Restaurant Deutsche Eiche

The public, commercial and more cruisy sides of Munich's gay ghetto stretch from Sendlinger Tor to the area around the Reichenbachstraße, which is dominated by the gay-owned Hotel Deutsche Eiche, built in 1864. Upon entering, you'll find few remaining traces of the 19th-century Eiche; instead, there are sleek hotel rooms and a very modern sauna [see entries], and this German/European bistro, reinvented to Euro-cosy effect in 1998 but now unrecognisable from the days and nights in the 1970s and 80s when it was frequented by famous, arty and out movie director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–82) and his film crews (and devotees). The Deutsche Eiche (German Oak) developed its pull among artists, gays and lesbians during the 1950s, and the decades that followed qualify as perhaps the Golden Age of gay Munich. The restaurant's A-list of regulars and visitors during that period include actors Udo Kier, Maximilian Schell, Hanna Schygulla, Curd Jürgens, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Udo Lindenberg, Maria Schell, Mario Adorf and Barbar Valentin, singers Donna Summer and Penny McLean, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (Scorsese movies), producers Luggi Waldleiter and Bernd Eichinger and Olympic figure skater Manfred Schnelldorfer, plus Gloria von Thurn and Taxis, Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach and Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, among many others. Queen's then-closeted bombastic lead singer Freddie Mercury came in the 1980s. And while there are few, if any, remnants of this glorious and outrageous history, the Eiche remains a fixture of Munich gay life and a key to its past. Decor here is a tad sober, but the food has been upgraded with modern touches.