South Tyrolean cuisine is typically Austrian Tyrolean with Mediterranean influences but today also Italian stereotyped specialties like pizza and pasta with Bolognese sauce are offered as local dishes in Tyrolean-style restaurants - however portions are big and flavor sometimes better than in other parts of Italy. Chives here is almost everywhere.
Typical South Tyrolean products include Speck a kind of smoked ham, a lot of sorts of bread, strudel, apples and a lot of pastries. During Christmas typical cakes are Zelten and Christstollen.
The national dish are Knödel, because they are bread balls with speck or other ingredients - so it was a complete meal in the past. There are also sweet knödels which are made with apricots Marillenknödel, with plum Zwetschgenknödel, with chestnuts Kastanienknödel.
Other known entries include specialties such as Herrengröstl potatoes, beef, onions, speck, Kaiserschmarrn omelette with raisin and sugar, Gulaschsuppe typical dish in all Central Europe, Schlutzkrapfen a kind of dumpling with spinach or other ingredients, Spätzle a kind of spinach dumpling, pork roast or sausages with sauerkrauts.
In pubs and cafés snacks are offered - among them there is a local invention called Bauerntoast farmer's toast, which is toasted local rye-bread stuffed with speck and cheese sometimes also with salami or small tomatoes and dished with ketchup and mayonnaise.
Bread is very important and there are a lot of local bakery chains. In the Bolzano area there are e.g. Lemayr, Eisenstecken, Franziskaner, Hackhofer. In bakeries it is possible to buy cheap sandwiches and pastries. Bakeries operate also in supermarkets - here prices are even lower.
Restaurants in small places close very early around 9:00pm, while in major centers and tourist areas the kitchen closes around 10:00/11:00pm.
restaurants
In Bolzano and major towns there are a lot of different kind of restaurants including ethnic specialties. In the most conservative parts of South Tyrol the only choice is the Gasthof, the typical Austrian-style restaurant with local dishes. The most traditional are quite cheap but there are some Gasthof which was transformed into a luxury local restaurant. A meal could cost between EUR 8/12. Menus are written in German and Italian, sometimes also in English. In all restaurant in South Tyrol menus are at least bilingual, while in the more expensive restaurants menus are normally also written in English and in some places also in Dutch. It's common to split up the bill in a group, except in very expensive restaurants.
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is not common but many restaurants offer dishes which doesn't contain meat. A lot of hotels and restaurants offer a vegetarian menu for their guests but only in Bolzano there is more choice with restaurants for vegetarian only.
imbiss
'Imbiss' means fast food, and is what you will see on the sign of stands that sell primarily sausage Wurst and fries Pommes Frites. Sausages will include Bratwurst, which is fried and usually a boiled pork sausage. In South Tyrol is very popular the variant known as Currywurst: sausage chopped up and covered in spiced ketchup, dusted with curry powder. Imbisse are located in major centres and on the roads. They are cheap. Beer and often harder liquor are available in most. 'Döner Kebab' is lamb or chicken with Turkish origins stuffed into bread, similar to Greek Gyros and Arab Schawarma. In Bolzano it's very popular and was imported from Austria and Germany by Montenegrin immigrants years ago - Bolzano is maybe the first city in Italy where a kebab stand was opened. Currently there are a dozen of kebab stands in the capital. In other towns kebab is more difficult to be found. McDonald's has a location only in Bolzano.