7 Kids’ Shops Where “Just Browsing” Never Works
You know how it goes: you only meant to pop in for a quick look on the way home, just to see whether your best friend’s baby might still need something pretty for their arrival. Thirty minutes later, you’re standing outside with three shopping bags, a Kknekki hair tie nobody asked for, and the sober realisation: next time, maybe bring a bigger bag.
We Munich mums know the feeling: there are certain shops in this city you simply can’t walk past. Window displays that work like magnets, doors with little bells, and behind them entire small kingdoms made of Maileg bunnies, wooden toys, crocheted rattles and fabrics so lovely you can already picture your kids wrapped up in them: at which point a mum’s heart races towards her wallet at least as fast as the little ones’ hearts race towards the sweets corner.
Here are our seven favourite addresses for special gifts, beautifully curated toys, party-bag fillers for kids’ birthdays, and all the things you didn’t actually set out to buy, but happily take home anyway.
1. Nica’s Cosmos: where good mood is part of the range
Glockenbachviertel, between Gärtnerplatz and Frauenhoferstraße
Manu has built one of those shops here that you don’t really want to leave. A colourful kids’ concept store with GOTS standards, Maileg bunnies, plastic-free delivered Jellycats (a huge favourite in the Cosmos household – and in pretty much every household), and a team that welcomes you so warmly that after three minutes you already feel right at home. The lovely thing: the range doesn’t stop at size 116. There’s something for teens looking for their own style, too – and for us mums, who suddenly forget at the jewellery display by the till that we actually came in for the kids. (Happened countless times. We freely admit it.)
📍 Klenzestraße 43, Glockenbachviertel
2. Brauseschwein: the jar-of-sweets paradise in Nymphenburg
Neuhausen-Nymphenburg, Frundsbergstr. 52
When our kids pass Brauseschwein on the way between school and home, negotiations begin: one gummy bear from the big screw-top jar, maybe a liquorice wheel, a bouncy ball for the pocket. What the kids love, we mums love just as much – just for different reasons. Because for years, Wacki Pfitzner-Reiner has been running what is probably the most charming little shop for party-bag treats in all of Munich’s west. Maileg selection: top. Practical jokes, mini soft toys, glittery stickers, everything you’d pack into a goodie bag at a kids’ birthday party to send the little guests home happy: all here. Colourful. More colourful. Brauseschwein.
📍 Frundsbergstraße 52, Nymphenburg-Neuhausen
3. hey Ruby! – the atelier behind the concept store
Schwabing, Hohenzollernstraße 33
When a new baby arrives in our circle of friends – and that happens constantly these years – our path almost automatically leads to Ruby. Behind the store on Hohenzollernstraße sits the atelier where the hey Ruby! collection is actually made: hand-sewn, in Munich, from GOTS-certified fabrics. In plain English: you’re not just giving a piece of clothing, you’re giving a piece of Munich craftsmanship, complete with a lifetime alteration service for when that jumper eventually needs shortening. The baby collection (entirely GOTS) is a little piece of gift poetry all by itself.
📍 Hohenzollernstraße 33, Schwabing
4. Stadtkind München: the secret inside the city hall
Altstadt, Marienplatz 8 / Landschaftsstraße
Some shops are so well hidden that you have to discover them properly. Stadtkind is one of them. Right inside the city hall, just a few steps from Marienplatz, this little concept store has tucked itself away – you can walk past it a hundred times before you ever step inside. Once you do: the finest baby fashion, wooden toys, school bags with style, shoes, small gifts – and, on request, everything beautifully wrapped. Whenever we happen to be in town and want to “just quickly” pop in for some Sunday treat or a birthday present, the odd Kknekki hair tie usually ends up in the basket too. Pure coincidence, of course.
📍 Marienplatz 8, inside the city hall
5. Kunst und Spiel: the classic toy shop
Right on Leopoldstraße
There’s a shop on Leopoldstraße where our kids would happily blow their entire piggy bank in a single visit. Kunst und Spiel has been there since 1956, two floors full of treasures, and the list of brands reads like a who’s who of sustainable classic toymakers: Ostheimer, Haba, Käthe Kruse, Kösen. Add to that plenty of craft supplies for ambitious Sunday projects, books, and high-quality children’s clothing in natural fabrics. Whenever a birthday invitation lands in the post or we’re starting a new creative project with the kids, the path almost always leads here. And yes, the kind of wooden toy you can buy your own child for their birthday with a clear conscience, because they’ll still love it in five years’ time? You’ll find it right here.
📍 Leopoldstraße 48, Schwabing
6. Sent from Heaven: heavenly baby gifts in Sendling
Untersendling
Small, charming, and exactly the right address when you’re looking for a baby gift that doesn’t feel like it came out of a standard catalogue. Sent from Heaven has specialised in what we all need sooner or later: gifts for a new arrival, for a christening, for a first birthday. Maileg mice, Liewood favourites, Djeco craft boxes, Konges Sløjd treasures, plus a “Heimatliebe” corner with Bavarian pretzel rattles and gingerbread-heart pacifier clips – in other words, everything that makes a proper Munich-Kindl gift. Everything is wrapped here with real devotion. Meaning: you walk out with a present that already works its magic before the paper even comes off.
📍 Danklstraße 8, Untersendling
7. Bazaar Noir: concept store, café, mums’ living room
Haidhausen / Maxvorstadt / Frauenplatz
Charin and Heidi met during the pandemic, sewing face masks together – and out of that came one of Munich’s coolest concept stores. Bazaar Noir combines kids’ bits with mums’ fashion, interiors and (at the flagship in Haidhausen) a café whose cappuccino is so good you almost forget what you came to buy. Baby rompers sit next to bubble candles, muslin sets next to woven baskets from Marrakech, French chocolate next to children’s clothing – it sounds wild, but it adds up to that very deliberate, magazine-worthy aesthetic the shop has become known for. Three locations, three moods, one concept. And always the latest of what the fashion world has to offer, for kids and mums alike.
📍 Preysingstraße 39 (Haidhausen) · Türkenstraße 92 (Maxvorstadt) · Frauenplatz 15 (Altstadt)
