O'Restaurant in Nyon, all about terraces, water and fish

NYON, SWITZERLAND – Nyon has just become endowed with a three-in-one lakeside food spot that promises to be an excellent addition to the growing town’s quality food options. One of my favourite restaurants from the outside (I never ate there, oddly enough) has long been the bright orange and blue Cafe Latino at the east end of the city centre, near the dock.

Owners Santiago Wegmann and Benoit Rol have renovated the building, and it’s now home to three eateries run by the company O’Les Terrasses du Lac.

The pair two years ago renovated and recaptured Lausanne’s love affair with the old Pizza Mario on the rue du Bourg in Lausanne.

The top floor is now Le Deck, a 90m2 lounge bar with a wonderful view of the lake, available for private and corporate parties but otherwise open to the public.

The ground floor houses begood, the third restaurant in a chain whose first one opened near Paris. Its second restaurant is the Outlet in Aubonne, in canton Vaud. Begood, with 70 seats, has four families of menus that are centred around affordable, tasty and healthy eating: befit, for longterm weight loss, becoeurful for low-cholesterol eating, bezen for easy digestion, and betonic for a vitamin boost.

The main restaurant, on the first floor, just above the lake, is O’Restaurant, which specializes in fish, especially freshly caught Lake Geneva fish, although meat-lovers will find they can also order lamb fillet, grilled steak or a tartare de bœuf.

O Les Terrasses, 3 restaurants in 1, opens in Nyon

The restaurant complex gives back to Nyon one of its historic treasures. The building dates back to 1820. It was home to the Hotel Odelet in the 19th century, famous for its “feet in the water” terrace directly on the waterfront and shaded by two giant chestnut trees. The idyllic situation changed in 1904 when a second phase in the construction of the city’s quais cut the hotel off from its waterfront.

New owner Santiago Wegmann has recreated the building’s old love affair with the water by making a terrace on each level the focal point. Thirty-two of the 80 seats in the main restaurant are on the terrace, for example.

Open daily from 08:00-01:00, 7/7. Reservations: +41 22 994 4000.

Garlic man, Lausanne (photo: vinylmeister on flick, reproduced with permission)

GenevaLunch is looking for contributors to our revised food blog, now called Savouring Switzerland! We are opening up some of our blogs to the local international community in the Lake Geneva region, to give more people a voice and an opportunity to share their knowledge and experience. We have a small group of writers lined up to write about food and we are looking for more.

If you are interested, please write to savouring-switzerland@genevalunch.com, including a link to online samples of your work. If you want to send attachments, please make sure they are not bigger than 2MB.

Here is what we are looking for:

• published writers (this can mean your own blog as long as there are enough entries for us to judge the writing): reliability, good writing, a love of all things related to food
• food photographers
• contributors who will write 1-2 times a month, anywhere from 50-300 words, with accompanying images as a general rule
• wide variety of topics: food news, Switzerland and food, regional dishes, shopping, markets, recipes (not our main focus, however) of interest to the international community, food sources for a variety of national cuisines, food trends, seasonal, cooking with children – the possibilities are wide open.

We can offer you the most widely-read source of news and information in English in the region, with an excellent reputation for quality, as a platform. We will provide a link to your own blog or web site if you are a regular contributor. Please note that, as with all blogs, we do not edit and there is no payment.

Our thanks go to Jonell Galloway-White, who  has done a wonderful job of writing The Rambling Epicure in this space for the past year, will now be setting up her own independent blog (and contributing, when she has time, to Savouring Switzerland) to focus more on European cuisine.

Changins Wine School, introduction to wine-tasting, teacher for one of the units: Yves Paquier

Correction – 2 dates in 2010, even better!

This is excellent news: the Changins Wine School (Ecole du vin de Changins), the best place around for learning to understand and appreciate wine, is offering its wine-tasting course in English for the first time.

The school has just mailed out its 2010 course schedule and “Introduction to wine tasting” is there. You’ll have to wait until April 2010 for the first class, but sign up early, as the 20 places for each class go quickly. Changins, the university, is more than 60 years old and the wine school more than 10, so both are well known to the Swiss.

The second session in English is in November 2010.

If  you have to watch your budget, this gives you time to start saving the CHF620 fee, which is worth every cent. Or drop a large hint to someone that this would be the perfect Christmas present for you. The school has gift coupons for its courses.

The wine school is part of the larger Changins complex, which includes the federal agricultural research station and the Western Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. This is where Swiss research into grape varieties, oenology, winemaking techniques takes place.

Changins Wine School

The Swiss reputation for perfection holds true here. Much of the work that has contributed to Switzerland’s rapidly growing reputation for wines that are among the world’s best has been done here. Graduate level research covers soil studies, micro-climates and plant health, but the school works very closely with winemakers from throughout Switzerland, as well, to improve vinification techniques.

The course covers four Thursday evenings in November, each lasting four hours. The classes are taught by a mix of professors from the university and professionals in the field. It’s a great course for people who have never understood what wine tasting is all about, but it’s also very good for people who feel they have gaps in their basic knowledge. Wine-tasting is quite simply much more fun after following the course.

It is more expensive than other introduction to wine-tasting classes, which usually cover less, in one or two sessions. It is more thorough, the wines selected are excellent for teaching purposes (and for the most part, for drinking!) and the work you put into it pays off.

Changins Wine School

The same course is offered in French several times during the year. Also new in 2010: a course that will suit some schedules better, from 09-17:00 Saturday and Sunday, in one weekend.

Contact: Changins Wine School (Note: Changins says the web pages for the wine school will be in English, probably before the end of 2009.)