Kriegeralpe

Kriegeralpe is a 1923-vintage stone-and-larch mountain-pasture restaurant at 1,950 metres at the foot of the Madloch chair lift, directly above the Lech valley, with a 270-degree view of the Arlberg massif, and is the canonical Vorarlberg mountain lunch experience. The Stundner family has run the alpe since 1947 (the previous owners had run it since 1923) and the hut is a Vorarlberg farming-family business as much as a restaurant.

The menu is uncompromising mountain food. Vorarlberger Käsknöpfle with three mountain cheeses; a slow-cooked Bregenzerwald lamb stew with Polenta and Tyrolean herbs; a smoked Bregenzerwald-trout tartare; Wiener Schnitzel hand-pounded from veal that arrives by snow-cat each morning; the famous 'Kriegeralpe-Strudel', an apricot strudel with Schlagobers (whipped cream) that uses a 1923 family recipe and runs daily through the winter season.

The room itself is the experience. The original 1923 stone walls, hand-carved larch panelling, three rooms across two floors, a south-facing terrace with two hundred seats and a direct view onto the Madloch ridge, and a wood-burning Kachelofen stove that runs from late November to mid-April. The wine list is short and almost entirely Vorarlberger and Tyrolean, Bregenzerwald sparkling, Vorarlberger Riesling, Tyrolean Blaufränkisch, all by the glass.

Service is mountain-warm and family-run, the captains rotate from the Stundner extended family and seasonal staff. The Kriegeralpe operates roughly mid-November to mid-April for winter and mid-June to mid-September for summer, outside those windows the building is closed. During February-March peak the south-terrace lunch is functionally the social anchor of the resort and the booking math is harder than it looks.

Kriegeralpe is the team-dinner-on-the-mountain room, the format works for a group of eight, the Käsknöpfle and Strudel are shared, and the south-terrace lunch is the canonical Lech social moment. It is also the right answer for a small-group birthday celebration in February: book the south-terrace ten-top at 11:30, ride the Madloch lift up, and run lunch into early afternoon.