I travel to Switzerland on an occasional basis and have been to Appenzell twice. Both times we had lunch at the Saentis hotel/restaurant. Municipal parking is available immediately in front of the hotel. It's absolutely lovely, with pleasant service and the type of hearty food you'd expect from a restaurant in the Swiss mountains. Most, if not all, of the menu items appear to be authentic Swiss food (my friend is Swiss and can attest to that). Considering that Switzerland is a very expensive place to vacation, the menu prices aren't bad (about 15-25 Euros for a lunch platter). I can't remember what we had the first time, but the second time my friend had the Roesti platter and I had the Appenzeller Teller, which were Swiss-style roasted potatoes and a plate ("Teller") of Swiss dried meats ("Buendnerfleisch"), respectively. Buendnerfleisch takes some getting used to - it's air-cured, rather than smoked, so Americans may not take to it right away. The plate also included air-cured, uncooked, bacon, which is a shock to the American palate but quite good.
Most of the staff speaks English and they are very friendly. The menu is printed in German, French, and English, so even if your server doesn't speak English, you can just point to what you want.
The dialect in this area doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to the German you might have learned in high school but they appreciate it when you attempt to speak it with them. One amusing item on the menu was the bottled water - in most areas of Europe they refer to it as "with" or "without" gas (in German, "mit" or "oder"). In this Hotel, they refer to it as "Stilleswasser" (quiet water) or "Lauteswasser" (loud water). Very cute.
After (or before, depending on your schedule), take time to stroll the town and do some shopping. It's a lot of fun. There's a wonderful chocolate shop immediately across the Parkplatz. read more