Since the pension we chose to stay didn't have an in-house restaurant, we ventured in to the nearby…read moretown of Tschagguns for our early dinner. Our friendly hostess at the pension recommended for us to try this restaurant without any hesitation, so we felt pretty good about it--and we were not disappointed. We didn't have a reservation, but since it was early enough our server gave us a table in the main dining room with an understanding that we would be finished by 19:00. It gave us more than 90 minutes, so it was plenty of time to do so (even with a slow service which it wasn't). As we understood it, things will pick up after 19:00 especially live music by the owner's family band will start at 21:00 on Thursday night.
This definitely is a solid traditional Austrian restaurant. Locals meet here to enjoy home-style food in cozy dining rooms--typical dishes from their homeland. It's located in the middle of the village--and Gasthof Löwen has been in the center of village life for 500 years. Can you imagine your neighborhood diner operating for 500 years?? Food and service were very good. Our two young male servers took care of us in turn. My Wiener schnitzel (from pork) was very tender and flavorful, it was deep-fried as usual, but I did not detect any greasiness at all (and I have unfortunately eaten some very greasy schnitzels). My wife opted for Montafoner Bauernbratwurst ("mountain famer" veal sausage) with potato salad. She really enjoyed her salad, but she wasn't too keen on her veal sausage. I think she's so used to eating pork sausages in Germany, she didn't care for the flavor of veal one. I thought it tasted just fine--I'm more of an in-discriminant meat eater, though.
We enjoyed our time at this fine restaurant. We wished we'd stayed for the live music by the family band playing typical Tyrolean music, it would've been too late into the evening for the early departure on the following day for us.
