isn't particularly nice and the tables are very cramped.

Something Light for the End of the Trip: Sushi 

When we decide to go to the Japanese restaurant Secret Garden, we are already a bit tired of Asian food, but we don’t have many vegan options left in Munich on the second-to-last night of the year. So we adapt and choose something we haven’t eaten in a while: sushi.

The sushi platter for two looks less interesting than I expect and definitely has less variety than I would like. It contains:

• 2 avocado nigiri, which I can’t eat as they are too greasy for my taste;
• 2 asparagus nigiri, with a horrible hollandaise sauce on top;
• 6 maki with white rice and vegetables, and 6 with black rice and vegetables respectively; nothing special in their composition, luckily the soy sauce saves them;
• 4 Tempura Tiger and 4 Golden Foo Dog: the first with black rice, grilled zucchini, mushrooms, and garlic; the second with white rice, eggplant, tofu, and radishes; both with a crispy outer coating and a few stripes of unagi sauce; luckily, they save the platter from banality;
• 8 Angry Samurai, with black rice, avocado, mango sauce, pepper sauce, and green onion.

We think about saving some sushi for the train ride back, not because they are extraordinary, but because we get full quickly from so much rice. 

At the end, we try to save the meal with a dessert: coconut milk and vanilla crème brûlée, with an agave and ginger sauce on top. It looks cute, but still nothing too special. Luckily, the berries lift the dish a bit.

Overall, I would give Secret Garden only 4 out of 5 stars.

The Long-Awaited Dessert Keeps Us Waiting

You know I told you at the beginning of this article about the dessert we want to take away? Well, we return to Patisserie Siessl before heading to Romania. But maximum sadness: we don’t find it anymore. So we console ourselves with two other wonders: Monkey Bread with pecan nuts, bananas, and caramel, plus a pistachio croissant.

The new version of Monkey Bread satisfies us more than the raspberry one we tried the first time. It has filling inside too, and the topping on top is generous. Despite the heaviness, they somehow manage to keep the dough fluffy. It is delicious. 

I don’t have high expectations for the pistachio croissant. But it turns out to be filled with lots of pistachio cream, which makes us happy. I like that the cream is light, probably pistachio butter combined with some cream or plant milk. My partner, however, would like a more intense pistachio taste, even if it were greasier and denser.

Given how difficult it is to find vegan pastry products, Patisserie Siessl is a wonderful discovery. If I were passing through Munich and had time to go to only one place, this would be it. A top-tier vegan bakery, in a pleasant decor, with a calm atmosphere - 5 stars out of 5.