Where is it, and how far is the old town on foot?

Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 1, in Altstadt-Lehel, which is the old town. Odeonsplatz is about three minutes on foot and Marienplatz about five, so the Residenz, the Hofgarten and the Frauenkirche are all within a short walk and you will not need a taxi inside the centre. The street itself is quiet, which is unusual this close to Marienplatz, because it is a street of banks and offices and it empties in the evening.

What are the two buildings, and does it matter which one you are in?

The house is two restored landmarks joined together: the former headquarters of the Bayerische Staatsbank and the Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, opened as a hotel in 2023. It matters because they have different proportions. The bank side gives you the civic rooms, the staircase, the tall windows and the stone. The Palais side is domestic in scale and heavier in ornament. There are 132 rooms in total, of which 59 are suites, and five private Houses including König Maximilian and Prinzregent Luitpold. Tell me which character you want and I will ask the hotel to place you.

What is the Junior Suite like?

That is the category I had. A proper sitting area off the bedroom, Tara Bernerd's scheme throughout, which reads as baroque bones with modern velvet laid into them, geometric rugs on the floor and a large modern painting over the bed. Mine was a figure in Bavarian dress done in flat graphic colour, which is the sort of joke this hotel makes well. The bathroom has a free-standing tub under the window with a tray across it, and the marble runs up the walls. I had one night, so I can tell you how the room works and I cannot tell you how it wears over a week.

Is the rooftop terrace worth planning a trip around?

In summer, probably. It looks straight at the towers of the Frauenkirche and it is the image the hotel is known for. I was there in the middle of October and it was out of season, so I can describe the view and I cannot tell you what an evening up there is actually like. If that terrace is the reason you want this hotel, ask me before you book and I will check what is open on your dates. I would rather tell you it is shut than have you find out on arrival.

Does it work for Oktoberfest, and does it work for business?

For Oktoberfest it is a serious base, because the Wiesn is a long day and what you want afterwards is a spa, a dark bar and a quiet street. This house has all three, and it is far enough from the tents that the noise stops at the door. For work it is equally straightforward: you are among the banks and the offices, the rooms are quiet, and Bar Montez is a room you can take someone to without it becoming an evening. The two uses sit together better here than they do in most city hotels.

It carries two programmes. Which one should I book?

Rosewood Munich sits on Classic Travel under both Rosewood Elite and Virtuoso, and at a Rosewood house the Elite rate is the one to take, because the benefits are built for the group. Elite brings breakfast for two, a property credit, priority for an upgrade at check-in, early arrival and late departure when the day allows, a welcome amenity, and recognition by a management team that has been told you are coming. This house then goes further than the programme asks, and it is the detail worth pausing on: at Rosewood Munich the upgrade is guaranteed at the moment of booking, with the quoted price already showing the better room, and there is a credit to spend in the house with a second credit on suites and the private Houses. Elsewhere in the group the upgrade is priority at the desk, which means it may not happen. Here it is settled before you travel, which also makes the rate hard to compare on a screen, since you are reading the price of a room you would otherwise pay more for. Send me your dates and I will show you both programmes.

ROSEWOOD in brass letters on a stone facade at dusk, the street running away towards the towers of the Frauenkirche

Inspection · Munich, Germany

Rosewood Munich

The old Bavarian State Bank and the Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, joined and opened in 2023 as Rosewood's first house in Germany. The word TRESOR is still cut into the stone at the foot of the stairs, and nobody has tried to hide it.

Junior Suite Rosewood Elite, Virtuoso

Book Rosewood Munich with me, through Classic Travel Register first, free of charge, and the rates and partner benefits open up, with the account linked to Wheresnik. Tell me your dates before you book and I will say which room to ask for here, and which week I would avoid.

Rosewood Elite what it carries

Breakfast for two
Upgrade at check-in
A credit in the house
Early in, late out

What Rosewood Elite brings, in full →

The entrance gives nothing away. Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße is a street of banks, and at seven in the evening in October it is as quiet as a street can be five minutes from Marienplatz. The brass letters by the door are small. Then you are inside, and the floor opens into a banking hall with a painted ceiling, and the word TRESOR is cut into the marble on both sides of the staircase in letters a foot high.

A brasserie room with orange and red banquettes, panelled walls and low pendant lamps — Brasserie Cuvilliés before dinner service. The same room does breakfast, and it is unrecognisable at eight in the morning.

