October 2019
I visited the Restaurant Rössli several times on the way to the Emmental and enjoyed the famous hay soup and the homemade sausages, which are decorated with gold leaf and thus underline the value of these sausages. A few times I tried to make a reservation at Jägerstübli (english Hunter room), where the famous gourmet menus are offered. One Sunday noon it worked out.
To mention it straight away, a visit to Stefan Wiesner is a very special, unique eating experience.
He calls himself a freethinker and philosopher, who feels no obligation to conventions and calls his cuisine avant-garde natural cuisine. Most of his products are regional and often collected by himself. Since he was called ” Witch from the Entlebuch ” in a television report, he has also used this nickname himself.
In our menu he has fired straw, fermented lettuce, sprayed the room with hay scent, roasted maize flour, pickled potato roots, grinded earth, smoked pork fillets, dried milk skin, distilled spruce wood, iced stone rose blossoms and powdered birch leaves.
Since 2008 his cuisine has been awarded 17 Gault Millau points and a Michelin star.
Each season he invents a new menu dedicated to a particular theme. Our menu had the title “At the time of Jeremias Gotthelf”. Jeremias Gotthelf was a well-known Swiss writer who lived from 1797 to 1854. He became famous above all for his novels, which portrayed realistically rural life at that time.
The napkin holders were made of bone.
The Jägerstübli (english Hunter room), where the gourmet menus are served
In the beginning, Anika liquor was dribbled on the hands of the guests to disinfect them.
A rowanberry leaf syrup with rowanberry leaf compote and apple cider was served as an aperitif.
In front of the guests the baked thigh bones of a Simmentaler cow were sawn.
Baked thigh bones of a Simmentaler cow with salt exposed to the sounds of cow bells. The guests could pick the bone marrow from the bone.
Cabbage from the oven with blood cream, yellow pea cream, green tomato chutney, onion jam and rust salt
Straw smoked butter plait, sprinkled with malt, served on scorched straw
Stefan Wiesner explained for several minutes the idea behind each course, the connection to Jeremiah Gotthelf, the ingredients and the various ways of preparation.
Lettuce raw, fermented, lettuce heart sweet-sour, lettuce stalk salt, lettuce seed oil, lettuce marc, lettuce syrup, lettuce cream, lettuce mayonnaise with condensed milk, covered with dried lettuce
On the photo I removed the dried lettuce so that the dish could be seen. Although it doesn’t look very attractive, it was excellent.
Trout cooked on hay in parchment, hay salt, fermented hay sauce, hay herbs, hay flowers, hay blossoms. In addition, the room was sprayed with hay scent, so that several senses were addressed at the same time.
Although the trout was prepared on the fire ring, it was perfectly cooked to the point.
This course refers to the henhouse of Joggeli, the farmer of the “Glunggen” farm from the novel “Ueli der Pächter” (engl. Uli the tenant) by Jeremias Gotthelf. Joggeli used to count his money in the henhouse. That’s why a 5-centime coin is also part of the course.
Baked chicken wings, pureed maize, fermented maize, maize leaf pesto, popped maize, roasted maize flour, maize ash, maize distillate, yellow onsen egg cooked in maize germ oil, egg white meringue with maize vinegar, egg yolk grated, sprinkled with salt treated with chicken clucking sound and a 5-centime piece
Potatoes cooked in living soil and roasted in beech wood charcoal, mashed potatoes, fermented potatoes, pickled potato roots, potato miso, potato peel straw, potato flakes, potato flour, earth sauce with chocolate, grinded earth and earth crumble
Pork fillet smoked with savory, marinated in savory oil, bacon salted, fried, pork tongue in savory vinegar, pork tail fried, pork sausage with caraway cooked in wine, pork lardo and pork liver parfait. Dried beans cooked, beans dried and baked, beans peeled, beans tossed yellow in butter, beans fried with mint and savory
Emmentaler cheese: Gotthelf-Emmentaler Hüpfenboden 7 years, in pieces, 1-year-old in pieces, 2-year-old as foam, 3-year-old as cream, 5-year-old as grandmother’s chip, pearls from Emmental tears, dried milk skin, apple venison yeast sorbet, apple syrup and bedstraw
Stefan Wiesner mentioned that milk and dairy products change during the year, depending on the cows’ feed (e.g. herbs from an alpine meadow in summer or hay in winter), but this is not declared and consumers are not interested. He is, of course.
Spruce wood distilled on the hand, spruce shoot sorbet, spruce shoot honey, spruce shoot sweet-sour, spruce bark miso, spruce seed crunch, spruce sprouts, spruce cone salt and spruce needle embers
Honey ice cream, beeswax cream, granite stones, iced stone rose blossoms, stone rose leaf oil, dried honey, propolis and flower pollen
On the left the cream with caramel flans, caramel sugar, meringue with Incarom
On the right birch praliné with birch sap, birch tar, birch sugar, sprinkled with birch leaf powder
The wine pairing consisted exclusively of Swiss wines.
The bill
A visit to Stefan Wiesner is a unique culinary experience that every gourmand should experience.
This text is an automatic English translation from the German original by deepl.com