Why Switzerland's Michelin Star restaurants are going vegetarian

A vegetarian dish at the restaurant Sens, on the shores of Lake Lucerne in village Vitznau, Switzerland.

The main thoroughfare in the little village of Madulain, in Switzerland’s Graubunden canton, is overlooked by gently rolling hills filled with tall larch trees that turn beautifully golden in fall. A winding road through them, carpeted with ochre and brown leaves, soon leads to wilderness, filled with all kinds of foliage. While most others will admire the stunning colours and the beautiful panoramic views, Chef Paola Casanova spots something entirely different. He stops the car on an incline and quickly bounds down a slope, making a beeline to brown patch near a shrub. Crouching down, he whips out a pocket knife and deftly hacks off a large bunch of mushrooms with golden brown heads and stark white stalks. They give off a fresh earthy and nutty smell. The chef is pleased. “Looks similar to pioppino,” he says by way of explanation.

A vegetarian salad at restaurant Silver, in Vals, Switzerland.

And so it goes on. A tuft of wild herbs here, another bunch of mushrooms there… for Chef Casanova, foraging on the hillsides and slopes below which is located his one-Michelin-Star restaurant Chesa Stuva Colani is a daily ritual. While fall and winter offer relatively slim pickings, spring and summer are rich — he collects 10 kinds of mushrooms and nearly 70 different kinds of herbs. And therein lies the underpinning of his restaurant.

A vegetarian presentation at Chesa Stuva Colani, Madulain, Switzerland.

He constitutes a breed of Michelin-Starred chefs in Switzerland who have returned to the basics, in search of the next big thing. There’s passion, innovation, creativity, originality, and brilliance, because with a vegetable there is nowhere to hide. And it’s not about gimmickry. Above all else, there is also a deep sense of sustainability, which has prompted these chefs to design elaborate nine- and 10-course vegetarian meals paired perfectly with wines and other beverages, including consommés and teas. Oftentimes it is quite difficult to describe each dish for the sheer artistry and sorcery.

Chef Paolo Casanova

This is in keeping with a brand new campaign that Switzerland has unveiled to push sustainability, called Swisstainable Veggie Day. While October 1 is the designated day, when it encourages everyone to go all vegetarian, it is part of a drive that encompasses larger issues of sustainability, global warming, climate change, and food accessibility. Some 1,200 establishments across the country have signed up, offering vegetarian-only menus, and this extends to even some popular fast-food chains.

But for Chef Casanova, it goes beyond the optics of a single day. “I use the ingredients that I find around and draw inspiration. When you work from passion, it is automatically expressed in the food,” he says, as he works economically and efficiently in the kitchen to produce magic, combining physics, chemistry, zeal and theatrics.

At Chesa Stuva Colani, Madulain, Switzerland.

About 130 km to the west of Madulain, in the hills of Surselva region of the same canton, Vals is a village known for its healing thermal waters and the two-Michelin-Starred 7132 Silver restaurant. This is the domain of Chef Mitja Birlo, where the restaurant overlooks rolling hills and snow-capped peaks in the distance. The sprawling restaurant is swish and cosy, but Chef Birlo prefers a more intimate setting, one where he likes to interact with the diners and chooses to let them into his sphere, his laboratory where he works, breaking down barriers and normalising the process. So, the three appetiser courses are served at a table located inside the kitchen and diners are free to walk around, while making sure not to get in the way of the chefs.

At the restaurant Sens, in Vitznau, Switzerland.

On the face of it, Chef Birlo’s ingredients appear very simple — beetroot, potato, kohlrabi, cabbage, celeriac, carrot and so on. But the wizardry that he creates with them is breathtaking. From foams and soups to delicate sheets and rolls, from pockets stuffed with surprises to morsels cloaked in smoke, nothing is what it seems. There’s flavour in every mouthful.

The meals might not be gimmicky but it also has much to do with mindfulness and immersion. Usually spread over three-four hours, they are meant to provide diners with not just a sumptuous experience but also an intimate peek into the process and the rich attributes of each ingredient. Such as that in the beautifully located Restaurant Sens on the shores of Lake Lucerne in village Vitznau. Overlooking the placid waters of the lake with rolling hills in the distance, and surrounded by lush greenery and herb gardens, the restaurant’s porch sits almost over the water, and it’s a location that’s hard to beat. In this setting, the two-Michelin-Starred restaurant helmed by Chef Jeroen Achtien makes generous use of fermented vegetables, as well as such unassuming ingredients as lentils, greens, mushrooms and others to concoct a sensory experience that seduces the palate.

Chef Jeroen Achtien

Each meal only enhances the notion that a vegetarian experience need not be only about lofty ideals. Clearly, it can also be a superlative event in its own right.