That carving is the whole argument of the building. This was the headquarters of the Bayerische Staatsbank, and beside it stands the Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, a city palace of a different century. Rosewood took both, restored them, joined them, and opened in 2023 as the group's first house in Germany. The easy version of that project would have been to strip out the institutional vocabulary and leave a pretty shell. They kept it. SCHALTER HOF, the counter hall, is still lettered over the stone doorcases. The vault is still announced at the foot of the stairs. You are staying in a bank and the bank is not embarrassed about it.

The staircase, which you should walk twice

I had one night here, in the middle of October, which is not enough to take a hotel apart. It is enough to know whether a building has been thought about, and the staircase answers that in the first two minutes.

A marble staircase with a patterned blue and white runner, carved stone figures above and lanterns on the terrazzo floor — The Palais stair. The carved figures hold up a ceiling that is three hundred years older than the carpet.

A staircase seen from the landing above, its runner running down between brass balusters — From the landing. The runner is the one modern thing in the frame and it is the thing holding it together.

A spiral staircase photographed from directly above, timber treads winding down into shadow — The service spiral, which almost nobody sees. I went looking for it.

The stone figures carrying the upper landing are original. The blue and white runner climbing the steps under them is not, and Tara Bernerd put it there. That pairing is the method of the whole hotel: leave the old thing at full volume, lay one modern pattern across it, stop. Nothing is pastiche and nothing has been scraped back to a white box. A lesser conversion would have done one or the other.

Terrazzo on the lower floor, with a Greek key border running around the edge of it. Lanterns standing on the ground beside the bottom step, so the light comes from below and the ceiling is left dark. I walked it twice on the way to dinner and once more on the way back up, and I would do it again.

Downstairs, and the rooms the public can sit in

The ground floor is generous in a way that hotels of this size usually cannot afford to be. There are three or four separate places to sit before you reach a restaurant, which means you can come down without committing to anything.

A lounge seen from a landing, checkerboard marble floor, armchairs and bookshelves under a chandelier — The lounge from the half landing. Books on the shelves, and some of them have been opened.

A lobby with marble floors, a tall plant in a green pot, lamps and a bar counter beyond — Mid-evening. The plant is the only thing in this room that is not brown, grey or gold.

A silver bowl of champagne bottles on ice in front of a stone fireplace with leather chairs around it — Bottles going out to the lounge. The fireplace behind them is working.

The palette is restrained to the point of being austere: stone, brown leather, grey velvet, brass. Then one orange banquette, or one green pot, and the room comes alive. Bernerd does this deliberately and it works better in person than it does in photographs, because the colour arrives in your peripheral vision and the camera flattens it.

The art is worth slowing down for. It is modern, somebody chose each piece, and a good deal of it is Bavarian in subject and contemporary in handling, which is the same move the building makes.

The room

A Junior Suite, on one night, which I want to be straight about. I can tell you how the room works on arrival and in the morning. I cannot tell you what it is like to live in for a week, and anyone who tells you otherwise after one night is guessing.

A bed with white pillows under a framed painting of a figure in Bavarian dress in flat graphic colour — Over the bed. A Bavarian subject painted the way a poster is painted, which is the hotel in one picture.

A freestanding bath under a shuttered window, a tray across it and a robe hanging beside — The tub under the window. The tray is the hotel's, and so is the suggestion.

A bedroom seen through an open doorway, white bed linen and shutters filtering daylight — Morning, through the door from the sitting area. The shutters do most of the work.

What I can report: the bed is excellent, the shutters block a city street properly, the sitting area is a real room and not a chair in a corner, and the bathroom has a free-standing tub set under the window with a tray laid across it. The marble is generous. The painting over the bed was a figure in Bavarian uniform rendered in flat modern colour, and it made me laugh, which is more than most hotel art manages.

Of the 132 rooms, 59 are suites, and there are five private Houses on top of that, König Maximilian and Prinzregent Luitpold among them. That is an unusually high proportion of suites for a city hotel, and it tells you who the house is built for.

A dark bar room with velvet seating, round tables, a lit bottle display and low golden light — Bar Montez, late. This is the room the hotel is least precious about.

Dinner, and the bar after it

Brasserie Cuvilliés is the main room, and it is a brasserie in the honest sense: a long menu, proper service, and food that is cooked and then put on a plate. I had the schnitzel, because in Munich that is the correct test and because a kitchen that cannot do one has a problem it cannot hide.

A bottle of Perrier-Jouët being poured into a glass beside a menu on a dark table — The first glass, poured at the table. The menu underneath is the caviar list, which tells you where the room sets its sights.

A laid table with a decanter, wine glasses and a small green plant at its centre — A table laid for two. Heavy glass, light hand.

