Food
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 Bratwurste . 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 a discretion or a 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 Rosti , grated potatoes fried to a golden-brown hash and often topped with cheese, chopped ham or a fried egg. Alpler Magrone is macaroni cheese with extra onion, bacon, potatoes and cream. Kaseschnitten 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 Chogalipaschtetli , 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 cafe 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 a 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.
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