SWISS welcomes Canton Glarus aboard

2 September 2015

From today (2 September) until the beginning of December, travellers in SWISS First and SWISS Business on long-haul services from Switzerland will be offered culinary delights from the gourmet restaurant of the Boutique Chalet Hotel Ahorn in Braunwald, Canton Glarus. Together with Beat Schittenhelm, the restaurant’s host and chef de cuisine, SWISS has developed a range of healthy, natural and tasty seasonal dishes that also incorporate a number of local herbs.

First Class guests will be offered such tasty delights as a Ziger cheese terrine with nuts, dried apricot chutney and flatbread, apple soup with herbed alpine bacon, seared veal tenderloin and braised veal cheek in Pinot Noir, an “Alpine Dream” dessert with hay mousse or Glarus plum pastry with pear compote and cinnamon ice cream. For SWISS’s Business Class guests Beat Schittenhelm has concocted such offerings as a Mojito salmon with citrus fruits and aubergine purée, a main course of beef tenderloin with plum and chestnut crust on a balsamic sauce, and a dessert of Trietolt mousse with brownie and blueberry coulis.

The new regional dishes are accompanied by a wide range of wines from neighbouring Canton Grisons. These include selected reds and whites from the Rhine Valley, which has been described as “the Burgundy of Switzerland” and is the country’s oldest winegrowing region. First Class guests will be offered a Malans Pinot Blanc and a Selfi Wingert Pinot Noir from the Fromm winery, while Business Class travellers can enjoy such delights as a Goldene Sonne Riesling-Silvaner from Felsberg and a fruity Malans Pinot Noir from the Cottinelli estate.

SWISS Traditions with Glarus alpine chic

SWISS will also be treating its Business Class guests on selected European routes to a further aspect of Canton Glarus this autumn, under its “SWISS Traditions” programme. The “Alpchäs und Schabziger” Market, a paradise for cheese lovers, is held in the Glarus village of Elm on the first Sunday in October, and ends with the traditional bringing down of the cows – all lavishly decorated – to their lower winter pastures. SWISS will be celebrating this annual gourmet market from 17 to 29 September with a range of on-board offerings that may include (depending on the length of the flight) selected alpine cheeses, beef fillet with chestnut crust, spinach dumplings and Schabziger cheese, a Glarus dried-beef carpaccio with ricotta and goat cheese mousse or a Glarus plum “duo”.

Glarus: a region of contrasts

Switzerland’s Canton Glarus is one of the country’s steepest alpine valleys and a region of contrasts. In tourist terms the canton, with its Kerenzerberg and Glarus Nord, the town of Glarus and the Klöntal and the Elm and Braunwald-Klausen Pass vacation areas, is something of an insider tip for both summer and winter activities. While just an hour or so from Zurich, the canton still retains its ancient “Landsgemeinde” open-air popular assembly and its traditional industries, too. And its farming and commercial sectors still produce such genuine local specialities as Glarner Pastete (pastry), Glarner Kalberwurst (sausage) and Glarner Alpkäse (cheese), all carefully handcrafted to this day.

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) is Switzerland’s national airline, serving over 100 destinations in 43 countries from Zurich and Geneva and carrying some 16.5 million passengers a year with its 91-aircraft fleet. The company’s Swiss WorldCargo division provides a comprehensive range of airport-to-airport airfreight services for high-value and care-intensive consignments to some 130 destinations in over 80 countries. As “The Airline of Switzerland”, SWISS embodies the country’s traditional values, and is committed to delivering the highest product and service quality. With its workforce of over 9,000 personnel, SWISS generated total operating income of some CHF 5 billion in 2016. SWISS is part of the Lufthansa Group, and is also a member of Star Alliance, the world’s biggest airline grouping.