Our stay at Laax is almost over but it’s just the start of our Swiss adventure on the blog! 🙂 We will obviously start with Swiss and local cuisine. It would be strange for us to start with something else, wouldn’t it? 🙂
What does Switzerland remind you of? For us it’s lots of chocolate and tonnes of cheese.
Our trip to Laax convinced us that cheese rules here, and that it’s exceptionally tasty. There’s so many restaurants on the slopes and in the city itself that everybody can find something to satisfy their needs, but we’ll get to that later on… Today it’s time for cheese, Swiss fondue and raclette along with local specialties – rösti and capuns. You haven’t heard about those two, have you? 🙂 Anyway, it was the first time for us to try both rösti and capuns.
We’ll start our journey in a charming restaurant called Tegia Larnags. The restaurant is located on the ski slope, by the first gondola station on the lift connecting Laax and Curnius. It’s also possible to get there by feet, especially at night when the lift is long closed. And that’s the best way to do it. A walk and a hike in the snow in the evening, with a black cat that came along and followed us turns out to be really magical and fairy-tale-like. And who’s most content with the situation regardless of the late hour? Maks, of course. We take the pram with us as it’s already late. But beware! A trip from Laax to Tegia Latnags with a pram is like a hardcore fitness session or 10 km of running. But there’s a prize for the effort so it’s worth it! 🙂 When we finally approach the place, a little wooden hut appears, hidden in the mountains and beautifully illuminated. Looks like a house from a dream! I’ll be honest with you. At night it looks much more magical than by day, when I pass it by skiing. It instantly reminds me of Bąkowo Zohylina Wyżnio in Zakopane. Hidden in the pine trees and looking best in the evenings, during winter and especially in the Christmas time. Tegia Larnags looks equally fairy-tale-like! You just have to come in!
fairy-tale-like Tegia Larnags
Even thought we passed nobody by on our way up, the interior of Tegia Larnags is very lively. It’s a cosy place with several rooms, all full, laughter and cheese scent in the air. Teria Larnags is the best place to try Swiss specialties in Laax. The menu includes fondue along with rösti and capuns
We start with capuns, a local specialty from the Laax region. How can I describe it? Capuns are little noodles or a type of knedle with dried meat similar to speck, wrapped in beet leaves and then boiled in stock with some milk. It’s served sprinkled with cheese. On one hand, thanks to the way of preparation and wrapping in beet leaves, capuns remind us of our own Polish cabbage rolls. On the other, they taste a bit like knödel called tri di canederli (especially those with speck) that we tried in South Tirol. As you can see highland specialties can be similar in different regions! Capuns are very tasty and work great as a starter before the dinner – don’t pay too much attention to the size of the portion – it was a tasting menu version.:) They are surely worth trying but there’s a few other meals that got better rating in our Swiss favourites list…
capuns – a local specialty
In Tegia Larnags you can also try rösti, Swiss potato pancakes. They are prepared from boiled and finely grated potatoes. Then they are fried so they can get a delicious and crispy crust! As I am an absolute potato lover and like everything with potatoes (moskole, pancakes, blintz – love!), rösti taste great to me! Teria Larnags serves them with lamb, herbal crumble, veal with mushrooms or liver in balsamic sauce. Due to a minor misunderstanding we get all 4 versions at the same time which makes the hero of the meal practically impossible to spot 🙂 Fortunately we manage to order another meal with rösti – a wiener schnitzel in the Mulania restaurant. Rösti turn out to be an interesting side dish to go with the meat, much better than regular baked potatoes.
rosti in a spotlight with a delicious Wiener Schnitzel
rosti covered with meat and vegetables
Rösti and capuns.. That’s cool, but you can’t go to Switzerland and not try any cheese. Or a cheese fondue! Do you like it? We used to eat fondue in Paris, in the Latin Quarter, but the meal originates from Switzerland. Like most of the well known, national meals, fondue used to be prepared from the leftovers (in this case grated cheese) and consumed by highlanders as a nutritious meal. The main ingredients include cheese (usually various types) and white wine. You can also go for a more complicated version (e.g. with tomatoes or bacon and onion), but we decided to stick to the tradition! 🙂 Little bits of bread dipped in hot, melted cheese and washed down with red wine. For me – a culinary paradise! 🙂
all is ready – I can feel my mouth watering!
let’s do it!
After such fondue, eaten on the cold evening, the trip back from Tegia Larnags to Laax does not seem so terrible anymore! Fondue is an absolute must in Switzerland. Especially in a place like this; it seemed to be the most unique restaurant we visited in Laax. If you manage to go to Laax this year, you can try visiting the restaurant before it closes on 20 April along with the lifts. 🙂 It opens again with the start of the season, in the end of November.
We also liked La Stalla. During the winter it’s a place mainly for skiers unless you come by feet from the Alp Nagens station. It will take you around 20 minutes to go down the slope. La Stalla is small, wooden and has great vibe as well. It’s a pity that it’s not too cold outside as it seems like perfect hideout for cold weather. We visit La Stalla on a hot and sunny day and it’s still worth it! What’s there to eat? Go for fondue or raclette. When it comes to fondue, there’s a lot to choose from. We however, decided to order raclette – we haven’t tried it in Switzerland yet!
Raclette is yet another meal we know from Paris – There, you usually get a small device, a little pan to melt the cheese and then pour it over potatoes, ham or vegetables. Here, they melted cheese in bigger amounts by the fire and we got ours already melted and poured over potatoes. It’s obviously a calorie bomb, but what a delicious one!!! 🙂 Again, it’s a meal that used to be consumed by Swiss shepherds who melted the cheese on hot stones by the fire.. An ideal snack during a long and windy day on the slope.. And yes, raclette is also perfect on hot and sunny day! 🙂 Be sure to try it! 🙂
that’s how they prepare raclette in La Stalla
calorie yet delicious raclette – melted cheese poured over boiled potatoes
La Stalla’s cosy interior
Cheese, cheese and more cheese… melted! That means calorie, nutritious and some extra kilograms around your hips. Or in the belly area. But what do some extra calories mean if you can try meals that are not available in Poland? 🙂 Nothing! Sometimes only a bit more time spent skiing or a light diet after coming back home can make you get your figure back. Because there’s no Switzerland without fondue or raclette. Remember about that 🙂
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