Restaurant Meissl & Schadn Salzburg — Restaurant in Salzburg

I’ll start with the good. The food is absolutely amazing and worthy of 5 stars. Service however I’m less pleased with. We ate here our first night in Austria. We arrived after the dinner rush without a reservation but most tables were empty so we got seated no issue. We shared the schnitzel & the chicken paprikas. Food was great. We asked for the Nockerl for dessert and two Cappuccinos while we waited for the Nockerl. Eventually the Nockerl, presentation was amazing. The guy who plated it for us did great and was really kind. Our cappuccinos however never showed up. By the time someone came to check on us we had finished dessert and just asked for the cappuccinos to be taken off the bill cause we wanted to leave. That was no problem and we got an apology for the cappuccinos. We were still pleased with the service and left a tip. Now for today. We liked the food so much we decided to come back for our last night. We have an early train out tomorrow so wanted an early dinner and showed up around 16:00 with multiple tables empty and we waited to be seated. As we’re waiting a guy shows up and shoves in front of us. We make a face just as a waitress shows up and gives us a questioning look. She asks who she can help. The guy points at us and we ask if we can have a table for two. Waitress says yes and then asks if the guy is part of our party. We say no and the guy says he has his own reservation. She then stops helping us, even though we got there first and were in the middle of a conversation and starts conversing with the guy and then walks with him to his seat. She returns minutes later and rudely gestures to a table to the right and tells us to sit down there. We’re not impressed but okay. We sit down and get offered drinks. It then takes 15 minutes for a different waitress to come back and take our food order. Food (2 €35 schnitzels) arrives quickly enough and looks delicious. We get two bites in before the waitress is back and asks us if everything is alright. We tell her it looks amazing but we’re a little confused by how quick she showed up to ask considering we’d barely had had a single bite. My friend orders a second drink though. 30 minutes go by and no one comes to check up on us, ask if we want another drink or whatever. We finish our plates and after a couple minutes the waitress comes to clear the table. Once the table is cleared we want to ask for the menu again to get a dessert but another 30 minutes go by and despite us trying to flag a waitress down no one comes over. We’re annoyed by the poor service and decide that we’ll get dessert somewhere else and will ask for the bill. Finally after another 10 minutes go by someone finally comes to our table and we ask for the bill. We pay and will not tip because of the terrible service we received; the attitude when being seated, being ignored, not being offered a chance to order more drinks or being offered the chance to order dessert. Once waitress realizes we’re not tipping she snatches the receipt out of my hand. Types the € into the card machine and has us pay. She then throws the receipt that comes out of the card machine at us. Throws it. At us. And storms off. Absolutely abysmal hospitality. We spend almost €200 here in one week but will never come here again if this is the service we can expect. The food is amazing but I can get amazing food somewhere else too. Only reason we’re not putting 2 star is cause of the food being great and the fact that the service that first night...

First, we were not welcomed when we arrived at the restaurant. After we gave our name and reservation, the host showed us our table but said it was not ready. A few minutes later, I believe he told us it was ready, but he was passing by so quickly, I wasn’t sure. Nobody showed us to the table. So I went there myself and asked another waiter to confirm the table was ready, he stated “it is not my table,” then proceeded to ignore me.

This is in an excellent location, however I didn’t find the ambience inside very remarkable and it was a bit too noisy.

We sat and then waited a long time for service. The room was nearly full and we weren’t in any particular hurry, so even just a glass of water and perhaps taking our drink order would have put everything back on track. When our waiter (Cesar) finally did come, everything was rushed. Chop Chop. “What would you like to drink.” “Do you want any appetizers?” “Can I also take your main course order?

Not only was the waiter not particularly helpful, but he told us “no” at least 5 times while ordering. “No, you can’t have that,” “no, we don’t do it that way,” “no it’s too large of a portion to serve as an appetizer.” The whole tone was rushed and condescending.

At this point my wife and my friend’s wife started complaining about how rude the waiter was.

