Dan Lienert
Google
Stiefels Hopfenkranz. Don’t do it, do not eat here. Of our 8 dinners and 16 restaurants we visited for lunch and dinner in Switzerland, Stiefels Hopfenkranz is our only negative review. This is not a Michelin Star restaurant as they lost their Michelin Star status 2 years ago.
We had 7pm reservations on Tuesday March 19, 2024. We took a taxi from the Mandarin Oriental Palace Hotel and arrived on time. We were dressed appropriately for a (supposedly) Michelin Star restaurant, with me being in a dress shirt, tie, and sweater. My wife and daughter were also dressed appropriately. The decor is unique, but restaurants like to have a personality. It is a very small restaurant, about 7 or 8 tables.
We were greeted and shown to our table. The restaurant manager is at the center table against the wall, facing us, typing away on her laptop. That was the first indicator that this isn’t actually a Michelin Star restaurant.
We are the only customers.
The head chef is not the chef predominantly pictured on their website.
The head chef and 2 other chefs are in the very, very small kitchen. And the hero, by far, of this restaurant, the server, is also there. The server explains everything, including the wine list. The server is the best part of this restaurant and he does his very best to give us a great experience.
We agree to try everything offered. You can limit your experience to 3, 4, or all of the courses. There’s also an amuse-bouche. In hindsight we really, really wish we limited our selections.
The food is aesthetically beautiful, but mediocre to not good. Where things get really weird is that the head chef had 2 of his buddies show up, just after our 2nd course, and they proceeded to sit, and drink beers, at the center table in the middle of the very small restaurant, right next to us. We have the manager on her laptop staring at us, and the chef, not cooking, nor overseeing anything, drinking with his 2 buddies wearing jeans and a tshirt and jeans and a plaid button up, having a party right next to us.
Then another couple comes in and they know the 2 cooks in the kitchen. They are seated on the left side of the restaurant and they proceed to enter the kitchen area multiple times. Additionally the couple and the 2 cooks disappear out of the back of the restaurant for long stretches. Every now and again the couple would sit down at their table and get served a course, as would we. Then they would disappear again with the cooks. The chef is on his third round of beers at his Tuesday night party with the boys, and the manager is typing away on her laptop, facing us.
For this awesome experience at a (laughably) Michelin Star restaurant (they lost their Michelin Star status 2 years ago), how much would you pay? Nearly $700 CHF. For 3 people with 3 single by-the-glass wine pours.
The server gets top marks and very high praise, he’s wonderful. The food was not good. The manager, chef, cooks, atmosphere and everything else is an unmitigated dumpster fire of a mess. They got our money, and we received an experience, albeit one we relive with extreme regret and remorse. Don’t do it. Just do not go here. Do not eat here. Literally anywhere else would be an improvement, and better choice, than this establishment.
I have shared this review with the concierge team at Mandarin Oriental Palace in Lucerne so that they could prevent another family from having to waste a precious evening at this unfortunate establishment.
