Dairy products - cheese,
milk, cream, butter and/or yoghurt -
find their way into most Swiss
dishes. All but a handful of places
offer
vegetarian set menus,
but veggies should be aware that
most restaurants default onto
standard meat-based dishes: fresh
salads may come layered with cold
meats. Co-operative-run diners, many
located in squats in the major
cities, offer budget vegetarian and
vegan meals as standard.
Burgers, pizza slices, kebabs and
falafels are universal snack
standbys. You'll also find various
different kinds of sausage ( Wurst
, saucisse , salsiccia
) served as chargrilled fast food;
the most popular are pork Bratwürste
. Cheese fondue - a pot of
fragrant wine-laced molten cheese
into which you dip cubes of bread or
potato - is the national dish. It's
usually priced as a two-person (or
more) deal, or as an all-you-can-eat
deal, dubbed à discrétion
or à gogo . Another
speciality is raclette ,
where piquant molten cheese is
spread on a plate and scooped up
with bread or potato. Lakeside
resorts nationwide offer fresh trout
and perch. A Swiss-German staple is Rösti
, grated potatoes fried to a
golden-brown hash and often topped
with cheese, chopped ham or a fried
egg. Älpler Magrone is
macaroni cheese with extra onion,
bacon, potatoes and cream. Käseschnitten
is toasted cheese. In and around
Bern, you'll find Bernerteller
or Bernerplatte , a hefty
pile of cold and hot meats with
sauerkraut; Zurich has Gschnetzlets
, diced veal in a creamy mushroom
sauce; Luzern has Chögalipaschtetli
, a large puff-pastry shell also
filled with creamy diced veal.
Ticinese eateries specialize in home
made gnocchi, risotto and polenta.
The line between a café
and a restaurant is blurred:
either can do you a meal, although
usually at set times (mostly
noon-2pm & 6-10pm), with only
snacks available in between. The key
to avoiding expense in these places
is to make lunch your main meal, and
always to plump for the dish of the
day ( Tagesmenu , Tagesteller
, Tageshit ; plat/assiette
du jour ; piatto del giorno
) - often substantial, quality nosh
for Sfr15 or less. The same meal in
the evening, or choosing à la
carte anytime, can cost double,
although beerhalls in the
German-speaking cities often serve
hearty inexpensive evening meals,
and pizza-pasta joints and simple
diners can fill your stomach for
Sfr15-20. Chain department stores in
town centres nationwide invariably
have surprisingly good self-service
diners attached, where
pick-and-choose meals can amount to
just Sfr13; Manora (aka Placette or
Inova) is usually best, followed by
Migros, EPA and Coop. Most of these
places let you pay Sfr6/10 for a
small/large plate, with no limit on
the quantity of fresh salad or hot
daily special you can pile onto it,
and some offer a twenty-percent
discount to students. Migros is also
the biggest chain of supermarkets
, while Aperto are small deli-style
outlets with long opening hours
located at main train stations.
Watch out for sinalco or alkohol-frei
restaurants, as well as the
widespread lack of smoking
restrictions.
