Berliners aren't convinced by their vast new beer hall, but they'll have a beer and a schnitzel while they think about it

Just as the Scots disparage the Sassenachs and the English make fun of the Welsh, so too do Berliners consider their Bavarian cousins to be something of a joke.

"To us, they are the argumentative mountain folk [zänkisches Bergvolk]," said Berliner Stefan Dadarski, "and to them, we're piggish Prussians [Saupreißn]".

But despite his affectionately jaundiced view of his southern brethren, there he was on Friday lunchtime, one of the first customers in what claims to be Europe's biggest Bavarian bierhalle – in Berlin.

"I was curious what it would be like," said the dreadlocked 39-year-old, flagging down a lederhosen-clad waiter and ordering half a litre of Hofbräu Münchner Hell lager and a Munich sausage salad.

When it was announced earlier this year that a gargantuan bierhalle based on the famous Munich Hofbräuhaus was to open in the capital, Berliners were sceptical. Sure, a franchise had already opened in Dubai, but to many, the concept stood more chance of succeeding in the dry Middle East than on the north German plain.

And yet the gigantic Berlin outpost, which can accommodate 2,500 punters on 2km of wooden benches, is just one part of Bavarian culture's subtle invasion of the capital. According to the Visit Berlin tourist office, Berliners in almost every district celebrated the Oktoberfest beer festival, which originates in Munich. In the past three years, the famous organic Munich bakery chain Hofpfisterei has gone from having no branches in the capital to eight all over town. And one fashionable boutique in the central Mitte district has even started selling hipster dirndls.

"We're confident this is going to work," said Björn Schwarz, the manager of Hofbräu Berlin, on Friday. "We've had enormous success with our two Hofbräuhauser in Hamburg, and we are confident the time is right for us here."

Gearing up for Friday night's grand opening, Schwarz said there would be "yodelling girls, a man blowing an alpenhorn and a live band playing traditional Bavarian folk tunes with a modern twist".

Schwarz said he anticipated half of his customers would be locals, the other visitors from the rest of Germany and the world. But a group of young Berliners who had popped in "out of curiosity" were not so sure.

"I think this is really for tourists," said Andre Zayarni, 31, tucking into a schnitzel. "They've not decided to be near the Alex for nothing," said his colleague Steffen Irrgang, 29, referring to nearby Alexander Platz, the bleak concrete square once at the heart of East Berlin, which despite offering all the charm of a prison exercise yard is still a tourist hot spot.

It's true that Berliners see themselves as very different from the Bavarians, they agreed. "You know the famous phrase, Berlin is poor but sexy? Well, that's basically us. We're more modern, more independent, less traditional," said Irrgang. "All of the German stereotypes come from Bavaria – lederhosen and so forth – and that breeds prejudice against the rest of us."

A Berlin theme pub would never take off in Munich, said Zayarni. "It's too schickimicki," he said, using the standard Berlin term for something that is "a bit up itself".

An older couple had popped in to see how authentic the place was. Hildegard and Heinz Brauer, 72 and 74, are originally from Berlin but fled to Munich in the 1960s after the wall went up. "We wanted to see what it was like," said Hildegard. And? "It's ... OK." Heinz's weißwurst (boiled white sausage) was lukewarm rather than hot, she said, but the beer was good.

On another table, a customer shook his head at the mustard he had been served with his leberkäse – a cross between a flat sausage and a slice of meatloaf that translates literally as "liver cheese" despite containing neither ingredient. "Do you have any sweet mustard?" he asked the waiter. "In Munich, leberkäse always comes with sweet mustard."

It's no wonder the experience isn't all that authentic. One young waitress from the Berlin district of Köpenick had a guilty secret. Not only had she never been to Bavaria, but until she got the job, she had never been in a bierhalle either.