Hangar 7's Ikarus restaurant above the planes

Sporer Hausmischung, a local favourite

St Peter Stiftskeller has been in operation since the year 803

the view from the Museum of Modern Art's M32 restaurant

Eating Well On A Salzburg Post-tour

A post-ACTB tour to Salzburg revealed the appeal of one of Austria's most popular tourism destinations.  Once an independent country in the time when famous son Mozart was born, Salzburg today is a bustling little city and the capital of SalzburgerLand, with a calendar of events of a place many times its size.  Set in an attractive location on the Salzach River, Salzburg has been welcoming visitors for centuries.

One of the city's less famous attractions is its cuisine, though if everyone knew just how good the restaurants of Salzburg are, there would be even more tourists than those  who contributed to a surge of more than 11% in 2011.  Though there is an abundance of traditional restaurants serving traditional Austrian cuisine, the atmosphere at St Peter Stiftskeller restaurant is particularly appealing.  It should be.  St Peter is the oldest restaurant in Central Europe; it has been in existence for more than 1200 years and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Dinner concerts here are tourist favourites for their nostalgia

Despite how easy it would be to capitalise on history, not all of Salzburg's restaurants live in the past.  Many modern establishments offer innovative dishes to match—or surpass—the creations found in New York or Paris.  One of the most unusual venues is Hangar 7, located at Salzburg Airport, whose official name is WA Mozart Airport.  Forget all those bad airport restaurants lining the walls of the world's departure areas; Hangar 7 is, quite simply, a superb experience like no other.  Eating a great dinner on a mezzanine face to face with an airplane suspended from the ceiling has a way of etching itself into one's long-term memory.

For sights beyond the food, a local expert can be of great help in understanding Salzburg's long history—and no one knows the city better than Heidi Hochriesser.  A colourful character, Heidi knows absolutely everyone and breezes in and out of places no mere mortal would be able to access.  There is no better person than Heidi to show you Salzburg from an insider's perspective.