Terroir

Words Alia AkkamImages Daniel Lober

Mushroom season in the Swiss Alps typically kicks off in early September, and that’s when the kitchen team at The Cambrian’s Bryn Williams restaurant, led by Chef Will Gordon, embarks on biweekly fungi foraging expeditions in the mountains to create a special dish for their menu that celebrates the local environs.

Following a 6 a.m. wake-up call, they head to a location kept secret from the public, hot coffee in hand, and spend the morning breathing in the fresh forest air and hunting for treasures including chanterelles, porcini, and boletes. “Normally, we set out before the sun rises and arrive just as it does—a sight that is definitely worth getting up early for,” explains Gordon.

After they return to the restaurant with a hopefully bountiful haul, they sit down to a staff lunch made with some of the wild mushrooms before prepping an elaborate umami-rich dish that is an autumnal favorite among guests. It features the mushrooms prepared in a variety of ways, as a stock and ragu with a smoked-oak emulsion, and soy sauce, ponzu, onion, and rice vinegar accents.

Gordon and his colleagues also bring back pine sprigs from these mountain excursions, which they dry and use in a rub for fresh whole salmon that hails from the nearby Lake Blausee, or Lake Zurich, some two hours away by train. Fresh pine is incorporated into the dish as well, as is a coconut cream velouté with yuzu and sunchokes grown in the garden of a long-serving member of the kitchen crew who resides by another nearby lake, Thun.

For the chefs at The Cambrian, creating a menu based around the fruits of the local landscape is key to continued learning about the bounty and balance of the region. It is also a way in which they can share this knowledge, developed out of a close relationship with the land, with their guests.