Café Swiss

C says:

On Friday night, we met my old friend D and her husband (also D) for dinner at Café Swiss, on the second floor of Raffles City/Swissotel. I’m not sure how new this place is, but I don’t recall seeing it whenever we’re at Raffles City. The Café’s entrance from Raffles City is right next to Warehouse on Level 2.

It occupies quite a large area, and was sadly quite empty on a Friday night, particularly when the Raffles City basement establishments were packed to the gills. It’s a restaurant/bistro serving fairly authentic Swiss and other European specialities, like fondue and raclette. The menu had quite a varied range of items, catering to differing tastes as well as budgets. There’s a proper dining menu, as well as simpler and more reasonable bistro fare. There were a number of fondues available as well, including a Fondue Bourguignonne, which is a beef fondue where bite-sized cubes of beef are cooked in a mixture of cooking oil and butter, then eaten with a variety of dipping sauces. We didn’t have this fondue this time but it certainly looks interesting, and A and I will definitely head back here at some point to try it out.

Instead, we started with half a dozen garlic snails, then I had the Swiss burger, with emmental cheese and mushrooms, and A had a veal dish with mushrooms in a morel cream sauce, served with rosti potatoes. The burger was quite tender and not dry, just maybe slightly lacking in flavour/salt. A’s veal dish was heavy on the butter and cream but very delicious as a result. The food was much better than I expected, given that the restaurant wasn’t well patronized. I think it’s probably just unfortunate lack of awareness, or perhaps a misconception that because it’s a hotel restaurant, it’s overpriced. Prices were actually quite reasonable – my burger was $18 and A’s veal was in the $20 region. Ok, the Fondue Bourguignonne is supposed to be $45 per person, but I guess it’s not something you find very often in Singapore.

For dessert, I had a Toblerone Cheesecake, and D&D had the Toblerone Chocolate Mousse. The mousse was pretty good, whereas my cheesecake was way way too rich, sweet and cheesy. Just basically too gelak.

Still, this place was quite a pleasantly surprising find, and it’s definitely a place to consider when you’re in Raffles City. It’s certainly better than some of the joints in the basement, like Out of the Pan.

A says:

The food, while still a bit pricy, was surprisingly very good. Service was outstanding too. Definitely worth a visit to try some European fare.

Café Swiss
Level 2, Swissôtel The Stamford
Tel: 6431-6156