Smoke - free atmosphere (a rarity in this corner of the world)
Disadvantages:
Everything else that matters : disgusting food and horrendous service
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
I hate dishing out money--and calories--for bad food. Who doesn't? Of course, almost any restaurant kitchen can have an off day and I'm usually willing to give a place a second chance. Unfortunately, some second chances yield dining experiences that are twice as bad as the first.
Cafe Ignatz, a small vegetarian restaurant in a quiet corner of Munich's hip Schwabing neighborhood, initially shows promise. To reach the dining room (smoke-free, a rarity here), you must first pass through a narrow walkway, one side of which displays a gorgeous spread of sweets: tiny, festive-looking biscuits, mouthwatering cakes...a good sign, you think. But after settling down at your table, the meandering menu reveals some of Cafe Ignatz's fundamental problems: a combination of identity crisis (Are we Italian? French? Indian? Japanese? German?) coupled with naive ambition (Who cares? We can cook anything and put an ethnic-sounding label on it!)
On a previous visit, several months earlier, the potato-broccoli-sheep cheese casserole (EUR 8.00) had been a bit milky and the Veggie patty with polenta and tomato sauce (EUR 7.70) was nothing special, but both were at least edible. Hence the reason behind our foolish optimism and hope that a second chance was just what Cafe Ignatz needed. Nothing could have prepared us for the disastrous evening that awaited us.
Service moved at a glacial pace even though there are fewer than ten tables that demand a server's attention. Language seemed an obvious barrier; the young waiter didn't have a very good grasp of German, and so we resorted to pointing at the menu and speaking in short, carefully crafted sentences that we were certain could not be misunderstood. Ok, so we got two glasses of water instead of a bottle, but in the spirit of optimism, we let this slide. The couple sitting at a table across from ours had it somewhat harder, even though they were only having tea. It took three attempts before the man got what he had ordered. It was comical to watch him and his companion sniffing at each steaming cup that was placed before him, trying to determine if the order was right. But if they were aware of my voyeurism, they may have had their own opportunity to chuckle (or, perhaps, gasp) once our food arrived.
I had ordered the crepe with spinach, mushrooms and goat cheese (EUR 8.50). At first glance it looked decent, though I was quite certain the huge wedge of cheese sticking out of the center of the crepe was sheep milk feta and not the nice aged goat cheese I had imagined. Then, ready to see what we had waited 45 minutes for, I sank my knife and fork in...into a deep puddle of cloudy liquid. I felt completely bewildered as the realisation of just how bad a meal this was going to be struck. The situation didn't look much better across the table. My very hungry husband's "Japanese noodles with mixed vegetables" dish (EUR 9.00) was little more than a few pieces of red pepper mixed into a brown mess of glass noodles and mushrooms in a thin sauce that we supposed was made with soy sauce but tasted like scrapings from a frying pan that had been soaking in water for a while. I considered sending the food back when my husband pointed out the futility of such a measure: we would end up waiting another 45 minutes for something equally bad. Or worse. So we ate what we could (the spinach actually didn't taste too bad once all the liquid was drained off of it) and then decided to pass on the desserts that had looked so appetizing upon our arrival.
With no sight of our waiter for about 15 minutes, I finally hunted him down (albeit, only figuratively). From our mostly full plates, he may have sensed that we had not been thrilled with the meal but I'm not really sure as the vacant look on his face hardly changed during any of our exchanges.
Cafe Ignatz--which has a similar sister establishment, Das Gollier, in Munich's West End neighborhood--offers a daily menu with several main options, choice of soup or salad, and dessert for EUR 11.90 (EUR 8.90 without starter and dessert) but even that kind of deal won't lure me back.
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