A large breaded veal schnitzel on a white plate with a dish of cranberry sauce and a lemon in paper — The schnitzel. It arrives the width of the plate, which is the only acceptable width.

It was good. It was also correct, by which I mean the kitchen is confident enough to serve a classic without decorating it. The cranberry came in its own dish, the lemon came wrapped, the crumb was loose and blistered the way it should be. There is a caviar list beside the main menu for anyone who wants the evening to go in that direction.

Look up before you leave the table.

A mirrored ceiling reflecting laid tables, tan tufted banquettes and a line of white porcelain pieces, a white sculpture rising from below — The brasserie ceiling is a mirror, so this is the room looking down on itself. It took me a moment on the night, and the moment is the point.

Afterwards, Bar Montez. This is the room I would come back to without staying in the hotel at all.

A bar with a large mural of musicians in bright cubist colour, a grand piano and banquettes below it — The mural runs the height of the wall. The piano in front of it was being played, which is not always true of hotel pianos.

A shaker and a mixing glass on a counter under a pleated lampshade, bottles behind — Built at the counter, in front of you. Sit here if you are alone.

A pale green cocktail being set down on a dark counter by a hand in a white sleeve — Handed across the counter, built where you can watch it. A small difference and it changes the room.

The mural is enormous and loud, the piano is used, and the room fills with people who are not staying upstairs. That last part matters more than anything on the drinks list. A hotel bar that only serves its own guests is a waiting room with bottles. This one is a Munich bar that happens to be inside a hotel, and the difference is audible the moment you walk in.

The spa, and what I did not do

Asaya runs over about 1,300 square metres downstairs: an indoor pool, two saunas, a herbal steam room and six treatment rooms. I went down and looked at it. I did not swim and I did not book a treatment, because one night does not stretch that far.

So take what follows as a description and not as a report. The pool is handsome, and it is lit to a degree that will divide people; there is a photograph of it at the foot of this page and you can judge for yourself. The arched alcoves along one side are the good idea in the room. There is also a gym open around the clock, which on a one-night stay is the facility you are most likely to actually use.

What I would tell you before you book

Come for the building. The staircase, the banking hall and the way the two landmarks have been handled are the reason to choose this over the other good hotels in Munich, and they are available to you from the moment you walk in, whatever the season and whatever the weather is doing to the roof.

Do not plan the trip around the terrace unless you are coming in summer, and if you are, write to me and I will find out what is open on your dates before you commit. Ask which building you are sleeping in. Eat downstairs at least once, go to the bar afterwards, and give the stairs the five minutes they are owed.

One night was enough to be sure of the house and short of a verdict on living in it. I will go back for longer, and when I do this page gets longer with me.

A banking hall staircase under a painted ceiling, TRESOR carved into the marble balustrades on both sides — The reason to come. Read the word on the stone and you know what the building was before anybody explains it to you.

Where it is

Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 1, Altstadt-Lehel, three minutes from Odeonsplatz and five from Marienplatz. Booked through Classic Travel, where the house carries both Rosewood Elite and Virtuoso. At a Rosewood property the Elite rate is the one to take: breakfast for two, a property credit, early arrival and late departure when the day allows, a welcome amenity, and recognition by a management team told in advance that you are coming. What this house adds on top of the programme is the part to know about. The Elite upgrade is normally priority at check-in; here it is guaranteed at the moment of booking, and the quoted price already shows the better room, with a credit in the house and a second credit on suites and the Houses. That changes how you read the number on the screen. Tell me your dates and I will put both programmes in front of you.

The five

What I would tell a friend before they left.

Walk up the old banking hall before you go to your roomThe stairs that climb out of the entrance hall belong to the Bayerische Staatsbank, and the building has kept the evidence. TRESOR is carved into the marble of both balustrades, SCHALTER HOF sits above the stone doorcases, and a painted ceiling runs over the whole thing. Most conversions would have sanded that vocabulary off. Give it five minutes with your bags still at the desk, because once you have seen it you read the rest of the house differently.
The rooftop is an August room, and I saw it in OctoberEvery photograph of this hotel sooner or later shows the terrace with the towers of the Frauenkirche behind a white sofa. I went up and the view is exactly what it promises. In the middle of October it is also a cold, empty terrace, and the hotel was living entirely downstairs. If the rooftop is the reason you are booking, book it for the summer. If you are coming in autumn, come for the staircase and the bar, which are both better in the dark anyway.
Ask which of the two buildings your room is inThis is one hotel made from two landmarks, the bank and the Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, and they do not feel the same. One side carries the civic scale, the heavy stone and the tall windows. The other is a city palace, with lower ceilings and more ornament close to your head. Neither is the better address and the difference is real, so say which one you want when you book and I will ask for it.
Bar Montez is the loudest room in a quiet houseA long dark room with a mural of musicians across one wall, a piano that somebody actually plays, and a bar counter deep enough to sit at alone. The rest of the hotel speaks softly. This room does not, and it is where the building stops being a monument and starts being somewhere people go on a Tuesday. It fills with Münchner and the hotel is better for it.
Breakfast and dinner are the same room, and that is the pointBrasserie Cuvilliés does both, so the room you ate in at nine at night is the room you come down to at eight in the morning, with the open kitchen working behind glass. I had one night here, which means one dinner and one breakfast in the same seats, and the room changes completely with the light. The schnitzel at dinner is the thing to order, and it arrives the size it should be.

