The Magic of Salzburg
This summer the glorious Austrian city's annual festival honors Mozart, its native son.
By Charles Michener
Most festivalgoers prefer to stay in the thick of things, enjoying the buzz of passionately voiced opinions about a beloved artist's miraculous musicality or an avant-garde director's shocking approach to a favorite opera. After midnight in the Restaurant Triangel, where many of the performers repair to let off steam, you may hear (as I once did) a cheeky young soprano demonstrate how, just a few hours earlier, a rival had sung excruciatingly off-key.
The telephone numbers listed below should be preceded by 011-43 when dialed from the United States.
WHERE TO STAY Salzburg abounds with good hotels of every class. During the festival, the center of action is the Hotel Goldener Hirsch, a luxuriously rustic inn opposite the main festival complex, whose restaurant attracts the crème de la crème of the postopera crowd (37 Getreidegasse; 662-80840). Just across the river is the Hotel Sacher Salzburg, the grandest establishment in town, with richly appointed rooms and great views up and down the Salzach (5–7 Schwartzstrasse; 662-88977; www.sacher.com ) . The handsome, contemporary Sheraton Salzburg Hotel has a lovely setting at the edge of the Mirabell Gardens (4 Auerspergstrasse; 662-889-990) . The Hotel Rosenvilla is an exceptionally well-furnished B&B with a charming garden (4 Höfelgasse; 662-621-765; www.rosenvilla.sbg.at).
My favorite hotel is the small, family-run Hotel Kobenzl, on the Gaisberg, one of the city's two "house mountains," a twenty-minute taxi ride from the center of town. From the outside, the Kobenzl looks like a typical Austrian chalet: heavy-timbered roof, green shutters and window boxes dripping with pelargoniums. Inside are five-star accommodations with comfortable rooms done in the traditional Hapsburg style, a fully equipped spa with an indoor swimming pool, and a panoramic view of the other house mountain—the Untersberg—across the valley. During July and August, when one can feel addled by the old town's oppressive heat, I'm grateful for the Kobenzl's mountain air and adjoining woodlands, in which an early-morning walk, alone with the birds, is a perfect prelude to great music (11 Am Gaisberg; 662-641-510; kobenzl.at ).
WHERE TO EAT Cuisine in Salzburg runs from hearty-simple to neue Küche (new cuisine), a lighter take on the usual heavy specialties of Austrian cooking. An excellent purveyor of the former category is the Stiftskeller St. Peter (662-846-600), whose vaulted and paneled quarters date from the 9th century. Locals like to say that this is where Faust had the misfortune to run into Mephistopheles.
The best restaurants serving the neue Küche are bucolically situated just outside the town center. The Schwaitlalm, a four-star inn in the tiny suburb of Elsbethen, has a superb kitchen that turns out local favorites with a delicate Mediterranean accent (662-625-927). The highly acclaimed Pfefferschiff, in the northern suburb of Hallwang, is a rectory–turned–gastronomic destination where the dishes change seasonally, the chef's imagination is fertile (look for the monkfish in an olive crust), and the silverware is by Paloma Picasso (662-661-242).
A little farther out, near the famous resort of Fuschl, is the roadside restaurant Brunnwirt, which dates from the 15th century (664-280-7192). On a recent visit, I rang, the door was opened by a smiling waiter, and I was ushered into a garden, where a dozen or so people were scattered at tables overlooking Lake Fuschl. A young couple was in charge of the lunch—the husband in the kitchen, his wife doing the service. What the Brunnwirt did with fish from the lake, wild mushrooms from the hills and game from the forest demonstrated a perfect harmony between man and nature that could only be called Mozartean.
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