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.