Almhof Schneider

Almhof Schneider is the Schneider-family-run Relais & Châteaux chalet hotel on the Lechstrasse, opened in 1922 by the patriarch Hannes Schneider (the founder of the Arlberg ski technique and one of the most consequential figures in 20th-century Alpine skiing) and currently in the fourth generation under Hannes-Gerold and Katia Schneider. The hotel is the most architecturally significant building in the Vorarlberg, a hand-carved larch-wood chalet across four wings, with original 1922 painted ceilings, hand-blown Murano chandeliers, and the village's largest private art collection (Anish Kapoor, James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson) hung throughout the public spaces.

The dining room, formally called the Hubertusstube, runs classic Austrian-Alpine cooking under chef Thorsten Probost. The seven-course tasting rotates seasonally; signatures include a hand-cut Vorarlberger Käsknöpfle with three mountain cheeses; a slow-roasted Bregenzerwald lamb saddle with juniper jus and braised endive; a smoked Lake Constance fera with horseradish butter; the famous 'Schneider-Topfenknödel', a curd-cheese dumpling with plum compote and brown butter that has been on the menu for sixty years.

The wine list is one of the deepest in any Austrian Alpine restaurant, 2,400 references with a serious Bordeaux and Burgundy spine (the Schneider family acquired several private cellars across Europe in the 1970s and 80s), deep verticals of Wachau and Steiermark Austrian whites, and a Champagne section that runs to grower-producers. The pairing flight at €120 is the most reasonably priced serious wine programme in any Vorarlberg restaurant. The cellar's 1959 Bordeaux first-growth selection is famously available by the glass.

The dining room holds sixty covers across the original 1922 Hubertusstube and an adjoining glass-walled garden room added in 1996. Service is family-run and Vorarlberger-warm, the Schneider extended family rotates the floor, captains have worked the property for decades, and the kitchen pacing accommodates the unhurried Austrian dinner format. The hotel itself is fifty rooms; most diners stay overnight.

Almhof Schneider is the birthday-grade dining room when the brief is hundred-year-institution gravitas. The original 1922 Hubertusstube room and the family-wide art collection are the conversation; the dinner-and-stay format means an overnight celebration weekend is easy to arrange; the wine cellar's depth closes any wine-led conversation. Book the Hubertusstube corner four-top by the original 1922 Kachelofen stove.