The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Lehel & around

Two restored baroque landmarks in the heart of Munich's old town, a former state bank and a grand old palace, now share a roof as a luxury hotel. Towering baroque ceilings frame contemporary art, rooms run toward timeless and well-appointed, and the Asaya Spa covers wellness thoroughly. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys. It's new enough that the staff still seems to be trying hard, which, at this address, is a pleasant surprise.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The neo-Renaissance façade has been a masked-ball hall, a wool factory, and an antique shop, so its current life as a quietly luxurious hotel feels almost restrained by comparison. Rooms run to real antiques and architecturally odd angles, the rooftop pool has views to the Alps, and the minibar is complimentary. Matsuhisa downstairs handles the Japanese-Peruvian end of things. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The glass-enclosed rooftop pool, suspended above Maximilianstrasse with views over neoclassical Munich, tells you most of what you need to know about this grand luxury hotel. Been around forever, holds a Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star, and sits steps from the opera house and the city's best shopping. The rooms are warm and unhurried rather than aggressively designed, and the concierge team has a reputation for punctuality that is, by local standards, practically a religion.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A grand Munich hotel on Promenadeplatz that has been in the same family for over a century, the Bayerischer Hof holds a Michelin Key and moves at its own pace. Classic rooms sit alongside suites styled by Axel Vervoordt and others, so the aesthetic runs from old-world opulent to genuinely boutique. The Blue Spa pools under a retractable glass roof, and the bars, restaurants, and jazz nights are too numerous to keep straight.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Unfinished flagstone walls in the lobby and unbleached linens in the rooms set the tone at this design-led boutique hotel a short walk from Marienplatz. It holds a Michelin Key. The approach is minimal and a little austere, which turns out to suit Munich perfectly, and the lobby bar draws a crowd that seems to have wandered in without trying. The rooms feel almost secluded, which is an odd trick for a hotel this central.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The building is technically a monument to FC Bayern, complete with an immersive shrine to the club's trophy haul, and Do & Co has quietly tucked a high-end boutique hotel inside it. The 30 rooms and suites each correspond to one of Bayern's league titles, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your relationship with football. A Michelin Key hotel with two restaurants on site, one Asian, one Mediterranean.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The rooftop terrace with its sweep of Munich's skyline tells you what kind of hotel this is before you've even unpacked. The Louis sits on the old Rindermarkt and plays the boutique design card without the usual dark drama, leaning instead toward warm earthy tones, bare white walls, and wood floors that feel almost Mediterranean. Underfloor heating hides; Paris Métro bathroom tiles do not. Discreet luxury, a grillroom focused on local produce, and a gym for the conscientious.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The rococo plaster ceiling alone justifies pushing past the hotel lobby. Falk's Bar is a cocktail bar in the grand European tradition, all gilt mirrors and ornate walls around a central island bar, tucked inside the Bayerischer Hof. The room has a way of making you feel underdressed even when you aren't, so most guests seem to arrive having planned the outfit in advance.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Three gold lampshades hang over the sunken bar like a chandelier that made a sensible decision. This cocktail bar sits tucked into the grand lobby of a five-star Munich institution, past the marble and the hush, in a pocket of red leather armchairs that feels borrowed from a private club. The hotel around it skews old-school and a little formal, but the bar wears that well.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Bamboo walls, puffer fish hanging from a matted rush ceiling, and hand-carved tiki poles set the mood before you've even ordered. This basement tiki cocktail bar beneath the Hotel Bayerischer Hof is the Munich outpost of the long-running global chain, which means an oversized illustrated drinks menu and tan leather banquette seating that makes the whole thing feel pleasantly, deliberately out of time.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

Leaded windows and collegiate crests on wood-panelled walls give this old-school cocktail bar a look borrowed, quite literally, from Harry's Bar Paris, which is exactly where it started. Been around forever by Munich standards, with a jazz pianist in the basement and a members-only cigar room upstairs. The kind of place where the bartender has probably been pouring longer than most of the clientele has been alive.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide