St. Peter Stiftskeller

I hope you all enjoyed my last post about the beautiful and serene Hallstatt town deep within the mountainous regions of Austria. The village was a but a pocket in the vast landscape of Austria's abundant mountainous geography, bolstered by one of the most beautiful lakes you will ever visit, and an extremely long almost ancient history of mining salt.

It would seem that Austria is very proud of it's extended pockets of history dotted throughout, I wasn't truly aware that customs driven by long history could still have as much influence as they do today, some 1000 years (or more) later. But Austria brings me surprise after surprise, least not with this restaurant which I had the pleasure of visiting during my stay in Salzburg.

St. Peter Stiftskeller is a restaurant situated in the Abbey of the same name in Salzburg and is supposed to be the oldest inn, in Europe dating back to 803 AD. Some notable people who have visited and been served at this restaurant include:

Christopher Columbus, Mozart and Johan Georg Faust!

Over 1200 years of history means that the restaurant will have a lot of antiques and ornaments worth looking at inside.

Nothing is gritty or too old to look at, infact, it retains a lot of style and elegance. I don't feel like i'm walking inside a dungeon, all of the fixtures are appropriate, if rustic.

The baroque rooms are as I said, rustic and mostly in traditional Austrian decor. It's a homely feeling, one you would expect given it's roots as an "Inn".

Holding the accolade for the oldest restaurant in Europe and possibly the world (that's still serving), they have had notable visitors from all over the world. Of course they are proud to display the pictures of their most famous visitors.

The dining room(s) have a really good balance between being refined and classy, to holding it's own in terms of approach ability. This is not a place for the snobs or the bigots though many of those will probably also visit, it is a place that can easily handle a relaxing family dinner.

The food itself is fabulous, but as you can imagine with such a background, it is not very cheap if leaning on the expensive side.

We saw the baroque dining room which is where I had my dinner, but there are also other modern more contemporary rooms available as well.

The food is cooked delicately to the standard of fine dining. That's to be expected given the price tag, but honestly, in terms of the whole experience, what you're getting out of it.. it's worth it.