Rating: 18/20
Where: Bad Ragaz, Switzerland
When: Dinner for 2 on 9 December 2022
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 229-329 CHF, Wine Pairing 149-189 CHF
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Seasonal, local Alpine cuisine with many excellent dishes

“Memories” is the latest Michelin three-starred restaurant in Switzerland. Given how good the other three members of this elite group are (see here for an example), the expectations for chef Sven Wassmer's kitchen couldn't be higher. The restaurant is located in the luxurious Grand Resort Bad Ragaz, near the eastern border of Switzerland. The town is located in a valley, and tall Alpine peaks can be seen rising nearby.

The Grand Resort features a classic kind of luxurious decor with ostentatious uses of gold and ornamentation. Based on the number of bath-robed guests wandering the hallways, the hotel's main draw seems to be its thermal waters, feeding multiple swimming pools and spas. Memories is tucked away in a side corridor, and its dining room thankfully looks much more modern than the hotel. Several wooden dividing walls are used to separate the dining tables (I'm not sure if that's primarily a nod to Covid or to privacy). The open kitchen occupies one end of the dining room. There are a few kitchen counter seats that have a direct view of the action and allow for interaction with the chefs. We sat at a table right next to the kitchen which also provided a terrific view. Tables toward the farther end of the room might not have as much to look at. What I found remarkable is that chef Wassmer was actually working in the kitchen, at what looked like the sauce and meat stations. Most chefs of his standing would be at the pass checking on the plating of the dishes. Instead, all sauces that we ate during dinner had been cooked by the head chef himself. I thought it showed a sympathetic humility, the willingness to get his hands (figuratively) dirty; my dining companion - my sister - hypothesized that he might just have wanted to be as far as possible from the counter seats to avoid chitchat with the customers. Whatever the reason, it was a remarkable difference from the norm.

The only choice for dinner was a tasting menu, with either seven, nine or eleven courses. The menu was a “carte blanche”, meaning that we received the descriptions of the dishes only at the end of our meal. We chose the longest menu, and added optional Alba truffles to two of the courses. Wine pairings were offered as well, and it was possible to, say, order the seven course wine pairing with an eleven course dinner, thereby adjusting the total amount of alcohol consumed. Non-alcoholic and mixed pairings were possible as well, but we didn't try them. The wines in our pairing were decent, but not spectacular. They didn't clash with the food, but didn't bring out more flavors either. Early on, there were several Swiss wines, and they were followed by wines from the rest of Europe.

“Alpine cuisine” is the mantra of the kitchen, and “98% of the ingredients” are sourced from within a short distance of the restaurant. That comes with the usual limitations on the variety of available produce, especially in the winter months. Compared to other local-produce-heavy restaurants like nearby Schloss Schauenstein or England's L'Enclume, Memories doesn't seem to perform quite as much pickling, so most fruits and vegetables are restricted to what's available right now.

Four amuse bouches arrived before the official courses. A “Windbeutel” (cream puff) was filled with a muscat pumpkin cream and hemp seed nougat. The words “cream puff” and “pumpkin” suggest a sweet dish, but was not the case - this bite was savory all the way. It was also surprisingly hefty, thanks to the pretty thick pumpkin cream. A great start to our dinner 18.

A cracker was topped with a beef tartare from an aged milk cow, an egg yolk cream containing lovage, and pickled onion blossoms. The main taste here was of the beef tartare, the other ingredients were only supporting players. The cracker had a very light crunch, letting the strong beef flavor shine 18.

Our next dish was introduced as being “experimental”, presumably because it was a new addition to the menu. A shortbread tartlet was filled with apple, barley cream and hazelnuts. Not surprisingly, it had a crumbly texture, but interestingly the dish tasted of cheese, even though it contained none 17.

Finally, marinated red beet slices were arranged in the shape of a rose, and seasoned with horseradish and a dusting of black currant powder. A lovely combination: acidity from the pickled beets, but also a hint of sweetness, and then the spice of the horseradish. Yum 19.

Sourdough bread was served with a butter of local cream. The slices were cold, and the bread was a bit doughy with little crunch. Great for sopping up sauces, though 17.

Time for the first official course. A dollop of caviar made in Switzerland (!) was sitting on top of a cream and sauce that were made from the sourdough bread that we had just been served. Besides bread, the sauce also contained fermented mushrooms. The caviar was great, and the mushroom flavor in the sauce was very pronounced. Overall, there was maybe a bit too much of the cream, but otherwise everything went very well together: umami, salty, creamy 18.

Char from a 1200 meter high lake had been cooked very lightly, and was served with a sauce made from caramelized cream. Drops of fir oil completed the dish. While the fish was very light in flavor, the single piece of salt sitting on top of it brought out a wonderful taste. I just wish there had been more of that salt. The sauce was nice, but for me was missing some je-ne-sais-quoi, something that would have elevated it to “amazing”. Given that this was billed as one of the chef's signature dishes, I had expected more of a bang 18.

