Spaghettitraveller combines my two passions, eating and travelling. Therefore, for others who love to try local cuisines as they explore the world, I wanted to share the most famous dishes in Switzerland, but also give my honest opinion on them all.
I’ve therefore listed them in order of my favourite to the ones I was disappointed by. Obviously, this is all subjective, everyone has different taste, but I hope you find this useful.
As you will see from the dishes, there are strong influences from Germany, France and Italy within all of these dishes. I’ve also written an article on things to know before visiting Switzerland which you might find useful.
Grisons Vaischlas
We both really enjoyed this dish, served to us in Interlaken, in fact I’ll go as far as saying it was our favourite dish of the whole holiday. What is more surprising is that we both agreed on that, as we do have quite different taste, so hat’s off to the chef who served us.
On your plate you will find a rösti with crème fraîche on top, as well as Grisons ham, a fried egg and Grisons mountain cheese.
There were actually three options on the menu for Vaischlas, created based on the traditional Graubünden recipes. There was Grisons Vaischlas that I’ve described above, then rustic Vaischlas which doesn’t have crème fraîche and swaps the Grisons raw ham for bacon, either served as small cubes or streaky strips.
There was also a vegetarian option, which was rösti topped with tomatoes, cheese and a fried egg.
I’ll also mention that we didn’t see this all across Switzerland, so when you do spot it, make sure to order it!
So Grisons is the English and French name for Graubünden (the German name), which is an area in Eastern Switzerland. When travelling through here, you’ll often see both capuns and vaischlas on the menu.
The Grisons mountain cheese is made from cow’s milk and is aged for several months, while it also melts really well, hence why it’s perfect for a number of dishes.
Rating: 10/10
Raclette Rösti
The raclette is basically the cheese, but when you order a raclette rösti you’re getting a big dish (often ideal for sharing as a couple, we found out mistakenly as we ordered one each and they looked confused).
You get the crispy rösti covered with melted raclette cheese, a fried egg, then a few herbs for flavouring.
Raclette is actually a hard cows cheese, but it’s melted down, something you can sometimes watch happen right in front of you, but we were sat outside. These are now increasingly popular in London restaurants and market stands.
You can sometimes order raclette with other things other than rösti, such as there was another dish which had cured meats, boiled potatoes and vegetables.
Rating: 9.5/10
Zürcher Geschnetzeltes mit Rösti
If you’re flying into Zurich and then heading around the country, you should order this on day one, as I only found it in Zurich. The translation to the name is a ‘Zurich style sliced veal’, along with mushrooms in a creamy sauce.
I always feel a bit guilty eating veal, but I can’t deny it was really tasty. The mushrooms and creamy sauce with white wine, stock and shallots were also very nice. It reminded me of a dish I had growing up.
This was a good meal and I’m happy I tried it, it’s not a mindblowing, lifechanging dish, but certainly one I would say you should eat while in Switzerland.
Rating: 9/10
Fondue
This one was always going to make the list, it’s just a classic! You get a large pot filled with cheese (I know, I’ve already won you over). The reason this one doesn’t come higher is because of a few reasons.
Firstly, this is served with boiled potatoes and plain bread (we’re not talking freshly baked bread, but each place we had it, it was old stale bread). Personally, I felt this lacked a bit of creativity, why not try roasting the potatoes or cooking the potatoes with rosemary, I don’t know, I’m not a chef, but it felt very plain.
The other reason I haven’t given a higher score was that it does get quite sickly after a few minutes, it’s not something I could eat regularly. I dread to think of the calorie count, while it was also very expensive, so it was a nice treat near the start of the holiday, but getting it a second time was a mistake.
You’re given long forks to dip your potatoes and bread into the cheese, while I did like the fact that the cheese had a distinctive taste as apparently they also cooked it in wine.
Rating 8.5/10
Swiss Chocolate
Sure, this isn’t a ‘head out for a meal’ option, but we made sure to visit a good few chocolatiers, as well as going on a chocolate making class, while we even went to the chocolate museum, so we certainly got our fill!
