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.

This week’s foodie overview

I spend a lot of time reading, researching and tweeting about food and restaurants these days, so I thought I’d jot down my tweets from the last few days. These are from both The Rambling Epicure and Swiss Foodies and should give you an overview of what’s going on in the foodie world this week, in Switzerland and around the world.

These tweets are often focused on Switzerland, but also include a lot of links to Swiss, French, German, British, American, Canadian and other research on food.

Sometimes I couldn’t resist writing about the snow and skiing conditions, because that determines how a lot of us in Switzerland plan our weekends, and therefore what restaurants we go to or what recipes we cook up. And of course occasionally, watches and wine . . . and this week, the Vancouver Winter Olympics and those cute wooly pigs you see in the photo.

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Final countdown to Valentine’s Day: take your pick!

For the last week or so, I’ve had Valentine’s on the brain. I’ve been posting restaurants offering special Valentine’s meals, chocolate shops making all sorts of beautiful Valentine’s chocolates, as well as hotels offering Valentine’s packages on the Swiss Foodies Twitter account.

Photo courtesy of Salvatore Vuono.

I’ve been trying to get you in the spirit, but now it’s time for the final countdown, because time is running short. To make things easier, I’ve gathered all the Valentine tweets here so you can start making plans for the weekend!

This list is by no means exhaustive and I may well add to it during the week, so keep in touch either here on The Rambling Epicure, or by following the Swiss Foodies tweets. Every time I stumble on something interesting, I’ll make sure and tweet it.

Valentine’s specials: something to suit everyone’s budget and schedule

1. On Sunday, 14 February 2010, the CGN is sponsoring Valentine’s lunch cruises on all their major routes.
2. List of restaurants all over Switzerland with Valentine’s specials; just click on your canton!  Please note that I haven’t tested these restaurants, but they should include something appropriate for everyone’s taste, location and budget.
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La Terrazza

I discovered this almost hidden Swiss-style café-restaurant many years ago on my treks back and forth to the Beaulieu clinique.

Mr. Borella started as waiter at the Lion d’Or during its golden age. He later set out on his own and has been in this same location for about 25 years. Mrs. Borella cooks and Mr. Borella serves. They are from the Dolomites, so they cook hardy, traditional dishes, as well as some well turned-out Swiss classics.

The price is about as right as you can get, and they buy all their ingredients from local producers. The tomatoes taste like tomatoes and the salads, well they come straight from Chapuis.

Nologo Restaurant

This is Japanese food like you eat in Japan, not adapted for Western tastes. Wonderful mixtures of unusual flavors and ingredients like you’d never find in your regular, standardized-menu sushi bars.

Don’t count on them being friendly, just think about what’s on your plate. Tiny space so reserve well ahead.

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Genevan Jean-François Schlemmer turns run-down, forgotten sites into chic, trendy places.

Would you prefer a table near the skeleton or the bar?

After the success of the Palais Mascotte, a tired Geneva institution and cabaret started in 1833 that he brought back to life, he has now converted an old warehouse next to MAMCO, the modern art museum, into an exciting café and restaurant, Curiositas. Curiositas is almost a museum in and of itself, with its display cases full of “curious” collections of seashells, butterflies and surprising knick-knacks.

The menu is more classic than one might expect, but also offers some original variations on classics, such as the duck parmentier with turnips and red currants, or foie gras with oxtail. French chef Sergio Schoener delights in turning out color combinations not common in the world of food. Pastry chef Lionel Gérard comes to Curiositas with the label Ducasse on his CV.

A 3-course daily lunch menu goes for CHF 48 and a daily special for CHF 23. Breakfast is served, as well as light afternoon food.

Schlemmer has resuscitated several dying venues into “must” night life stopoffs, including the Petit Casino, the Restaurant l’Horizon and Psycho. As he says in Le Temps of 14 January 2010, outsiders just think that Geneva is a sleepy town. If they only knew all the fun that goes on behind those Calvinist façades!

Curiositas, rue des Vieux Genadiers 8-10, 1205 Geneva, +41 022 321 30 37, next to MAMCO modern art museum. Map. Open from 08:30 to 22:00.

Links: Le Temps

Photo courtesy of Fiveprime

Genève Tourisme has published a list of the hotels and restaurants in Geneva that are offering special Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s meal packages. Some are at lunchtime, others in the evening.

The list includes restaurants in all price ranges, as well as details about dates, times, set menus, and locations.

It can be found in pdf format, under Christmas Dinners and New Year’s Dinners. Just click on “Download the document” on the Genève Tourisme site.

The P’tit Bonheur in Chambésy will be serving Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, 26 November 2009.

The menu includes pumpkin soup with pumpkin seed oil, apple and walnut salad with cranberry vinaigrette, roast turkey and giblet sauce with fig stuffing, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream for CHF 55, not including drinks.

The Thanksgiving meal will be served from 12:00 to 14:30 and from 19:00 to 21:30 on Thursday only.

Reservations are recommended.

Guide to luxury London on a budget

My husband Peter is a wonder when it comes to finding luxury bargains as he hops around the globe.

This weekend, London was our destination, and there’s no better place to spend Halloween. The recession is still going strong in Britain, so it is also a good time to take advantage of the multitude of deals to be had.

Hotel

Photo courtesy of MyHotel.

We usually prefer classic English-style hotels, because the English really do know how to let you feel part of what is the best in the British lifestyle, but this time, Peter selected a boutique hotel, MyHotel Bloomsbury on Bayley Street just off Bedford Square.

MyHotel is entirely Feng Shui, minimalist and has a wonderful fitness center. The rooms are quiet and impeccably clean, the staff is pleasant and efficient and they speak very good English (which one cannot count on in London), it does indeed have a good feel about it, and the location is remarkably central.

Unfortunately, the hotel is the victim of British regulations regarding fire doors, so despite all the effort they had made to make it Feng Shui and calming, the fire doors ruined it all. Even the bathroom door slammed loudly. The clientele was extremely civilized, despite the fact that it was Halloween weekend, and the management was so conscious of maintaining the calm atmosphere, that they closed the bar on Halloween night.

Restaurants

In the UK, Top Table is an excellent site for booking fine restaurants at a nice price. With the credit crunch still alive and kicking, there is an abundance of choices, many offering forty and fifty percent off menu prices. Please note that the discounts do not usually apply to wine, supplements and service charge, and are sometimes limited to a limited number of people, but it can still significantly reduce the price of a meal.

Dining room of The Landau, photo courtesy of Top Table.

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