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Room type: Deluxe Junior Suite with Jungfrau view

Setting: Victoria-Jungfrau is one of two 5-Star hotels in Interlaken. It’s a grande dame type of place, spread over two historic turn of the century buildings, linked together by a modern lobby. It is located next to the Höhenmatte, a green meadow where paragliders start and land, and faces the Jungfrau mountain in the distance. At 212 rooms it is quite large. Public areas are grand, especially the Brasserie restaurant with historic painted ceilings. The modern lobby in a late 1980s style clashes a bit, but has the potential to become a classic over time.
Interlaken itself is not particularly interesting. It is a medium-sized tourist town at the foot of the Bernese Oberland mountains. As such, you will find many souvenir shops, plenty of low-to-mid-range restaurants catering to tour groups, and even a few ugly 1960s concrete box type of hotel buildings. For a true mountain experience, you need to stay in one of the mountain villages higher up (such as Wengen or Grindelwald). However, Interlaken is more convenient if you also want to explore the wider area. We were happy with our choice of location.

Room: Our Junior Suite was very nice. It felt larger than the 40 sqm indicated in the room description, had a nice wood floor (prefer that over carpets), traditional-style furniture, a small dressing room, a large bathroom with separate shower and two sinks, and two small balconies facing the Jungfrau. Everything in perfect condition. There are some pictures floating around on Tripadvisor showing very old-style bathrooms. Not sure if these are still around, but our room felt fresh.
In terms of room type, I would recommend to book the Jungfrau view over the view out of the back of the hotel (Harder view), but the view out of the back side is bearable. Deluxe Junior Suites seem to have either wood floors or carpeting, so be sure to request what you prefer. I would not book the Bel Air suites, unless you are a true spa enthusiast – they are basically located inside the spa, in a modern annex.

Food: There are multiple restaurants on site, and given that we found the other options in Interlaken not especially attractive, we had dinner in the hotel four times.
La Terrasse is an upscale restaurant with white-glove service, recently renovated. Excellent wine list with ample choice also of half bottles, magnums, wines by the glass. The menu features classic cuisine, prepared in a traditional way. Some dishes feel a bit stuck in another age (prawn cocktail? Coq au vin? Peach melba?), but quality of ingredients and preparation is very high.
Quaranta-Uno is an Italian restaurant, 13 points Gault-Millau. The setting is somewhat strange (in the back of the hotel, without natural light, with a window facing the indoor tennis courts, which they later closed though). Quality of food is very good though. There is a small buffet-style selection of antipasti. The menu features carefully updated Italian classics (e.g., beef carpaccio, grilled sea bass).
Finally, there is the Victoria Terrasse, a casual option. Room service has the same menu and comes from the same kitchen, and was actually excellent. We have experienced many times that room service is not up to par in otherwise great hotels – not the case here. Can absolutely recommend the fillet of beef from the Emmental region, high quality meat expertly prepared.
Children are treated very well in the restaurants. They get a small bag with pens and stickers at the beginning of the meal to keep them occupied. My daughter was even allowed into the kitchen to help the patissier prepare her own dessert.
Overall, the hotel could be just a tad more creative in their dining offerings – having a diverse set of international guests as well as many regulars, it seems like they want to err on the side of caution and keep everything very traditional. As described above, the quality is great, so that’s not the issue.
Breakfast is a large buffet with an ample choice of cheese, meet, fruit, yoghurts, hot dishes. Egg dishes are prepared freshly on request. There is a special children’s section with smoothies etc.

Service: Very good throughout. Efficient housekeeping with turn-down done at the right time. Attentive service in the restaurants and at breakfast. Efficient check-in/check-out. GM very present. Only small hiccup – they made us wait 20+ minutes for our car on check-out, left a bad last impression.

Pool/Spa: There is large indoor pool with two jacuzzis, a small outdoor pool, sauna, treatment rooms etc. This is actually a big plus. After a day spent exploring the mountains, it was nice to return in the late afternoon and relax.

Overall: Very good stay. We were a bit skeptical before given a few mixed reviews, but we didn’t encounter any issues. The hard product is excellent, and service was faultless, too.