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Star keeper
Text by FLORIAN MAAß
Publicity photos
“If a bartender respects his
guests, then they will respect
him, too. Overfamiliarity
undermines this!” goes a
credo by Charles Schumann,
one of Munich’s most
famous bartenders.
The fact that Munich’s bar and pub scene isn’t
only about beer is partly his merit. The New
York Times has called his manual American
Bar (1995), of which 300,000 copies were
sold, “the drink mixer’s bible”. Schumann
was the bartender at Munich’s first serious
cocktail venue, Harry’s New York Bar, in 1974.
Eight years later, he opened Schumann’s
American Bar, with a reduced Modernist
layout, Thonet chairs and dark wood panels.
Since then, the man has become a
Munich icon, as Schumann’s was the first
venue where the guy behind the bar was the
star. Charles Schumann still stands out in
a crowd with his long, silver-coloured hair,
tanned, lived-in face and watchful eyes.
He once said in an interview that “I’m not
beautiful, but I age in a good way.” He can be
charming and entertaining but is best known
for his straightforward talk.
At Schumann’s, he says, “It’s all
about quality, style and keeping things
simple.” A good cocktail needs only three
components and “no vegetable garden
around”. He invented some popular drinks
but prefers classics like the gimlet, Negroni
and Sazerac. Decades after its opening,
26 | AIRBALTIC.COM
Schumann’s continues to be
frequented by artists and writers
as well as the rich and the famous.
Singer Mick Jagger, tennis star
Boris Becker, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and celebrity chef
Paul Bocuse are just a few of the celebrities
who have dropped by for a drink.
Schumann’s first bar was located on
Maximilianstraße (Munich’s main shopping
street), before being renamed Schumann’s
Bar am Hofgarten and moving to the
most Roman-inspired place of “Italy’s
At the age of 72, he
co-acted with Jessica
Alba for Campari
northernmost city” – Odeonsplatz and its
huge palazzi.
Schumann has inspired a lively bar culture
in Munich. Gabányi, Lux, Reichenbach, Zephyr
and Pacific Times are other classy drink
spots, and the Bavarian metropolis won all
of the main trophies at the latest Mixology
bar awards, where fancy concepts and
molecular cocktails stood out. Nevertheless,
the man who hates bar trends – as well
as the modern term mixologist – stole the
show. Germany’s bar of the year for 2017 is
Les Fleurs du Mal, which Schumann opened
last year, just one floor above his existing
establishment. Customers sit around a
9-metre walnut bar that is surrounded by a
fluffy red carpet. The drinks menu changes
Schumann’s Bar am Hofgarten
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constantly and the establishment could
easily serve as a setting for Mad Men, while
the bar slogan could be “separates the men
from the boys” – the tag line of a Baldessarini
commercial in which Schumann steers a huge
yacht on the open sea, to the tune of Charles
Trenet’s La mer.
Aside from being a guardian of classical
bar culture, Schumann has moonlighted as a
model for 30 years, representing brands like
Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto,
or advertising elegant office furniture and
drinking glasses. At the age of 72, he co-acted
with Jessica Alba for Campari. Back in his
younger days, he served as a border patrol
agent and completed his studies for joining
the diplomatic corps, before working at a
fried chicken booth and at several night clubs
in France. He has a passionate interest in
design, architecture and Japanese culture,
and he speaks four languages.
Schumann says that he likes to read books
in his free time or practice sports like running,
boxing and football. He once told Playboy
magazine that “a bar isn’t a place for women”,
and the same seems to apply to his private life,
for he brought up his son as a single father.
Ironically, Les Fleurs du Mal is listed among the
world’s 20 best bars in Vogue magazine and is
usually packed with women. BO
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