(9 August 2026) The awarding of a third Michelin star to the Munich-based top-class restaurant ‘Tohru in der Schreiberei’ has further enhanced the culinary landscape of the Bavarian capital. When a kitchen reaches this very top echelon of gastronomy, the spotlight almost automatically falls on the head chef. Yet, working in the shadow of Tohru Nakamura’s culinary brilliance, there is a well-coordinated duo who are just as important to the dining experience: restaurant manager Alexander Will and sommelier Christian Rainer. Both embrace a contemporary approach to hospitality: a personal sense of well-being underpinned by emotional intelligence.

The ‘living room’ concept and the human touch

The physical layout of the restaurant – divided into three subtly lit, private rooms with thick carpeting, upholstery and swivel leather armchairs – forms the foundation. But this setting needs to be brought to life. “We have this incredibly warm atmosphere,” explains Alexander Will in conversation. “And we, as people providing the service, have to reflect that too; we play a lot on emotions and simply aim to make guests feel at home.”

This begins even before the guest has so much as glanced at the menu. The service acts as a buffer against the hustle and bustle of everyday city life. When guests arrive late, flustered by traffic jams or train cancellations, the team deliberately eases the tension. After a warm welcome, every guest is led straight into the kitchen to experience an initial welcome.

This is followed by a deliberate slowing down at the table. As a ritual to mark their arrival, piping-hot dashi is served. The service staff then withdraw immediately, allowing the guest to settle in, both physically and mentally. According to Will, the message to the guest is clear: “Right, now we’re sitting here. Let’s have a lovely evening.”

The invisible rules behind the scenes

What appears to the guest as intuitive, effortless hospitality is, behind the scenes, based on a rigid set of rules and meticulous preparation. As early as the early afternoon, the administrative and logistical threads come together. The guest list is not merely read; it is thoroughly scrutinised and analysed.

The team strategically matches the tables to the strengths of the floor waiters. If, for example, a table party has a Spanish background, restaurant manager Alexander Will ensures that they are looked after by a Spanish-speaking member of staff, in order to overcome any communication barriers and perfectly convey the story behind the complex dishes. Arrival times are precisely staggered to prevent a station manager from having to attend to several tables at once, which would compromise the standard of service.

Will emphasises that, paradoxically, this individualised approach is built on a strict foundation. In service, there are countless rules and regulations governing where each piece of cutlery is placed, when each action takes place and how the team responds. These procedures are meticulously rehearsed and established. Yet the key to success lies in applying these rules flexibly: To ensure the perfect dining experience, a shortcut is sometimes taken at just the right moment. One does not act like a rigid CD player that endlessly plays the same song, but adapts the stories and explanations on the spot to the guest’s level of knowledge.

On the drinks side of the menu, sommelier Christian Rainer translates this sensitivity into the glasses. His philosophy when putting together wine pairings is characterised by an open-minded approach and the courage to break with convention. “I create a great many contrasts,” says Rainer. Alongside sakes, which fit perfectly with the restaurant’s Japanese-inspired concept and lend dishes a full-bodied umami that wine simply cannot convey, his own Italian roots and his love for the great terroirs of France flow into the selection.

When pairing wines with Nakamura’s elegant cuisine, Rainer pays particular attention to one characteristic: the sustainability of the flavour. A wine may well have rough edges, but it must show character. The finish is particularly important to the sommelier: “The finish of a wine is very, very important to me.”

One of the gastronomic and economic challenges of the present day, however, is the growing number of guests who consciously choose not to drink alcohol. Rainer and Will do not see this as a passing fad, but as the future of haute cuisine, which is also of vital importance from a business perspective. At the Schreiberei, non-alcoholic pairings are crafted with the same level of artisanal care as the wine selection. The juices, essences and elixirs must be perfectly matched to the dishes.

For Rainer, it is only logical that a guest should pay the same price for an exceptionally crafted non-alcoholic accompaniment as they would for wine. Drinks are what keep a restaurant afloat financially. The sector is developing rapidly, and Rainer sees a future trend here in conscious symbiosis: serving wine and non-alcoholic components alternately within the same menu offers a subtle and highly exciting alternative, particularly for guests who are not accustomed to heavy consumption.

At the end of the evening, the efforts of the kitchen and service staff converge on a common goal: the creation of a lasting experience. Alexander Will observes a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour amongst his generation of people in their thirties: People are moving away from pure materialism towards intangible experiences. A visit to a three-star restaurant is no longer seen as merely a dinner, but is consumed as a total work of art, much like attending an exclusive concert.

The philosophy of Alexander Will and Christian Rainer demonstrates that perfection at the highest international level does not require clinical detachment. By concealing the hard, logistical groundwork behind the scenes and treating guests as equals, with empathy and deep respect, they create precisely the safe space that modern indulgence requires. They have evolved service from a rigid craft into empathetic relationship-building – and that is perhaps the true accolade for this piece of writing. (Created with the support of AI)