In a reversal of the printed menu order (see below), our next dish was a red beet that had been treated in a calcium bath, resulting in a dry texture on the outside, and softness on the inside. (And possibly making it the least photogenic dish of the evening.) It was paired with a red beet jus and crumbles of red beet and chicken skin. The red beet had a slightly meaty texture, but it sadly had very little flavor, there was only a hint of red beet taste. The sauce by itself was also a bit underwhelming, it definitely needed the pop provided by the crumbles 17 (my sister thought 16).

Braised veal cheeks arrived next, topped with a brined red bell pepper. The dish also contained sea buckthorn oil, strained yogurt, black garlic and bell pepper jus. It was paired with an Austrian sake that had been flavored with red shiso leaves - so vinegary that it was close to undrinkable - oof! The dish itself was nice though: the meat was ok (and heavy), but the red bell pepper had a lovely smell and slightly sweet taste. The sauce contributed umami and savoriness 18.

"Knöpfli" (a small, hand-made, fresh pasta) had been tossed with toasted butter, black cumin and topped with either black truffles or white Alba truffles (depending on whether one wanted to pay an additional 78 CHF for the latter). The pasta was very tasty, with the cumin adding just a hint of flavor. On the other hand, this was a pretty rustic dish, ostensibly simple to prepare (but probably not). The black truffles (from Switzerland, no less) added some texture to the dish, whereas the white truffles added creaminess and lots of truffle flavor. The white truffle made for the better dish, but it's arguable whether it was 78 CHF worth of “better” 18.

Pick perch had been cooked in butter, and was accompanied by chives, chive blossoms, pickled onions and a hay almond hollandaise. All components were lovely: the sauce a bit nutty, the fish cooked perfectly and delicious, the chives adding some texture and a hint of spice, the pickled onions some sourness. My favorite dish of the night 19+.

Leading up to the main dish, we received an aged pigeon breast served with endives, lingonberries, and koshu salt (I think). There was only a hint of gaminess in the meat, and the sauces went lovely together: some sweetness (lingonberries), bitterness (endive) and a good amount of spiciness (unknown). Some truly excellent sauces - yummy 18.

The main course of our meal was a ribeye steak from a twelve year old brown cow. Killed on its farm (to avoid traumatizing transport), it was then aged for 40 days. The steak was pre-sliced and served with a potato puree a la Robuchon (half butter, half potatoes). The beef was indeed lovely, lean, soft and flavorful; even a separate slice of fatty tissue had lots of flavor without being chewy or too fatty. For a locally produced beef, this was of amazing quality. The potatoes were also excellent (as usual for Robuchon). The optional addition of white Alba truffles to the mashed potatoes was unnecessary in my opinion 19.

After a ten minute break from eating that was offered and gladly accepted, we moved onto desserts. A negroni cocktail served from a keg was poured over a scoop of blackberry sorbet. The sorbet was very nice, and the cocktail added some bitterness 18 (my sister didn't particularly care for that bitterness and rated this a 17).

A green sorrel sorbet was served over a Chantilly cream. The dish also featured some meringue shards, a baby pine-cone cooked in molasses, some elderberries and pine oil. The sorbet was sweeter than expected - I thought that this would be a savory dessert, but it was reminiscent of a tart apple. The sorbet gave this dish some lightness, while the other ingredients added creaminess and more heft. The pine-cone was fine (and thankfully edible), but the dish wouldn't have lost much without it. In all, a great combination of flavors and textures 19+.

Plum seed ice cream was served with a cheesecake mousse that had been made from the fat left over from the caramelized cream sauce served earlier with the char fish. Sea buckthorn milk and quince juice rounded out the dish. Again, a beautiful marriage of different flavors, with a nicely creamy texture 19+.

The single petit four was a gugelhupf cake made from chestnuts. Almondy, and with the texture that I felt was a bit too wet and creamy. Decent 17.

The service throughout our dinner was very good and relaxed. Many of the dishes were presented by the chefs themselves, and their enthusiasm was contagious. What a difference from the dinner on the preceding night...

Overall: Great seasonal, local Alpine cuisine with dishes that deftly balanced different flavors - salt, sugar, umami, acidity. What strikes me most is the consistency of the meal, there was not one drop in quality, every single dish was wonderful. This was a wonderful, enjoyable meal. That said, it’s probably instructive to compare this dinner to the one we had at Schloss Schauenstein about a year earlier, the two are about a half hour drive from each other, and on the surface have similar food philosophies. The main difference for me was that Schauenstein used more pickled ingredients, and the flavors seemed lighter, fresher and more intense. At Moments, they were a bit earthier and more muted. Not bad, but not as mind-blowing. Given the seasonal nature of the cuisine, I should probably return some other time of the year to see where matters stand. And I’d be most happy to 18.