Kaprun Restaurants
More places to eat above the village than in it
Count them off the lift company's own list and there are thirteen restaurants and huts on the two mountains above Kaprun. The village has a short handful. That is the opposite of how a ski resort normally works, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you plan a week's eating here.
It follows from the way the place was built. Kaprun is a small, quiet farming village that acquired a glacier ski area, so the eating grew where the visitors were — up the Maiskogel and out on the Kitzsteinhorn — rather than along a high street that was never a resort strip in the first place. There is no row of twenty restaurants here because there was never a town big enough to need one.
What that means in practice: lunch is the meal with the choice in it, and dinner is the meal to book. Reverse the habit you have from a French resort, where you grab a sandwich on the hill and pick a restaurant in the evening. Here the mountain huts are the reason to stop skiing at half past twelve, and the village list is short enough that on a busy week you want a table held rather than a wander.
Below: the huts on each mountain, the six places in the village we can stand behind, why the streets are quiet by nine, and an honest account of the names we found and deliberately left off.
The huts on the Maiskogel, which are the surprise
Nobody books Kaprun for the Maiskogel and almost everybody ends up eating on it. The mountain that rises straight out of the village carries most of the eating on this side of the valley, and it is the part of the resort that still feels like farmland with a gondola over it.
The lift company lists eight places to eat between the village and the top of the Maiskogel, and the names tell you what they are. Maisi Alm sits at the bottom by the gondola station and is open all year. Further up and out across the mountain are Glocknerblick, the Maiskogel Alm Ranch, the Sauloch-Alm, the Unterbergalm, Berggasthof Stangerbauer, Jausenstation Unteraigen and Restaurant Zagl.
Read those names and you can see the difference from a modern lift-served resort. An Alm is a mountain pasture, a Berggasthof is a mountain inn and a Jausenstation is a place that serves a light afternoon meal — these are farm buildings that feed people, not catering units built next to a chairlift. Several of them are as much on the winter walking and toboggan side of the mountain as on the ski side, which is why a non-skier in your party can meet you for lunch up here without ever putting boots on.
Eating on the glacier, from the valley station to the summit
The Kitzsteinhorn side is fewer places and bigger ones, spread up a mountain with more than two vertical kilometres in it. Where you eat is decided by how far up you happen to be when you get hungry, and coming back down for lunch is not a plan.
At the bottom, by the valley station where the road ends, is kitz900m. Partway up, at the hub of the glacier skiing, is the Gletschermühle at the Alpincenter — the terrace most groups end up on, and the natural meeting point on a mountain where the party gets spread over a lot of vertical. Off to the side there is the Häuslalm and the Krefelderhütte, the second of which is a mountain hut in the older sense rather than a restaurant with a piste running past it.
And at the very top there is the Gipfel Restaurant, up at the summit gallery, which is open year-round and reachable by anybody with a sightseeing ticket rather than a lift pass. That is the one worth planning for. Lunch at 3,029m with the Hohe Tauern out of the window is a thing you can genuinely do here, in ski boots or in walking shoes, and it is the meal that people remember from a week in this valley.
The village list, and it is short on purpose
Four dining rooms in Kaprun that are restaurants first, checked one at a time against their own websites. Two more that are a bar and a restaurant at the same time get their own section below, because they are a different kind of evening.
- Hilberger's Beisl — the one to book firstOn Wilhelm-Fazokas-Straße in the centre, run by the Hilberger family since 1996. A Beisl is the old Austrian word for a plain eatery with hearty cooking and no ceremony, and they use it deliberately — regional Austrian food with a bit of invention in it, and a wine bar that is a serious part of the operation rather than a shelf behind the bar. Their own site carries both the Falstaff and Gault&Millau marks. It is small and it is popular; ring ahead.
- Gastwirtschaft Tafern — the ambitious oneOn Peter-Buchner-Straße, a few minutes from the centre. Modern Austrian cooking pitched between homely and fine: Tafelspitz and pizza and homemade Mohnnudeln on one side of the menu and a tasting menu on the other. The wine cellar is mostly Austrian and the owner presents it himself, which is the tell that this is a wine list rather than a wine selection. There is a terrace with the mountains in front of it, and the kitchen closes earlier than the room does. It takes a rest day each week.
- Grainer's Dorfstadl — the old roomOn Kellnerfeldstraße, run by the Grainer family, in a building that was a bakery a hundred years ago. Hundred-year-old wooden walls, a tiled stove to sit next to, and old milk jugs and coffee grinders on the shelves — it is the room in Kaprun that feels like the valley rather than like a ski resort. Pinzgau cooking, with steak on a hot stone and suckling pig among the things they are known for. Open all year round.
- Dorfkrug — the reliable one, and it has rooms above itOn Achenstraße in the middle of the village. A hotel with apartments and a restaurant that is genuinely open to everybody rather than a half-board dining room with a sign on it — steaks, Austrian specialities built on game, fish and mushrooms, and pizza out of a stone oven for the half of the party that has had enough schnitzel. Also takes a rest day each week, so check before you walk down.
