We will be staying in the Berner Oberland Region for 5 nights. Do we need to make dinner reservations or are most of the restaurants OK for walk ins? We'll dine mainly in the Lauterbrunnen/Murren/Gimmelwald area as our home base is Pension Gimmelwald. We do have dinner reservations for one night at Pension. I believe my initial research showed that many restaurants DO NOT take reservations (one said frequent 'no shows' are the reason why), but I am second guessing myself as we are getting closer to our trip (early September). Any advice/feedback would be appreciated. If you have a favorite restaurant to recommend, it would be appreciated. I do use RS guidebook advice, but would welcome others!
Posted by
West Michigan
818 posts
Probably depends on what time of year, whether restaurants are crowded or not. I'd say to ask at your pension when you arrive. We never bother to get reservations, but we don't travel to Europe in the summer season.
Posted by
213 posts
I've been to the region a couple of times and, as long as you are willing to eat outside of European peak dining hours (later than our N. American dinnertime), finding a table without a reservation was never a problem for us. We were a party of 5 adults and would generally eat in the 5pm hour. We kept an eye out for what looked good to us that day and then weren't constrained on time due to having a reservation. We also adored exploring the grocery stores and tried new and delicious items almost daily.
Posted by
29 posts
Personally, I cannot imagine making reservations, unless it's halfboard. We like more flexibility.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
12336 posts
In contrast, we always make reservations, especially on Friday or Saturday. We travel to the area annually and stay several weeks. In early years, we have been turned away from Restaurant Weidstübli at Camping Jungfrau as well as at the Hotel Oberland, which frequently has a “fully booked” sign outside. I have seen many people turned away at Maya Caprice in Wengen.
It also shows a sign of respect, I think, to make a reservation and SHOW UP or call to cancel. At some restaurants you get a better table in a nice area of the restaurant. This happened to us at Luna Piccante in Wilderswil.
Posted by
The Heartland USA
9775 posts
If we are out during the day and see a place at which we'd like to have dinner, we'll go in and make a reservation for later.