Switzerland?

Hey everyone. I am going to be in Switzerland with my girlfriend for 10 days at the end of the month. Mainly in the Basel area, including Alsace and Germany across the Swiss border, but we're also going to Luzern and we might take a trip out to Berlin as well. Any specific foodie destinations, recommendations or other advice for our trip? Thanks!

MR

brie de meaux mit truffe. find this cheese. we used to just make it when i worked there but it's also sold in the large grocery/cheese shops often found in dept store basements. basically a wheel of brie split along the circumference w/truffles slathered throughout the center. then you place it back together like an oreo cookie. you won't be sorry... and servelot sausage w/hot mustard.

I've been to Switzerland about five times, although I don't think I've spent a long time in any of the areas you're going to. (My Dad's family is from the French border near the Jura Mountains.) Although I've found Zurich to be nice to visit and have interesting architecture/medieval streets, I don't think the attraction of Switzerland is its cities. Therefore, I usually get the hell out of the city and into the country. There, a lot of people spend time hiking, rock climbing, boating, etc. One year I hiked from village to village in the Ticino region. Another, I biked around Lake Brienz in Interlaken. Foodwise, I think the quintissential Swiss experience is very much on par with its policy of neutrality. While you're outside the cities, you don't remember having a transcendant meal anywhere, but you certainly don't remember having a bad one, either. Also, because you're in various villages, your meal choices are much more limited. But I found that I was usually safe walking into almost any restaurant off the street. My best Swiss food memories are ingredients-based: creamy ice cream, excellent house-made cured meats and cheeses at the grottoes in Ticino, wood-fired pizzas in Ticino, and fresh porcinis when they were in season. My recollection is that although every meal was solid, I couldn't distinguish one restaurant from the other. Sorry I couldn't be more help in recommending specific restaurants!

Probably not precisely what you're looking for, but if you have a chance to taste pizzocheri, grab it! It's a dish I first tasted in a small restaurant in a tiny town down the road from Davos many years ago. I still remember it vividly: the dish is buckwheat noodles with cabbage and fontina cheese and, while that may not sound particularly enticing, it is simply out of this world. You can find a recipe, superb photos, and a discussion here, a wonderful cooking/food blog by a Swiss gentleman. Have fun!

Gypsy Boy wrote:Probably not precisely what you're looking for, but if you have a chance to taste pizzocheri, grab it! It's a dish I first tasted in a small restaurant in a tiny town down the road from Davos many years ago. I still remember it vividly: the dish is buckwheat noodles with cabbage and fontina cheese and, while that may not sound particularly enticing, it is simply out of this world. You can find a recipe, superb photos, and a discussion here, a wonderful cooking/food blog by a Swiss gentleman. Have fun!

Ah, yes - pizzocheri -- I forgot about that one. I had that at the superb Swiss-Italian restaurant attached to this hotel in Airolo. It was pretty odd to have such a fantastic restaurant attached to a three-star hotel, especially given that Airolo, the "gateway to Ticino," is a pretty remote place and little visited. This is what I mean - standout Swiss restaurants can be very randomly scattered around, therefore, what I mostly recall are specific dishes or ingredients that I really loved, rather than the actual restaurants themselves.

N.B. Gypsy Boy- Thanks for posting about that blog. It is fantastic. I love his dry as a bone humor on making flour: "4 minutes before, I thought home-milling was for survivalists and food fakirs, but when I saw the beautiful fresh flour come out of the mill, I was hooked."

I can't give you specific recomendations for resturaounts in basel, but what you want to have is Raclette - basically they bring a chunk of cheese in a special appliance to your table that melts the end of the cheese, and you scrape it off and eat it on a piece of cheese. this is more common in that part of Switzerland. a meal would be some bread and 2 or 3 types of hot cheese, and a plate of small boiled potatos to dip the cheese, and maybe a plate of air dried beef.

in switzerland in general, cheese is a good way to go - fondues and variations on fondues. also game can be very good. If you decide to go to Zurich let me know, I can scrape up a couple of specific resteraunt recomendations for you.

if you get to Zurich, go to the central train station and then walk down banhof strasse to the lake. there is a very nice cafe called Sprungli, which is very old school - the waitresses wear startched uniforms and the cakes and cookies are fantastic. in the station there is also a farmers market on saturday morning, with a wide variety of cheese and preserved meats, as well as sweets and honies.



