SEARCHING FOR SWITZERLAND IN TOKYO

A Swiss expat hunting for familiar flavours, traditions, and identity in Japan

After our monthly team meeting at work, we usually order lunch.

Sometimes bento boxes.

Sometimes curry.

The other day, somebody suggested biryani.

Then one colleague suddenly asked: ‘Are there any Swiss restaurants that do food deliveries in Tokyo?’

The question caught me completely off guard.

Because despite having lived here for many years, I genuinely didn’t know.

Someone else then pointed out: ‘Well, takeaway cheese fondue might be difficult.’

Fair point.

It also reminded me of something.

Whenever Japanese people think of Swiss food, one thing immediately comes to mind:

Cheese fondue.

That’s it.

To be fair, fondue probably is Switzerland’s most internationally successful food export.

The problem is that people then assume this is what Swiss people eat permanently.

Breakfast.

Lunch.

Dinner.

Possibly as an afternoon snack.

Whenever somebody asks me what other typical Swiss dishes exist, I usually hesitate.

Not because there aren’t any.

Mostly because explaining them takes time.

‘Veal in cream sauce with rösti’ doesn’t immediately sell itself.

Neither does sliced calf’s liver.

Or Swiss Alpine macaroni.

Or creamy mushroom schnitzel.

Meanwhile, according to some sources, Tokyo has roughly ten thousand Italian and French restaurants.

Swiss restaurants?

Apparently four.

Not that I urgently need a Swiss restaurant.

If I want authentic Swiss food, my wife can cook it perfectly well.

She learnt from the best: my mother – thirty years ago when we lived in Switzerland.

The harder part is finding ingredients.

Take veal, for instance.

Common in Switzerland.

Around here? Much less so.

The local butcher that used to stock it suddenly stopped and couldn’t even explain why.

Still, I became curious.

What exactly do Tokyo’s handful of Swiss restaurants consider Swiss?

The answer, unsurprisingly, is:

Mostly cheese.

Plus several things that I wouldn’t necessarily consider Swiss.

The first restaurant I checked (Swiss Chalet) featured cheese fondue. Meat fondue. Cold meat platters. Salmon. Burgundy snails.

I’m not entirely sure when snails became Swiss, but apparently we are claiming them now.

The second restaurant (Swiss Inn) also heavily featured cheese. Plus raclette.

The fondue came with vegetables, prawns, and sausages. Blasphemy in my home country. But perhaps understandable. Simply eating bread dipped into cheese probably feels slightly too reckless (and unhealthy) for Japanese sensibilities.

Then things became stranger.

Another ‘Swiss’ restaurant (Saint Bernard) offered minature portions of fondue alongside pasta dishes, curry rice, burgers, and various things that appeared to have accidentally wandered onto the menu from entirely different countries.

The only obviously Swiss element seemed to be the small flag stuck into the burger.

My favourite discovery, however, was a place called Ginza Swiss. Its founder established it in 1947, with the intention of bringing affordable authentic European cuisine to Japan. A noble vision. It might then come as a surprise that it’s the birth place of distinctly Japanese katsu curry.

Today, the menu includes numerous curry variations, ‘Showa-era gratin’, hamburg steak, rice omelette, seafood platters, and steak with miso cream sauce.

I spent several minutes searching for the Swiss part.

I’m still searching.

Which made me realise something.

Swiss food has a bit of an identity problem abroad.

Italian food is instantly recognisable.

French food too.

Swiss food, however, seems to become one of two things:

Either melted cheese.

Or vaguely European.

Perhaps that’s unavoidable.

After all, Switzerland itself is a country that borrowed heavily from its neighbours and quietly assembled its own version.

Still.

If we ever open a restaurant in Tokyo specialising in rösti, veal, and Alpine macaroni, we may actually have found a gap in the market.