Anne B
Google
Short version: The hotel rooms are modernized, basic, and clean, in beautiful Hof environment. Hotel reception, breakfast, and checkout are understaffed and overwhelmed. Restaurant service and ambiance are likewise not ready for prime time. The food is Michelin Star-worthy. So: go only in a small group, at least for now, and do not expect typical Michelin-level service or environment.
Long version: The restaurant could not manage our party of 14 professionally, or at least to the same standard we have experienced in France, Spain, Denmark. They will not offer groups the full menu, so she first proposed we each individually order a different set of a different number of courses from the tasting menu, which seemed entirely impractical for both the kitchen and for us. After weeks of mis-read emails, a short, rude phone call, and 2x1.5-hour round trip drives to attempt to clarify the basic request, we agreed to a limited subset of the a la carte menu they would be willing to offer us, which we should be "grateful" for on a Sunday evening. (And this only after she realized, in spite of having been told several times, that most of us were staying the night at the hotel.) In retrospect we should have just booked several smaller tables and presumably received the standard treatment.
On the night, the restaurant service itself was equally unprofessional. We had booked a Sekt reception to start, with foie gras Canapés, which the service staff seemed to have forgotten, and seated the party without it. (And seated them without the menu we had agreed to, but instead with an upsell menu with different, additional hors d'oevres, oysters, etc.) So the party stood up, confused, and the Sekt reception materialized, in fact held at the restaurant reception desk in the middle of waitstaff traffic from the kitchen and the service bar. We were placed in the way and could barely hear to make toasts.
For dinner, although there was plenty of room to pull the long table out, it had been left next to the wall, so that the 6 people on that side could not be served correctly and were expected to stack and hand over plates. I had to notice and ask that the remaining Sekt we had purchased be offered to the guests. No sommelier service was offered, although I asked for recommendations. The staff periodically called out, "So, Who wants the Sauvignon Blanc? Who wants the Weissburgunder?" All in all, an inconsiderate Biergarten service experience, which of course made the food price (€100-€140 pp) then too high.
The food itself was outstanding, and for us driving in from Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, etc, it is wonderful to have such creativity and exquisite execution so close, in beautiful Meisenheim. Not sure we will return individually, though, until the service matches it. Compare to Auberge Saint Walfrid.