Our wine and appetizers came soon enough and they ranged from good to excellent. We enjoyed the minced patties Metternich and the cucumber salad was outstanding (These were two dishes the waiter initially told us we couldn’t have as appetizers.)

When the appetizers were done, the waiter wanted to bring the main course. My friends wanted to go outside to smoke, so we asked him to wait. Not only did they bring the main courses before our friends returned, they brought only two, then the other two some minutes later. Not ideal.

Our entrees were chicken paprikash, the Weiner schnitzel (2) and the Tafelspitz. I never had the Tafelspitz before, so perhaps the presentation is part of the tradition, but we were not impressed. It wasn’t served on a plate, but on a tray. The beef was in the center section of the tray with the accompanying sides in 7 or 8 surrounding sections. It looked like one of the old frozen TV dinner trays or something you would see on an airplane or a baby’s dish.

The entrees were Ok, but the Tafelspitz portion was pretty small while the other entree portions were quite large, especially the Schnitzel I thought the Schnitzel was OK, but it had a slight taste that suggested the lard was burnt or needed to be changed.

None of these things by themselves would have been enough to ruin the dinner, but with one issue after another, the disappointment continued to build. Halfway through the entrees, the wives were in full complaint mode. The food wasn’t that good, the service rude, the other places were so much better, etc. etc.

I felt the dinner couldn’t end soon enough.

But alas, even that was too much to ask for. By this time there were very few people left in the restaurant I waited for what seemed to be forever for the bill. My wife and friends left. I still waited at least 10 minutes more after that before the waiter came with the check.

I left the restaurant not only...

awful experience from start to finish. We were rudely told our table wasn't ready because we were 10 minutes early, we absolutely don't mind waiting around but the staff member seemed annoyed and unwelcoming. As she was getting a table ready, she gestured with her hand and we weren't walked over to the table and told "there you go" which we thought was quite out of the blue considering how expensive and nice the decor is. The service didn't match upto the pricing at all! We then sat down to have to german menus in which we can only read english. We were completely fine with getting up google translate however it would just take us a bit longer to order than the average person who can understand the menu. The waiter came upto us several times asking us to order in which then the waiter gave us an english menu after struggling for 10minutes. After less than 2 minutes he told us to order which we were feeling rushed but brushed it past and just got 2 schnitzels and 1 portion of potatoes to share as 6.50 is quite overpriced for 6 little potatoes. We then only received one and before we could say anything the waiter put the food on the table and left. We waited a couple minutes to see if the other one would arrive but nothing. At this point we were so fed up we just spilt it inorder to get out quickly and grabbed the bill hoping only one is on the receipt as that's what we only got. For the price, it wasn't worth it. After we got the bill, we hadnt even the time to read it over before he started pressing it in the card reader and try charging us. once reading it over, we saw we had been charged for 2 bread portions which was in german so i asked him what was this as i didn't recognise it. He then said it was the bread he gave us as soon as we got to the table and i asked how come it's says 2x as we only got one bread basket as to which I didn't even eat personally. He then said im getting my manager in an angry tone and stormed off. The manager came over after waiting a while and said it states right at the bottle of the menu that it's 3.50 for bread per person even though we got the bread before we could even try to read the german menus and the waiter put it on the table and left without saying anything and without us asking for any bread. We told him at that time we hadn't even got an english menu at that point so how were we supposed to know and even when we did, we were that rushed we could hardly even read the english one. I'm happy to pay for it if we were told about it or if we both ate it but i'd only pay for one portion not two that was on the receipt. Be careful as they were pressuring us the pay before we could read the receipt knowing that they were trying to get away with it and most likely they do half the time especially in big groups. Honestly one of the worst customer service experience we've had and we have/still do work with customers in our jobs on a daily basis. We both understand people can have bad days and things going on in their personal life but put a smile on and don't be rude to customers who aren't even being rude in the first place. Completely ruined...