Hezelhof Hotel

We had a nice room and would stay again. The hotel gave us a voucher for a free drink, and the restaurant staff were lovely and welcoming. Reception staff were just as welcoming and very professional.

The best sleep of our trip, by far. My wife and I have very different preferences for mattress firmness, but we both noticed at breakfast how well we’d slept. I’d love to buy that bed. I’d happily stay more than one night just for the rest, and I’ve already recommended the hotel to friends. Dinkelsbühl is small enough that the exact location doesn’t matter much. We drove, so contact the hotel ahead of time to reserve one of its three parking spaces, about 50 metres away. The hotel has two sides. We stayed above the restaurant, Luis, in the side refurbished in mid-2013. The rooms were comfortable and well designed, among the best we had on our round-the-world trip. Luis also serves the complimentary breakfast. The staff were extremely helpful. I emailed beforehand about a parking spot, got a quick and friendly reply, and was shown to our room in person with everything explained. They made us feel welcome. The one exception was a restaurant staff member who was rude when I asked more than a couple of menu questions. The restaurant’s attached to the hotel, and that was the only letdown. Sleep quality: 5/5. It was so good I wanted to go back and downgrade the rest of my 40-plus reviews to 3/5 or less.

Really nice and very friendly, polite people. The room was modern and almost unbelievably clean. Breakfast was good, and there are lots of restaurants nearby. Definitely coming back.

The restaurant felt forced and out of place in Dinkelsbühl and in the building, even though I usually like modern, upbeat interiors. Over four weeks of eating around Bavarian cuisine, this was a negative outlier for food, beer, service, value, and atmosphere. I’d strongly recommend going anywhere else in town. There are plenty of restaurants, and to me they’re all better than Hezelhof by any measure. I’d give it zero stars if I could. The service started badly. It wasn’t busy, but the wait staff took their time bringing a menu while chatting among themselves in view. When the waitress finally came over, she was chewing something, which I thought was wrong. I ordered a beer and buffalo burger. The menu praised the buffalo meat, and I asked for it medium rare to enjoy good meat at its best. She said they typically cook it medium or more; after I asked her to check with the kitchen, she returned to say they only serve it well done. By then my beer had arrived. It was the only beer I had in Bavaria with the acidic taste of a stagnant beer line. I should have cancelled and gone elsewhere, but didn’t realize how bad the burger would be. It arrived later, completely flavorless. That wasn’t just because it was well done: it seemed to be a frozen patty, with the consistency, color, and flavor of the lowest-grade meat, nothing like the menu description. I couldn’t even be sure it was buffalo. The bun was stale, the bread was equally low grade, and the sauce brought to mind a cheap store-bought product. I declined dessert. It was priced as a premium meal, but everything about it seemed cheap and low quality.