Frequently Asked Questions

What is Swiss Global Dining?

Swiss Global Dining is a project to explore the flavors of the world as they can be found in Switzerland, a country of nine million people with over two million foreigners. If a country exists on this earth, there is a strong likelihood that someone from there has taken up residence in Switzerland. 

The goal is to try and eat at a restaurant from every country in the world, which we define as UN member states plus a few countries or territories that have restaurants and populations that can be found in Switzerland. For our purposes, this includes Kashmir (a disputed territory administered by China, India and Pakistan), Kosovo (where the majority of Albanians in Switzerland, currently over 200,000, come from), Kurdistan (a people divided across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey without an internationally recognized state), Palestine (which has UN observer status as a non-member state), Taiwan (officially the Republic of China), and Tibet (annexed by China in 1950).

After we enjoy the national cuisine in a restaurant, we will then attempt to make the national dish at home, using local ingredients. Every week, we will share a restaurant and a recipe on the Swiss Global Dining website, GlobalDining.ch, and with our followers on social media.

If you wish to receive both a review of the restaurant and the recipe in your email inbox, please be sure and subscribe. You can also follow Swiss Global Dining on social media, specifically Instagram, TikTok and YouTube @swissglobaldining, where we will present our efforts in brief, 90-second clips twice a week, with a different country featured every week. 

As a point of prejudice, we will always veer towards restaurants owned or with chefs from the country of origin over concepts. However, this project is also about Switzerland’s and Swiss encounters with the world. On occasion, we may visit a restaurant where there are roots found through other means, whether marriage, children, professional ties such as diplomatic or NGO work, or other connections to the country of the cuisine.

Part travelogue of Switzerland and the world in Switzerland and part foodie obsession, Swiss Global Dining hopes to tell stories of Swiss encounters with the world, via the quickest route to the heart, through the stomach.

Join us! We launched, beginning with Afghanistan, in late October 2023! 

How are restaurants selected?

We live in Bern, Switzerland’s capital. Obviously cost, distance and delicious are factors. As are personal recommendations and opportunities to explore. 

There is no secret sauce but the research is extensive and recommendations are welcome. We also know the restaurant industry can be a fickle business and places open with the same frequency they close. We try and pick keepers but know that may not always be the case. Additionally, we strive for authenticity over concepts. 

As far as our selection methodology, we are working our way through the alphabet, in English. That said, exceptions are made and this is not a hard and fast effort to meticulously eat our way across global cuisines of Switzerland alphabetically.

For instance, Albania comes second in the English alphabet of nations, but the majority of those who consider themselves Albanians in Switzerland are from Kosovo or Northern Macedonia or even Montenegro. Oh well. What will be will be.

Also, if we have guests from abroad or knowledge of a special happening, we may skip ahead. We may also double back if a new restaurant opens and it is from a country where we could not locate a restaurant, despite our finest efforts (hello, Angola – let us know if you know where to get the best muamba de frango in Switzerland, we looked high and low). 

What is a national dish? 

A national dish is generally described as the dish of a nation and its people. There are but a few criteria that characterize what is generally accepted as the national dish of a country, any country.

Everyone or almost absolutely everyone in a country knows what the national dish is, even if it is not to their liking or it is debated if it is really the national dish. From a sentimental perspective, these are dishes that often have many variations and they are often adapted to local tastes. There may even be contests and animosities over who makes it best or preferences as to which villages has the best version.

Some nations have a few national dishes and some countries share a national dish, albeit with variations. Sometimes, countries that share a national dish go to war with each other and some dishes were adapted into local cuisine through processes that a modern, liberal, anticolonial person may look unfavorably on (curry and hummus, here is to you!). Again, oh well.

Swiss Global Dining is not here to make political statements or suggest one dish belongs to one nation and therefore it belongs to no other country. The history of food is the history of humanity. There is a reason why breaking bread is akin to having a way into a society, a family, a tribe, a culture, a nation.

As an American, Amanda knows Thanksgiving is a shared meal about discovery, colonialization, conquest, multiculturalism, gratitude and genocide all at once. Georg is above all neutral; he is not sure if it is active neutrality, cooperative neutrality, or armed neutrality or all of it together – or just delicious. Welcome to the human condition.

How can you support Swiss Global Dining? 

Subscribe for email updates at GlobalDining.ch.

Follow our social media pages @swissglobaldining on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. 

We have also set up a Patreon site if you wish to support this project. To date, though, the focus has been on getting the ball rolling. We have not yet considered what privileges and rewards you may obtain for your generosity – beyond a path to our hearts, which of course runs straight through the stomach. Trinkgeld or Essengeld?

When did Swiss Global Dining officially launch?

Mid-October 2023, we began posting restaurants and recipes from our culinary adventures, starting with Afghanistan in Zürich, Kosovo in Olten and Algeria in Yverdon-les-Bains.

Typically, we will begin the week with a restaurant and end with a recipe. This way you can decide whether to dine out or eat in. Culinary culture should be inclusive and not cost prohibitive, in our view.

What countries are we struggling to find restaurants for?

To see a complete, updated list of countries we are still struggling to find restaurants in Switzerland for despite extensive research and crowd-sourced recommendations on our social media pages, please see our "Help Us" page.