Raquel is a complete chocaholic. I know it’s a sin to say it, but I’m not quite as addicted, but you could instantly tell how good this was, I had to keep nibbling throughout the holiday.
I would strongly recommend visiting one of the chocolatiers, while they also have tasters available, helping you to pick the right one. You should also be aware that this doesn’t work as a gift for someone back home, as they tend to only last a week, so you’re just going to have to eat it all while on holiday (what a shame).
Rating 8/10
Rösti
I’ve never seen a country more hooked to a potato dish than the Swiss are to rösti, it was served in about 60% of dishes on the menu, what if you don’t like it? Well, there isn’t much not to like, it’s basically a hash brown, is that really derogative?
It’s basically grated potato which is fried and flat, while it’s normally just a part of a dish rather than a main in itself, while it does soak up sauces quite nicely. You can often get it with cheese, bacon, a fried egg, tomatoes, ham or numerous other ingredients.
Rating: 7.5/10
Bratwurst with Rösti and Onion Gravy
Look, this is a tasty dish, who doesn’t love a good sausage, but it didn’t feel very unique. Raquel did love the fact that it’s not the sausage taste that we think of, as one was veal based and the other was pork.
It’s quite interesting that they often use veal and milk in the recipe, so the taste stands out against what we usually get in Britain. The onion sauce is also a nice accompaniment, while I do love a good rösti (albeit almost every dish seemed to include this).
The reason it doesn’t have a huge rating is partly because it didn’t taste distinctively different enough to a hundred other dishes I’ve had across Europe. You’ll find this commonly in the German speaking areas of Switzerland, but realistically you should see it in virtually every city in most restaurants.
Rating: 7/10
Apple Strudel in the Swiss Alps
This probably sounds like an odd one, as this is actually an Austrian dish, but we found it served in a fair few of the cafes when going up on a cable car to the top of mountains.
The place where we finally decided to order it was in Mürren, which we reached when visiting Grindelwald. We were sat in a cafe, breathtaking views of the mountains and with paragliders flying right past us, this was one of those ‘pinch me’ moments.
I grew up eating apple strudel with custard, so I was really excited to try it. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite as good as the childhood memory was. The warm pastry was filled with apple and spices, with a custard on top, while it was filling enough to eat on its own. It was a lot more savoury than I remembered it being.
Rating: 6.5/10
Italian Food in Switzerland
What a boring one to list right? Well, Switzerland bordered Italy and therefore there is a strong Italian influence. When you’re in these regions, you can expect to see a number of dishes like risotto or polenta, plus inevitably pizza pops up.
I loved the Swiss food, but at some point you might want to mix it up, therefore heading over to an Italian restaurant when nearer the border was actually a really nice change.
Rating: 6/10
Capuns
This one was quite disappointing, I mean it was alright, Raquel hated it but I thought it was fine, just not a dish I would rush off to order again.
You had a Spätzle (egg pasta) dough filled with Prättigau bacon cubes, chives, parsley and curly mint, wrapped in Swiss chard leaves and then cooked in a traditional milk bouillon, with Grisons mountain cheese.
But really to summarise, it tasted like a much worse version of the Grisons Vaischlas. There was also a vegetable capuns, which swapped out the bacon for carrots, savoy cabbage and leek. Then there was also a vegan one which had tofu dough filled with corn, carrots, courgette and celery, in a vegan plant-based sauce and garnished with veglette cheese.
These were a family recipe at the restaurant, ‘guarded for generations’, from the alpine village of Sedrun.
Rating: 5/10
Birchermüesli
Initially I thought I was looking out for a normal muesli, like we get in packs from the supermarket back home, but then someone explained that this is a muesli made up of apple juice, lemon juice, fruit, yogurt, oats and milk, so that definitely wasn’t something I had eaten.
Fortunately, on the last day I managed to find this, ticking off the last dish on my long culinary list, but it really wasn’t worth the wait. I personally hated it. I do love a good porridge, but this is served cold which made for an odd texture and taste profile.
There was grated apple in the ‘muesli’, which was alright, but this was a no from me.
Rating: 3/10
