By Franz Scheurer
The Swiss are one of the few nations on this Earth that love their own kitsch. They don’t just manufacture porcelain, butter moulds, cheese boards and milk containers with Edelweiss and cow motifs for the tourists, they buy it and use it themselves. A Swiss that doesn’t love Swiss chocolate above all others, think Swiss watches are the best, Swiss cuckoo clocks the quaintest, Swiss cheese the world leader and have a tear in his eye at the sound of an alphorn or yodelling, simply doesn’t exist.
The Swiss grow up on a diet of fat, dairy and meat with a few vegetables and salads thrown in to please mother. Everything has cream in it. Cheese is eaten at least three times a day. Potato, polenta and pasta are the main carbohydrates and they can be improved dramatically by the addition of lots of cream and cheese. Potatoes are generally fried in pork fat and even coffee is always drunk with a cream enriched milk. (28% fat) The Swiss also have a healthy appetite. Portion control (nouvelle cuisine) never caught on in the land of Wilhelm Tell and apples are better shot than eaten. Even desserts are huge and are often eaten at afternoon teatime to insure survival until dinnertime. The Swiss still have a two hour lunch break to ensure that they have the time to go home, cook and eat a proper meal, which most of them still do. Swiss wines, fresh, light and effervescent whites and earthy light reds, although produced in sizeable quantities, are just about never exported as the Swiss drink them all themselves.
This is the world you step into when you walk through the door of the Eiger Swiss Restaurant. On busy Parramatta road, this is an oasis of Swissdom so authentic with its red checks everywhere, an alphorn hanging from the ceiling, wooden ornaments galore that it acts like a magnet to the Sydney Swiss. This is a restaurant for the Swiss. Here they can play ‘Jass’ (a card game), speak in their native tongues about important world events like the artificial insemination of Freiburger cows, and eat their beloved Swiss food. The Swiss club meets here and you are likely to encounter a whole gaggle of Swiss yodellers almost any night, who will suddenly break into song, totally unprovoked to the delight of the other Swiss in the room, who also, of course, know all the words to the songs.
The food, however, is the main reason why Eiger is worth visiting. Alain and Ruth have single-handedly run this restaurant for more than a decade and they make the best ‘Rösti’ (Swiss hash-browns) and ‘Spätzle’ (tiny Swiss dumplings) in town. The Cheese Fondue, Neuchâtel style, is fantastic, as is the Chocolate Fondue. The quality of the cold cuts is impeccable and the sausages authentic and perfectly cooked. They use Swiss products or Swiss suppliers for most of their dishes and it shows. Eat the real Swiss food like ‘Bratwurst mit Rösti’, (Fried Swiss pork sausage with potato hash-browns), ‘Zürcher Geschnetzeltes mit Butter Nüdeli’ (sliced veal cooked in a delicate white wine cream sauce with buttered ‘linguine’ style pasta) or a plate of ‘Spätzle mit Stierenaug’ (Tiny Swiss dumplings, fried in butter with a fried egg on top) and leave the deep-fried Camembert for the tourists. Make sure you check the blackboard for daily specials and ask Alain about his fabulous homemade cakes.
The restaurant is not licensed and encourages BYO. A fresh young white, like an Arneis and a medium bodied red wine, try a Gamay, will work just fine and don’t forget to bring along a ‘Chrütter’, ‘Bäzi’, ‘Kirsch’ or other Swiss Schnaps to have with coffee at the end of the meal. Ruth does most of the cooking and excels and Alain’s service is fast, loud and opinionated. I suggest that female guests might chose not to wear a low-cut top; it distracts Alain far too much. Value for money is fantastic.
Score: 6/10
For more information or bookings
Eiger Swiss Restaurant
552 Parramatta Road
Petersham NSW 2049
Tel.: 02 9564 1160