I had to stay a few nights in Salzburg for business. Normally I stayed at the Kempinski (IC) Berchtesgarden but this time I needed a hotel at the city. I decided to book the Sacher which is a historic hotel, my parents had a good stay in the 90s. It´s also a depandance of the hotel in Vienna but has as Österreichischer Hof also a rich history.

We booked a Junior Suite with city view which was 465,00 € per night under a 4 for 3 rate with Virtuoso ameneties.  Ameneties were in particular a 82,00 € credit.

Check In

We arrived by car and first I didn´t find a place to stop my car. There was no doorman outside and only after I did a round I decided to drive on the walkway. Another option is to stay right on the street and to block one lane of the road.

From outside we could see constuction work is going on.

Many rooms face this road, judge yourself if it´s a good location. From the river Salzach the hotel looks much better:

When we entered the lobby we were greeted very friendly and checked in fast. A doorman tooked our car key and our laguage.

The lobby is classical with a nice staircase, a lot of marble and fresh flowers.

Bar

At the hotel major renovations are ongoing, so they remodel some rooms and the Salzach Grill. Over the day (beginning at 7 in the morning) there were loud constuction noises which wasn´t too great.

Room

We were told we got  a Junior Suite with view (not sure if it was an upgrade) and were escorted to it. The rooms seemed to be relatively newly renovated and done nicely. The furniture was high quality and many mirrors made it look bigger. With this point we reached our problem, the "suite" was small. They claim it hat 35 to 40 sqm which seems to be correct. While it looks nice it´s small and normally for me unacceptable. Nevertheless I wasn´t ready to pay 600 € more per night.

The view from the small balcony was nice

While the room was tiny the bathroom was good sized with a shower as big as the tub, separated toilet and a (not working) TV.

Special were the cosmetic, Sacher chocolate line:

I don´t know what others think but it´s not my cup of tea to smell after choclate during the day,,,,,,

Dining

One evening we had dinner at the Gourmetrestaurant Zirbelstube, a restaurant for "ausgesuchte Feinschmecker". Prices are high and the menu mainly consists of meat. The restaurant is rustic and smelled a little bit strange. I felt uneasy all the time, terrible room.

Surprisingly many guests came from outside. I say surprisingly as Salzburg offers some very nice options and Sacher is not one of them for me. Food was pretty good, but surely not gourmet and overpriced. Service was OK but sometimes a little confusing. We were ofered only a game stew which was for us of course completely uninteresting. Another table with English speaking guests were offered a dish with turbot. A German speaking guest was offered the same dish with "Forelle" (trout). So either they varied this dish from table to table or one offer was inacurate.

Location

The hotel is located at the Salzach just opposite the historic center which you can reach over a pedestrian bridge right in front of the hotel. It´s 5 to 10 minutes by foot to most major sights. It may not be as ideal as Blaue Gans or (the closed) Goldener Hirsch but still very good. If you have to visit Mirabell or something at the Neustadt it´s even better than the formentioned hotels.

Breakfast

The breakfast was a buffet with some limited options to order. Only sweet dish to order were pancakes which are not very Austrian. We asked but they had nothing else like Pallatschinken. One morning we had great pancakes, the other morgen they were terrible. At the buffet were items of more or less good quality. While for excample some salads were pretty good, scrambled eggs were mediocre as were the cheese selection. They also had the original Sacher cake (not my taste), original Sacher Gugelhupf and the original Sacher Tea. Everything is "original Sacher". While I understand it with the Sacher cake (they sell it at the Cafe at 7,10 € per piece) it´s pure marketing in all other cases. The "original" tea or choclate was nothing special. Service was so so.

Overall

Our stay was OK and Sacher is a nice hotel. Nevertheless it´s overpriced in my eyes and not as good as they think themself. I would propably return but only if I must stay in the city. I´m not enthusiastic