Restaurants in Wengen or Murren-Early May

We had a rental but still ate out for fun, and Edelweiss restaurant was excellent. (Can you do lunch or dinner with the half board so you can keep dinner options open?) We also dined at Alpenruh and it was also quite good.
The only way I know to determine opening is to check with each place, and there are not that many so it would not take long. There is a well regarded Chinese place in Murren that was unfortunately closed when I was there (October).

Our hotel Edelweiss in Wengen let us tell them each morning if we wanted half-board for that day. It was good and the menu was different each night. We also enjoyed dinner at the Hotel Bären’s restaurant.

In Mürren our best meals were lunches at the Edelweiss and at the Stäger Stubli restaurant.

Concur with Hotel Eidelweiss (Murren), just spent 6 nites, had 4 meals, all were very good and great staff. Did not do the half board, ordered from menu, actually spent less money as do not need/care for a four course meal these days. Dinner one night at Stagerstubli also quite good - on a crowded family nite! Also dinner at Hotel Drei Berge one night was good. Ate early, no one in the place but food was quite good. They have an entirely different staff from when we stayed there in August.

Thanks for the input-great tips! Good idea to ask about the daily half board decision option-I will inquire at all the candidate hotels about that.

So far, these Murren restaurants appear to be open starting on 10 May: Hotel Drei Berge (Swiss Brasserie), De Grotte (Hotel Blumenthal), Bistro Birg (breakfast & lunch), Hotel Alpenruh (also have rooms for our dates, not sure why I didn't look at them before!), Plz Gloria (breakfast & lunch-gotta go here at least once to indulge my inner James Bond), Hotel Edelweiss Superior (BLD), Hotel Jungfrau (Malaysian Restaurant, Restaurant Gruebi TBD), Eiger Guesthouse (no opening dates on the restaurant page, but they have rooms available for our dates so are probably open for dining). Tham (valedelphia, is this the place you mentioned?), Hotel Alpina, Murren Palace and Hotel Eiger are either closed or have no opening date on their web site. So for dinner, at a minimum we could choose from Edelweiss, Drei Berge, Jungfrau and the Eiger Guesthouse-not too bad. I tried to find places in Gimmelwald but had no success with that, so if anyone has dining info for Gimmelwald, please post that. FWIW, we also don't typically order 4 course meals, which has been one of my hesitations with regrd to half board, so the ability to choose on the fly would be a good option if that is available.

Working on Wengen, will post my findings shortly.

At first glance, there are quite a few options for Wengen, which makes sense because of the higher number of hotels that are also showing availability. Some also open on the weekend of 9 May, but several others are open beginning late April or early May. Without doing an exhaustive search, it seems more or less similar to Murren, ie, some hotels and restaurants are not open until late May or June, but still enough that are open to provide a bit of variety. Next task is to find out how flexible each hotel is with their half board plans.

The Chinese restaurant in Murren is called Tham and it’s very good. Couldn’t find a list of dates it’s open though.

We stayed in the Maya Caprice in Wengen in the first week of October. There wasn't a half board option then, only breakfast. During breakfast though, they brought around the menu for that evening and you could book dinner if you like the option. It was a set price three course meal.

We booked it on day two and it was by far the best food of our trip, not just in Wengen, but in Switzerland and Lake Como. We went back on our last evening as well and it was just as good.

Another great restaurant in Wengen was Da Sina's, not quite as fancy but reasonably priced (for Switzerland) and with good food and a great atmosphere. We ate there twice too.

We also ate at the Hotel Baren, which gets a lot of good reviews, but we didn't find the meal particularly great. Not bad, but Maya Caprice was far better.

We also ate at a very average Indian restaurant and another hotel restaurant that I have forgotten, which tells you it too was just average.

The hostel in Gimmelwald will be open. They serve very good wood fired pizza. Unsure about the Pension, I can't remember when they open back up for the season but if they are open, they require reservation for fixed menu dinner. You will also find restaurants open down in Lauterbrunnen.

Thanks all, very helpful-clearly we will not starve, and we are probably okay without a half board plan (which BTW the Edelweiss told me they do not offer in the summer).