Alsace has some great foods - it is a very distinct cuisine from the rest of french and german. one of the specialities is a platter of meats on top of sourkraut, there are also a variety of quishe type pies that are excellent.

in terms of travel - taking the train from switzerland to milan is spectacular - you go through the swiss mountains. but if you are set on going north, you can get a train to Berlin, too. the night train is a very comfortable way to travel, I have done it many times. you can actually get a very good meal on the train, if you travel first class (you need to pay for the meal seperatly, you eat in the dinning car).

in Berlin, there are a huge range of food options. I'd suggest cafe Einstine (which is both a small resteraunt chain and a cafe chain) on unter-den -linten in the east side. very good traditional austrian food. what germans would consider comfort food. also, get a donner - which is like a gyro, but it is real german street food, you can get very good ones around the zoo train station. Kant str. has a lot of the ethnic restraunts in berlin, there is a great ethnic population in berlin going back decades, and german chinese or turhish food will be different from anything that you have ever had.

aside from the food, berlin has some of the best art in the world, see the pergoman museum and the egypt museum.

I'm going to be in Zurich next week. Are there any specific restaurant recs that you can think of?

The Servelot at Vorder Sternan was the embodiment of sausage; thick, crisp and succulent porky goodness coupled with the hottest mustard I've ever encountered. It literally took my breath away. It's @ the main sq/tram stop across from the Opera House in the old city.

JermAngela wrote:I'm going to be in Zurich next week. Are there any specific restaurant recs that you can think of?

One of my favorite experiences in Zurcih was at die Giesserei. The food was all locally influnced and the setting is in an old factory. Not a place you'd normally find tourists. Check out the web site to get the feel of it. http://www.diegiesserei.ch/raum-giesserei-classic.html


Another place we enjoyed was La Salle. Much more upscale, but great food and another setting unlike anything stateside.

here are a few specifics

Raclett-Stube - for Raclett, a type of fondue. in the old city
Zähringerstrasse 16
8001 Zürich
Tel. (0)44 251 41 30

Restaurant Walliserkeller - more fondue
Zähringerstrasse 21
8001 Zürich
Tel. (0)44 269 44 88
Fax (0)44 269 44 45
restaurant@walliser-keller.ch
www.walliser-keller.ch/

Sprungli (cafe and pastries)
Bahnhofstrasse 21, Zürich, CH 8001

Zunfthaus zur Schmiden - slightly nicer place, also in the old city
Marktgasse 20, Zürich, CH 8001


there are several movenpicks also in zurich, not bad for a chain.

enjoy

In Zurich, I enjoyed a nice view along with a nice glass of wine at the Jules Verne bar, it has a nice panoramic view.
One of my favorite swiss dishes asides from raclette and fondue is Rosti. I had several good versions of it but my favorite was with mushrooms and bacon. I also never had a bad almond croissant anywhere in my 4 months of living there and I still crave them.
Enjoy, its a great country to travel in. The buses and trains are incredibly punctual and the whole country is ridiculously clean. Looking out the window on a train ride to Gruyere, I saw a guy washing his washing machine outside on his patio.
LO

Thanks for the help!!
I will definitely check them out. I have a reso for the blind kuh, so I will also report back on that! thanks!

Planning trip to Geneva and intend to focus heavily on cheese. The city's location, right above Haute Savoie and right next to Franche Comte, make Geneva a good jumping off point for sampling French and Swiss cheeses. I'm particularly intrigued by trying French and Swiss versions of same varieties (Vacherin, Gruyere, maybe Raclette and a few others).

Though I have no intention of doing so, of course, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried (or has second-hand knowledge of) bringing home raw milk cheese aged less than 60 days.