| Location: | Hochsteinalm |
| Website: | http://www.hochsteinalm.at/ |
| Address: | Hochsteinalm 1, 4801 Traunkirchen |
| Status: | Open (last checked on 7 December 2025) |
| Eaten: | "Brettljausn," two ½ Most |
Today was my very first visit to Hochsteinalm, and it is a fantastic place. Easily reachable by foot in a couple of hours (slightly longer if you are as slow as I am), it is a perfect stopover place before proceeding downhill towards the Langbath lakes. Traunkirchen to Hochsteinalm, a snack there, a walk around the lakes and then back to Ebensee would make a perfect day hike, especially in late spring or mid-autumn. If you have no clue what I am taking about, then simply remember that Hochsteinalm is a very nicely decorated (and somewhat kitschy) farm/restaurant, with super-friendly service and plenty of different animals outside, including alpacas, tiny horses and miniature sheep, all of which you can feed if you want. You can even buy some nice and useless stuff there, including the farm’s own merch.
Only two things may spoil your experience a bit. The first one is Christmas music, which played all the time while I was sitting inside, in an infinite loop. I can handle Last Christmas a couple of times per season, but certainly not thrice per day (the first time today was at breakfast at my hotel). This is an easily avoidable problem, of course – simply do not hike to Hochsteinalm in December.
The second trouble is, unfortunately, the Brettljause. Hochsteinalm offers a number of freshly cooked dishes and, I think, updates its menu continuously. The Brettljause, however, was so dull that I was surprised one could come up with something like that having so many potentially great ingredients happily running outside. The Schweinsbraten, the salami, the sausage with cheese bits inside, the Speck and the cheese even looked boring and tasted likewise. My only hope was the small round slices of reddish sausage that resembled chorizo. Sadly, its appearance was misleading. Ultimately, most of the taste came from the strong horseradish and the bread, which due to some misjudged decision, contained Christmas-y spices.
Conclusion: remember to add Hochsteinalm to your hiking plans, but stay away from the cold cuts.