Sternbräu — Restaurant in Salzburg

What a classic great place, definitely touristy but food is great price is good and service was superb. Great terrace in the summer Today 5 month after my original review I most change it My family and I are part-time Austrians, spending 3-4 months a year in the country, with Salzburg being a regular part of our stay. Over the years, we have visited Sternbräu approximately 5-6 times annually, enjoying its typical Austrian ambiance, decent food, average pricing, and usually satisfactory service. However, our most recent experience has compelled me to reassess and change my opinion of this establishment.

On this occasion, my family (five of us, including our dog) traveled from Kitzbühel to Salzburg and decided to dine at Sternbräu. We were seated in a room on the second floor to the right, which appeared to be used for Lions Club meetings, as indicated by the stage and logo. Our waiter, an older man with white hair, dropped five English menus on the table without greeting us or offering any acknowledgment. I requested a menu in German, which he silently replaced while I was away in the restroom. When he returned to take our order, he stood at the side of the table without saying a word. At that point, I privately remarked to my wife in Spanish that the waiter was not particularly “simpático” (nice). To our astonishment, the waiter overheard this and became visibly upset, demanding to know what I had said. When I explained that we felt he was not being very friendly, he abruptly removed our menus and asked us to leave his section as he would not serve us. Trying to resolve the situation, I approached the manager and requested a new table. The manager initially agreed and instructed us to move to the first floor. However, by the time we relocated, the situation escalated. The manager informed us that the waiter claimed I had insulted him, which was entirely untrue. The word “simpático” simply means “nice” and was not used offensively. To our disbelief, the manager sided with the waiter and refused to serve us, effectively asking us to leave the restaurant. This response, in my view, was grossly unprofessional and unnecessarily exacerbated the situation. As a 60-year-old with extensive travel experience, I have never encountered such treatment. I cannot help but feel that this incident was tinged with prejudice, as my family and I were speaking Spanish. In conclusion, I strongly advise against visiting Sternbräu. The management’s handling of this situation was deeply disappointing and unworthy of support.

Continue Thank you for your response; it is appreciated. However, I must express that this situation remains unresolved to my satisfaction. Being asked to leave a restaurant in front of other patrons, without a clear explanation of what had happened, was an incredibly stressful and humiliating experience for me and my family.

I am sure you can understand how such treatment would be upsetting to anyone, and your statement, “We’re sorry this situation was not resolved to your satisfaction,” comes across as insincere to me. It suggests that you are not truly sorry, nor are you fully understanding the impact of this incident.

As of now, I will not be returning to your establishment, and I will be sharing my experience with others. To resolve this matter and restore any trust, I would require a personal apology from both the manager and the waiter involved in this incident. Until then, I see no reason to return.

On a positive note, we ended up having a wonderful lunch at Sacher Grill, which I highly recommend. I will be writing a review of our...

Schrödinger’s Breakfast: Where Pastry Meets the Void

This was not simply a breakfast it was a confrontation with the self, wrapped in flaky pastry.

The croissant arrived on a plate vast enough to suggest possibility, ambiguity, perhaps even dread. Until observed, it existed in a quantum blur: grand and generous, yet somehow shrinking into itself like a dying star. Upon closer inspection, it was indeed small dense with meaning, if not mass. I did not eat it. I interacted with it.

The salt and pepper were touched gently by rain. Whether this was a flaw or a poetic flourish remains unclear. The droplets shimmered faintly in the light, as though the condiments had passed through some minor weather system before arriving. I felt a sort of awe.

But the moment of true existential weight came not with the food, but with the bill. The waiter who I am convinced is working on unsolved proofs in his downtime presented a scale of tipping options with such mathematical elegance, I was undone. 12%, 15%, 18%... and Other. Each figure floated before me like Platonic ideals.

And then it happened: an exocentric pang of existential angst. My mind tried to weigh the implications of each percentage, and I was catapulted helpless back into childhood. There I was, once again in the bathing rose: a ceramic tub, warm water, rose-infused bubbles… and the accidental sip. That floral gulp. Sweet, perfumed panic. I was a child in the bath, overwhelmed by beauty and uncertainty.

That same feeling returned as I hovered over the iPad's “Other” button. Was the tip a gesture of gratitude or of surrender to social illusion? I chose not to tip. Not in defiance, but in reverence to the moment. A philosophical silence. Perhaps I altered the nature of cause and effect. Perhaps I simply needed a walk.

In all, this café offers a rare encounter with the great questions: What is reality? What is enough? And is this croissant alive or dead inside its buttery shell?

Highly...

We wanted to share one main dish and take two portions Salzburger Nockerln. Main dish arrived immediately, like in a cantine. We didn't get extra plate, so we had to both eat from one. Cabbage salad with bacon that came as a side dish was tastless, the roast was fine, sauce was not good.

We wanted to order one Nockerln portion as it is, and for the other one we wanted to replace raspberry sauce with cranberry jam (that appears on the menu). Waiter was explaining to us that it's not possible, that dish has to be eaten with raspberry sauce and not with cranberries (I cannot stand the taste of raspberries, so it makes no sense to me that I cannot get some other thing from the menu). We then decided to go with one portion of Nockerl (after that he changed his story that they can add cranberries separately, but I still need to get raspberry sauce - we told him to just bring one standard thing).

Waiter brought Nockerl when my partner was still eating the main dish, which makes no sense because they need to be consumed asap. I started eating and the texture was off - it was slimy, cold inside, the texture was like split egg whites if beaten for too long, definitely undercooked. The taste was no better - it had a weird starchy aftertaste (like raw vanilla pudding powder). We told waiter that dish was undercooked and egg whites inside were still raw and somehow slimy, while taste was starchy, and he was mocking us. I told him to take the other spoon and taste it and see, but he was just laughing and said that dish is like it should be - so apparently just a slimy and split sweetened egg white is the real deal? I don't get hype about these Salzburger Nockerln, we had way better...