Two places that are a bar and a restaurant at once
Both of these appear on our bars page as well, and that is not laziness — in a village this size the places that do a good evening tend to do the whole evening, and where you eat and where you stay afterwards is frequently the same address.
- Baumbar — the big one, and the restaurant is realOn Sigmund-Thun-Straße. It is best known as the open-air après arena, but the operation also runs a restaurant across several rooms and a sports bar, and the restaurant is not an afterthought bolted to a drinking barn. The arena and the restaurant run daily; the club end of it runs at weekends rather than nightly, which is worth knowing if you were planning the evening around it.
- Kitsch & Bitter — the one with the wine cellarOn Wilhelm-Fazokas-Straße. A bar and a restaurant with an enoteca and a wine cellar attached, which is an unusual thing to find in a village of this size and is the reason it is on this page rather than only on the bars one. It takes one day off a week, so it is worth checking before you build an evening around it.
The practical version: if you want dinner and then somewhere to sit afterwards without moving, these two are the answer, and Baumbar is the one that works for a group. If you want dinner as its own event, the four rooms in the section above are what you are looking for. Where the evening goes after that is on our Kaprun bars and après page, which is honest about how short that list is too.
Why the village empties out early
Kaprun is not quiet because it lacks restaurants. It has few restaurants because it is quiet, and both of those come out of the same thing: most people staying here have already paid for dinner.
- Austrian hotels sell half board, and most guests take itBed and an evening meal is the standard way a hotel in this part of Austria prices a room, and it is usually good — several courses, cooked properly, at a set hour. That is a genuine part of the holiday rather than a compromise, but it means a large share of the beds in this village are not looking for a restaurant on any given night.
- And they eat earlyThe evening meal in an Austrian hotel starts a good deal earlier than a British visitor expects, which pulls the whole village's evening forward. Après finishes, people go back and change, they eat, and by mid-evening the streets are quiet. That is an ordinary Tuesday here, not a bad night.
- So kitchens close earlier than you thinkSeveral places in the village stop serving food noticeably before they stop serving drinks. If your party comes off the hill, showers, and strolls out at what would be a normal dinner hour at home, you can find yourself in a bar rather than at a table. This is the single most common way a visitor's evening goes wrong in Kaprun.
- Which makes half board the right call more often than notIf you are here to ski, to be on first lifts and to be in bed by ten, half board removes a decision and usually feeds you well. Keep a night or two free for the rooms on this page rather than all six — that is the balance that works in a village where the restaurant list is four deep.
Getting a table in a village this size
Ring, do not turn up. With four principal dining rooms and a resort full of people on a Saturday-to-Saturday week, the arithmetic is against you on the first two nights of a changeover and over Christmas and New Year. Every one of the places above takes a telephone booking and most take one online; none of them needs a week's notice, but they do need more than a walk down the street at seven o'clock.
Ask your hotel to do it. This is the thing British visitors under-use in Austria. Hotel reception here will book a table for you as a matter of course, they know which places are shut on which day this season, and they will phrase it in German. On a half-board booking they will also usually let you skip a night's dinner if you tell them in the morning — ask rather than assume.
Check the rest day before you plan the night. Almost every independent restaurant in this village closes one day a week and the day is not the same at each of them. We deliberately do not print those days: they are reset each season, a stale one on a page like this sends somebody out into the cold for nothing, and the venue's own site or a phone call settles it in a minute.
And book the mountain lunches that matter. Most huts do not need it. The summit restaurant on a bright Saturday in February is the exception, along with anywhere you are taking a group of eight. If lunch is the point of the day rather than a stop in it, treat it like dinner.
Boots first, then the wine list
Dinner is a decision you can make on the day. Equipment is not, and we hold the contract with Bründl Sports in Kaprun directly rather than reselling somebody else's counter.
- Two shops — one at the valley station in the village, one high on the Kitzsteinhorn at the Alpincenter, which is also where you will be eating lunch.
- Pick by where your morning starts, not by price. The village shop is the one you can walk to from a village bed.
- A deposit today, the balance at the counter, with your sizes on the system before you land.
Sorted in ten minutes, which is roughly what a table costs you on the phone.
See both Kaprun shops →
Six in the village, and the ones we left out
Other Kaprun restaurant lists are longer than this one. Here is exactly what we did, and what we would not put our name to.
- Every village name was opened in a browser, one at a timeWe read each venue's own website, or the regional tourist board's own listing where it carries the venue's contact details and site, and we took what the business says about itself — what it is, where it is, who runs it. Nothing on this page came from a review site or an aggregator, and there is not a rating, a review count or a star score anywhere on it.
- The mountain names came from the lift company, not from usThe thirteen huts and restaurants above the village are the operator's own published listing for its two mountains, which is the only source that also tells you which of them is open today. We have named them and sent you there for the detail rather than describing meals we have not eaten.
- No prices, no opening times, no menusAll three change every season and often mid-season, and a guide carrying last winter's is worse than one carrying none. Where a venue's own rhythm genuinely shapes your evening — a weekly rest day, a kitchen that shuts before the bar — we tell you the shape and send you to them for the day and the hour.
