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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Bern
Large platter with several cooked and smoked meats and sausages, served over sauerkraut and green beans, with potatoes. It is the festive dish of Bernese cuisine, traditionally linked to the victory at Neuenegg in 1798.
Traditional dish from Bern, Bern
Also known as: Bernerplatte
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Berner Platte — Bern, Switzerland
The Berner Platte is the hearty platter of Bernese cuisine. On a bed of sauerkraut and green beans, different pork and beef cuts—either cooked or smoked—and regional sausages arrive at the table, accompanied by boiled potatoes. More than a fixed recipe, it’s a combination that varies by household and season.
Local tradition ties the dish to an episode in 1798. That year, during the French invasion, Bernese troops defeated the French at Neuenegg, southwest of the city, on the same day the capital surrendered. It is said that, on their return, the soldiers were greeted with everything available in the pantries, served on a single platter. The story is passed down as tradition; there is no documentary record confirming it as the dish’s origin.
Preparation takes time. Each meat is cooked separately to the right doneness: smoked ribs and bacon, tongue, pork knuckle, beef, and sausages such as the Berner Zungenwurst. The sauerkraut is slowly cooked with white wine and juniper berries, and the green beans, sometimes dried and rehydrated, are sautéed separately. Everything is arranged on a large platter, with the meats sliced over the vegetables.
The Berner Platte is a group and winter dish, served in traditional restaurants of the city and canton and at autumn and year-end celebrations. In many places, the platter is returned to the kitchen to be replenished.
Bern , Bern
Festive dish of Bernese cuisine, traditionally linked to the victory at Neuenegg in 1798.
Cooked and smoked pork and beef (ribs, bacon, tongue, knuckle), Bernese sausages such as Zungenwurst, sauerkraut, green beans, potatoes, white wine, juniper and bay leaf.
On a large shared platter, divided at the table, with mustard on the side. The meats are sliced and served over the sauerkraut and green beans, with boiled potatoes.
An autumn and winter dish for family lunches and festivities; also found in traditional restaurants of Bern.
Your questions
Various cooked and smoked pork and beef cuts, sausages, sauerkraut, green beans and potatoes, all served on a single platter.
According to tradition, the dish recalls the meal offered to Bernese soldiers after the victory at Neuenegg in 1798. The story is locally transmitted and lacks documentary confirmation.
Mainly in autumn and winter, at group lunches and celebrations.
Flavors of Switzerland
The solid chocolate bar that made Switzerland a world reference from the 19th century onward, with mechanized production by Cailler, Daniel Peter’s milk chocolate in Vevey, and Rodolphe Lindt’s conching in Bern.
Melted cheese with white wine in a caquelon, kept warm over a burner, into which each person dips bread cubes on a long fork. Promoted as a national dish from the 1930s onward, it is served across Switzerland in the cold months.
Hard honey biscuit with almonds, hazelnuts, candied orange and lemon peel and kirsch, covered by a thin layer of sugar. Mentioned in Basel at least since 1711, it is the city’s most closely associated sweet specialty.
Grated potato patty fried in butter until a golden crust forms on both sides. It was the breakfast of peasants in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, including the canton of Bern, and became a symbol of German-speaking Switzerland, even lending its name to the Röstigraben.
Dry, crunchy meringues served with Gruyère crème double, a thick cream with at least 45% fat. The quintessential dessert of the Bénichon feast, it is one of the symbols of the Gruyère region in the canton of Fribourg.
Chocolate cauldron bearing the coat of arms of Geneva, filled with marzipan vegetables and sweets, which is broken at the end of the Escalade celebration in December. It recalls the legend of Mère Royaume and the defense of the city on the night of December 11–12, 1602.
Shortcrust pastry tart, closed on top, filled with chopped walnuts coated in caramel and cream. It is the best-known sweet specialty of Graubünden, linked to pastry chefs who emigrated from the Engadine to work elsewhere in Europe.
Chard leaf rolls filled with spätzli-like dough and Bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef) or local salami, cooked in broth and milk and gratinated with cheese. Emblematic dish of Graubünden, originating in the Surselva, with as many recipes as there are families.
Puff-pastry dome filled with veal, meatballs, mushrooms and raisins in a creamy sauce. It’s named for the city and canton of Lucerne and is also called Fritschipastete, after the local carnival figure.
Dense cake made from day-old bread soaked in milk, with cocoa, amaretti, raisins, pine nuts and often a splash of grappa. Born from a desire not to waste bread, it is considered the quintessential Ticino sweet and every family has its own recipe.
Half a wheel of cheese held close to the fire, with the melted part scraped onto the plate and served with boiled potatoes in their skins, pickled cornichons and pearl onions. It originated in Valais and was presented as a Valais national dish in 1909.
Distilled from wormwood, anise, and fennel, green or colorless, served diluted with cold water and turning cloudy when mixed. Production began in the Val-de-Travers, in the canton of Neuchâtel, at the end of the 18th century, and it was banned in Switzerland from 1910 to 2005.
Rustic purée of leek and potato cooked in water and white wine, served with saucisse aux choux, a smoked pork-and-cabbage sausage. It is the best-known culinary specialty of the canton of Vaud and is part of its intangible heritage.
Layered cake of almond meringue discs and a sponge soaked in kirsch syrup, with buttercream, covered with almonds and powdered sugar in a diamond pattern. Created in Zug by pastry chef Heinrich Höhn, who advertised it in 1915.
A mixture of soaked rolled oats, grated apple, walnuts or almonds, lemon and milk, created around 1900 by physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients at his clinic in Zurich. It gave rise to the muesli eaten worldwide.
Thin strips of veal sautéed and served in a cream, white wine and mushroom sauce. It’s the dish Zurich residents name first when talking about the city’s cuisine, almost always accompanied by rösti.
