Sommelier Raffaele Colonna attempts an ambitious balancing act on the Isar, combining Neapolitan culinary tradition with the raw charm of a former butcher’s shop and a sharp sense of design.
Munich being “Germany’s northernmost Italian city” is one of those clichés repeated so often that few stop to question it anymore. Usually, the phrase describes a polished version of dolce vita unfolding somewhere between Aperol Spritz and Maximilianstraße. But in Munich’s Glockenbach district — more precisely inside the former Schlagbauer butcher’s shop — that idea is being reinterpreted in a far rougher and more honest way.
What sommelier Raffaele Colonna has created with “Casele” feels less like a conventional restaurant and more like a cultural outpost where the spirit of Naples meets the design language of modern Munich.
The project’s greatest strength lies in its uncompromising authenticity. Rather than dressing local staff in Italian aprons, Colonna assembled his team directly on the Tyrrhenian coast. Former colleagues and longtime companions traded Campania for the banks of the Isar — and that sense of continuity is evident throughout the menu. Dishes such as pasta alla Nerano or Ischia-style rabbit arrive without being toned down for a supposedly German palate.
Even the logistics follow this philosophy. When fish is landed in Marina di Camerota, a direct connection via Naples-based Pescheria Mattiucci ensures it reaches Munich in less than 24 hours.
Architecture plays a central role in the overall experience. Munich-based Studio Holzrausch managed to preserve the industrial DNA of the former butcher’s shop without turning the space into a sterile design exercise. Where meat was once carved, warm glazed tiles, copper accents and dark mahogany now define the atmosphere.
The restaurant constantly plays with contrasts: a discarded meat refrigerator now stores Burgundy wines and bottles from carefully selected Italian winemakers, while guests sit beneath neighbourhood clotheslines in the courtyard outside. The deliberate tension between polished design and the casual intimacy of the backyard gives “Casele” a kind of energy rarely found in Munich’s often overly staged dining scene.
As the evening progresses, the mood shifts almost imperceptibly. The former butcher’s counter becomes the social centre of the wine bar before gradually evolving into something closer to an Italo disco. When the basslines of Pino D’Angiò fill the room — somewhere between Florentine oil paintings and contemporary mirror installations — the ambition of fine dining merges with the ease of a late-night bar.
It is precisely this willingness to embrace friction — between Neapolitan tradition, Munich’s industrial past and a carefully curated sense of nonchalance — that makes “Casele” one of the season’s most exciting openings. People do not come here in search of a backdrop, but for an atmosphere that lingers long after the evening ends.