The list goes on. Guests who book with me receive the rest before departure.

Before you book

The questions people send me about Rosewood Munich.

Where is it, and how far is the old town on foot?: Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 1, in Altstadt-Lehel, which is the old town. Odeonsplatz is about three minutes on foot and Marienplatz about five, so the Residenz, the Hofgarten and the Frauenkirche are all within a short walk and you will not need a taxi inside the centre. The street itself is quiet, which is unusual this close to Marienplatz, because it is a street of banks and offices and it empties in the evening.
What are the two buildings, and does it matter which one you are in?: The house is two restored landmarks joined together: the former headquarters of the Bayerische Staatsbank and the Palais Neuhaus-Preysing, opened as a hotel in 2023. It matters because they have different proportions. The bank side gives you the civic rooms, the staircase, the tall windows and the stone. The Palais side is domestic in scale and heavier in ornament. There are 132 rooms in total, of which 59 are suites, and five private Houses including König Maximilian and Prinzregent Luitpold. Tell me which character you want and I will ask the hotel to place you.
What is the Junior Suite like?: That is the category I had. A proper sitting area off the bedroom, Tara Bernerd's scheme throughout, which reads as baroque bones with modern velvet laid into them, geometric rugs on the floor and a large modern painting over the bed. Mine was a figure in Bavarian dress done in flat graphic colour, which is the sort of joke this hotel makes well. The bathroom has a free-standing tub under the window with a tray across it, and the marble runs up the walls. I had one night, so I can tell you how the room works and I cannot tell you how it wears over a week.
Is the rooftop terrace worth planning a trip around?: In summer, probably. It looks straight at the towers of the Frauenkirche and it is the image the hotel is known for. I was there in the middle of October and it was out of season, so I can describe the view and I cannot tell you what an evening up there is actually like. If that terrace is the reason you want this hotel, ask me before you book and I will check what is open on your dates. I would rather tell you it is shut than have you find out on arrival.
Does it work for Oktoberfest, and does it work for business?: For Oktoberfest it is a serious base, because the Wiesn is a long day and what you want afterwards is a spa, a dark bar and a quiet street. This house has all three, and it is far enough from the tents that the noise stops at the door. For work it is equally straightforward: you are among the banks and the offices, the rooms are quiet, and Bar Montez is a room you can take someone to without it becoming an evening. The two uses sit together better here than they do in most city hotels.
It carries two programmes. Which one should I book?: Rosewood Munich sits on Classic Travel under both Rosewood Elite and Virtuoso, and at a Rosewood house the Elite rate is the one to take, because the benefits are built for the group. Elite brings breakfast for two, a property credit, priority for an upgrade at check-in, early arrival and late departure when the day allows, a welcome amenity, and recognition by a management team that has been told you are coming. This house then goes further than the programme asks, and it is the detail worth pausing on: at Rosewood Munich the upgrade is guaranteed at the moment of booking, with the quoted price already showing the better room, and there is a credit to spend in the house with a second credit on suites and the private Houses. Elsewhere in the group the upgrade is priority at the desk, which means it may not happen. Here it is settled before you travel, which also makes the rate hard to compare on a screen, since you are reading the price of a room you would otherwise pay more for. Send me your dates and I will show you both programmes.

Something else you want to know? Write to me and I will answer it here.

Breakfast on marble: French toast with strawberries, a fruit plate, avocado toast and a cappuccino

An open kitchen behind glass with brass pendant lamps over tan banquettes

An indoor pool lit blue under a ceiling washed in violet light, loungers in arched alcoves along one side

Three drinks menus fanned on a round black table in front of a lit bar

A shaker and a filled glass on a red leather counter under a pleated lampshade

A long bar counter at night with lamps down its length and stools in a row

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