Hotel Hirschen

Rooted in Regionality

Schwarzenberg. A small village in the Bregenzerwald. Wooden facades, shingled roofs, flowers in front of the windows.

The Hirschen stands right in the heart of the village, next to the old fountain, across the church. Today, the Hirschen consists of three buildings: the main house with the restaurant and hotel rooms, a second building with additional guest rooms, and the newly built bathhouse, designed by the young local architecture duo NONA (@nona_architektinnen).

At the Hirschen, regionality runs deep. Almost everything comes from the surrounding area. Whenever possible, from small-scale producers. “Only through mutual support can we ensure that the knowledge and traditions rooted here are not lost,” says Pia as we sit down for dinner. Together with her brother Peter, she runs the Hirschen in the tenth generation.

Misos, Shoyus, Garums und Four Seasons

Jonathan runs the kitchen together with Raphaela.
They also started at the Hirschen around seven years ago and shaped the transformation of the kitchen. “We’re here in Schwarzenberg, in Vorarlberg. What we can source is limited. It depends on the seasons. If you want to think regionally and truly follow through, there’s no other way: you can’t avoid fermentation and preservation methods. Even in winter, we want to offer a wide variety of vegetables and fruits that are all from around here. That’s why we preserve and make so much ourselves.”

The kitchen team places great value on creating dishes where vegetables take center stage, on equal footing with fish or meat. “Many underestimate what it means to cook with vegetables. But it’s often more complex and more time-consuming,” says Pia over dinner. During the pandemic, Jonathan began to dive deeper into the world of fermentation. He asked himself: “Do I really need a fish sauce from Asia to be happy? Or can I make it here?”

Today, the fermentation cellar of the Hirschen holds rows of barrels filled with Miso, Shoyu, Garum, and house-made fish sauces.

Right next door: the ham cellar. Together with Dominik, their very first apprentice, Jonathan began experimenting with making ham. “We invited several butchers to ask whether it would even be possible to produce ham in these rooms. And as is often the case, the answer was: not possible,” he says, laughing. “We tried anyway.” Ham takes time. And trust.

In the early years, no one knew if the first piece would taste good. And before anyone knew for sure, the next one had already been started. “Today, seven years later, the recipe hasn’t changed for the first time. Learning by doing,” says Jonathan, handing us each a slice to taste.

P.S. A visit to the Hirschen offers a chance to immerse yourself in the world of fermentation. With a glass of wine in hand, you can sample various house-made Misos, Shoyus, Garums, and delicately sliced ham in the cellar below

Food, Art & Plates

When Pia and Peter took over the Hirschen from their father about seven years ago, they asked themselves a fundamental question: What is the Hirschen? And what does it want to become?

One thing is certain. The Hirschen is rooted in generations, shaped by craftsmanship, and deeply connected to the region.

“It’s like a family here,” says Niko as he brings us dessert Raphaela’s edible artworks, carefully composed on the plate. But art at the Hirschen isn’t limited to the dishes.
“Franz, our father, who ran the hotel before us, is a passionate art lover,” Pia explains. The curation is in the hands of Thomas, a close friend of the family. “Sometimes I come back on a Monday and the paintings are hanging somewhere completely different,” she says, laughing. “But that one over there, next to the wood-burning fireplace, he’s never moved that one.”

At Hirschen even some of the plates come from just around the corner. Mario (@feursteinceramics), a ceramicist from the neighboring village, designed them together with Jonathan and Raphaela, the two head chefs, for the Hirschen. He is currently experimenting with local clay, combined with ash from the wood-fired oven, a byproduct of firing the ceramics. The idea: plates made from the very same soil as the ingredients they hold. Ingredients grown in the region, served on the earth they came from.

© August 2025 - Text: Céline Müller, Images: Alina Birjuk