Glutenfrei Roesti in the Swiss Alps

A very cheesy farmer's roesti

To me our short time in the Swiss Alps was categorized by fresh air, mountain peaks poking through clouds and roestis.

When Ry, Lisa and I met up with three friends from our Singapore reunion at the Interlaken train station, they quickly whisked us away from the tourist hub that is ‘the adventure capital of the world’.  We wanted a bit more of an authentic vibe, so we drove half an hour to eat lunch in Lauterbrunnen.  At this early stage in our trip, the guys didn’t even know that I was gluten intolerant since the last time I had seen them was in my gluten days.  I hadn’t done any planning on where to eat gluten free in the Swiss Alps since I didn’t know which towns we were going to be in.  But after our amazing meal in Montreux, I was optimistic that I might be able to find something.  As my luck would have it (or simply because of Celiac awareness in Switzerland), the restaurant the guys randomly picked had “glutenfrei” written on the sandwich board outside.   I couldn’t believe it; here I was in Switzerland with the German translation of gluten free identified all over the menu!   We had a great lunch at Hotel Oberland catching up on each other’s lives.  Our entire table ordered different variations of roesti.  I had a delicious farmer’s roesti with bacon and cheese.  This was by far the cheesiest roesti of the trip; there were giant pieces of cheese melted on top of it.  It was such a relief to be able to order something off the menu and not have to walk around to find a restaurant that knew what gluten free was.  What a pleasant surprise and very tasty!

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