- What we would not claimWe have not worked a season in Kaprun — our Austrian seasons were Söll, Mayrhofen and Kitzbühel — so nothing here is dressed up as a personal favourite, and there is no dish on this page described as though we had eaten it. Where a venue's status was unclear, we have said so rather than rounding it up.
The names that are not on this page
Searching for Kaprun restaurants turns up a longer list than ours, and a few of those names are ones we found and could not stand behind yet. Weitblick, the restaurant at the Hotel Kaprunerhof, Kennidi, Margarethenstein, Klammseestüberl and a pizzeria in the village all exist in listings, and none of them got a first-hand check from us in time for this version of the page. They are not excluded because they are bad. They are excluded because we have a rule that a name goes on a Monsguide page only once somebody here has read what the business says about itself, and we would rather ship four we are sure of than ten we are not.
One more is a genuine unknown rather than an unchecked one. Pavillon, in the middle of the village, does food as well as drink and its own site is live with a current imprint — but that site refuses automated access, and the tourist board's page for it reads as closed above winter copy written in the present tense. We are not going to tell you it is open and we are not going to tell you it is shut. If you walk past it and it is serving, that is your answer and we would like to hear about it.
The rest of the week, in four links
Dinner is one decision an evening at a time. These four shape the whole trip.
The bars that stay open after
A short, checked list of where the evening goes once the plates are cleared, and the catch that strands people on the Zell am See bus.
A bed within walking distance of a table
Which corner of a small village puts you near the four dining rooms, and whether half board is the right call for your party.
Lunch on a day you are not skiing
The thermal spa, the winter walking and the toboggan side of the Maiskogel, which is how a non-skier reaches half the huts on this page.
Getting in before the kitchens close
Salzburg is 1h10-1h30 away and we run the transfer ourselves.
Before you book a table in Kaprun
Where should we eat in Kaprun?
For a proper dinner in the village, Hilberger's Beisl, Gastwirtschaft Tafern, Grainer's Dorfstadl and the Dorfkrug are the four we can stand behind, all checked against their own sites. Baumbar and Kitsch & Bitter both do food as well as drink if you want the evening in one place. Book ahead on a changeover night.
Are there many restaurants in Kaprun?
Not many in the village, and more than you would expect on the mountain. The lift company lists thirteen huts and restaurants across the Maiskogel and the Kitzsteinhorn against a short handful in the town. Kaprun is a small farming village that acquired a ski area, so the eating grew up the hill rather than along a high street.
Do I need to book a restaurant in Kaprun?
Yes, on a busy week. With four principal dining rooms and a resort full of people arriving on the same day, the first two nights of a changeover and the Christmas and New Year fortnight are the ones that catch people out. Ask your hotel reception to ring for you — they do it as a matter of course and they know which places are shut on which day this season.
Should we book half board in Kaprun?
For most parties, yes, with a night or two kept free. Half board is how Austrian hotels normally sell a room, the food is usually good and it removes a decision on a week when you want to be on first lifts. Keeping two evenings back for the village restaurants gets you the best of both, and it is what we would do.
Why is Kaprun so quiet in the evening?
Because most people staying here have already paid for dinner and eat it early. Austrian hotels sell half board, the evening meal starts sooner than a British visitor expects, and by mid-evening the streets have thinned out. That is an ordinary weekday here rather than a bad night, and it is why families choose the village.
Where can I eat on the mountain in Kaprun?
On the Maiskogel there are farm-style huts and inns spread up the mountain, several of them reachable on the winter walking and toboggan side as well as on skis. On the Kitzsteinhorn there is a restaurant at the valley station, a big terrace at the Alpincenter partway up, a couple of huts off to the side, and a restaurant at the summit gallery that is open to foot passengers. The lift company publishes which are open on the day.
Can you have lunch at the top of the Kitzsteinhorn?
Yes, and it is the meal worth planning a day around. The summit restaurant sits alongside the viewing gallery at 3,029m, it is open year-round, and you can get there on a sightseeing ticket rather than a lift pass — so a non-skier in the party can join you. Go on a clear morning; there is no view from inside a cloud.
Can we go to Zell am See for dinner?
You can, and there is far more choice over there, but work out how you are getting back first. The ski bus between the two towns is free with a valid Ski ALPIN CARD, but it is a daytime service tied to lift operating hours, not an evening one. People discover this after pudding, and the answer is a taxi around the valley.
Do Kaprun restaurants close one day a week?
Most of the independent ones do, and the day is not the same at each of them. We do not publish those days on purpose: they are reset each season, and a stale one on a page like this sends somebody out into the cold for nothing. A look at the venue's own site, or a word with your hotel reception, settles it in a minute.
Ate somewhere good? Send us the name.
This page is short because it only carries places we could check ourselves, and there are names in the village we have not got to yet. If you ate somewhere worth adding, or something here has changed hands, changed chef or changed its rest day, tell us. Every submission is read and checked before anything goes on the page.
One booking that is not a table
Restaurants you can ring on the day. Skis and boots want your sizes in advance — two Bründl counters, a deposit today and the balance when you collect.
Book your Kaprun ski hire →