Restaurant de l'Hôtel de Ville

Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville de Crissier (which translates to: Crissier Town Hall Restaurant), is one of Switzerland’s most historically significant fine dining restaurants. The restaurant opened in 1955 by chef Benjamin Girardet. His son, Fredy Girardet, would take over the restaurant and is credited with bringing Swiss fine dining to the attention of the French haute cuisine world. He was particularly known for cooking under a self-imposed rule of not allowing more than 3 flavors to be present in a dish, a philosophy that many associated with the nouvelle cuisine movement. In 1989, the Gault Millau guide co-crowned Girardet, along with Paul Bocuse and Joël Robuchon, as “Chef of the Century”.

Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville has seen three chefs since Girardet’s retirement: Philippe Rochat, Benoît Violier, and its current chef Franck Giovannini. All three trained under Girardet and all three have seen the restaurant awarded 3-Michelin stars.

In addition to 2 tasting menus, Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville is particularly famous for its extensive a la carte menu as well as a seasonal hunting menu that features game dishes in autumn. Knowing this, I scheduled two visits with them so I could try both their game and non-game dishes. For my first visit I tried the longer non-game tasting menu. This menu follows a fairly classical format: amuse bouche, cold appetizer, hot appetizer, vegetable, fish, crustacean, meat, cheese, dessert.

Food

Shortly after sitting down, and before I even received a menu, I was given a plate of canapes: potato with creme fraiche, onion tart, and a puff filled with Gruyère cheese. All three were delicious and tasted incredibly focused on a single flavor.

The restaurant has an impressive bread selection. All breads are baked in-house and they even operate a boulangerie across the street. Every bread I tried (including the pictured seeded baguette and poppy seed roll) tasted great and, even better, was soft and fluffy enough to soak up all of the sauces in the dishes that were to come.

The “amuse bouche” of the tasting menu was shellfish cooked in a nage of Calamin white wine, fennel, and parsley. This had some nice textural variety from the crunchy moon-shaped garnish and the herbal flavors, did a great job emphasizing the shellfish flavor.

The cold appetizer was foie gras served in a red wine reduction with pear chutney. This was a fantastic dish with an incredible sauce. I’ve never considered myself the biggest fan of red wine-derived sauces but this buried that thought. The balance of sweetness, acidity, and astringency in the sauce perfectly enhanced the rich sweet-unctuous flavors of the great quality foie gras.

The warm appetizer was another winner: scallop in a leek and mustard seed reduction. Once again I found my assumptions about my own palate challenged as I typically have a strict preference for cold scallop dishes over warm ones. The leek and mustard seed reduction was so delicious, with a deep and rich leek flavor combining with the silky peppery mustard seed sauce, and it perfectly complemented the scallop.

The next dish was a signature of former chef Philippe Rochat. A mound of pasta concealed an egg yolk that burst when you cut into it. Combined with the smoked bacon, it tasted like a truffle carbonara that was lightened by the presence of spinach. The white truffles were lighter on flavor (the season had only just started and they were not yet at peak flavor) but otherwise this was a fantastic dish and I can see why it was considered a signature.

I feel like I’m running out of adjectives to describe my meal. Both the turbot and lobster were again delicious and featured the signature two-tones of sauces in the plating. While it was interesting to try the sauces separately, they were truly superb when combined. The intense lobster reduction mixed with the bearnaise was one of the best sauces I have ever tried. Both dishes, as with previous ones from this meal, used vegetal flavors to lighten the more classical alcohol/butter/cream elements and the flavors remained focused on highlighting the main protein on the plate.

For my main course, I was given a choice of game dishes and selected a house signature: the hare a la royale. This is a classical dish from French haute cuisine, dating back to the 1800s, and this particular recipe was a signature of Chef Girardet. While the presentation had been updated, the underlying recipe has stayed the same. The sauce was rich from hare blood and offal but also had some lightness from a particularly acidic red wine. The result was more of a brown gravy than the classical molasses like sauce. The meat was earthy and had a very distinct lightly metallic flavor but I’m actually not sure I’d describe it as “gamey” in the usual sense. There was no musky or pungent flavors that I associate with “unpleasant gaminess”. It was an excellent dish and it made me particularly happy to have the chance to taste a bit of history with this dish that had been around for so long.

I don’t typically drink alcohol and Hôtel de Ville doesn’t really offer much in the way of non-alcoholic beverages (though they do have fresh fruit juices, including a lovely pear juice that I’d had earlier in the meal). I decided to ask the sommelier to recommend a glass of wine to go with the main course and was offered a local Swiss red wine that proved to be a good pairing with the hare.

Hôtel de Ville boasts what is likely the most impressive cheese trolley I have ever seen in my life, with a massive selection of Swiss and French cheeses. Deferring to my server, I was given a plate with some delicious choices. And as if there hadn’t been enough bread already, an entirely new selection of breads were brought out just to accompany the cheese.

Desserts were light and refreshing. The clementine cone had a nice blend of tart citrus and creamy coconut while the apple dessert had nice notes of cinnamon.

To conclude the meal, Hôtel de Ville brings not only a plate of petit fours but also a trolley of candies.

Final thoughts

The experience of eating at Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville was exactly what I had hoped it would be. It was a phenomenal meal for someone with a palate for classical flavors like mine. The fact that they retain several historical dishes while allowing themselves to modernize (e.g. not feeling bound to stick to the three flavors rule) gave the meal the perfect balance of classical flavors that don’t feel dated.