Switzerland’s Foodie Season: Why Autumn Is The Best Time To Visit

For Alastair, autumn doesn’t arrive with the falling leaves. ‘I realised that autumn has arrived by my suppliers, not by my actual surroundings,’ he says. ‘When I start to see mushrooms, squash, different autumn vegetables, this is when I know autumn has actually arrived.’

Mushrooms are his weakness. ‘I’m quite a fanatic for mushrooms,’ he admits. ‘Moving from the UK to Switzerland, I didn’t realise the variety of mushrooms which were available to me.’ Look out for chanterelles and ceps on menus across the country, alongside game: venison, chamois and wild boar, served with red cabbage, chestnuts and spätzli. Near Gstaad, restaurants in Schönried serve game shot by local hunters, and some offer a traditional Metzgete, the autumn feast of sausages and cuts that follows the slaughter.

In Ticino, chestnuts were once a staple, dried for weeks over open fires in little stone huts called grà. Today they’re the star of a string of chestnut festivals around Lake Maggiore, and over the border in Graubünden, the Val Bregaglia holds its own chestnut festival.

In Valais, chestnuts are roasted for a brisolée and served with cheese, cured meats and fruit. High on the Simplon Pass, the Castagnata on 17 October 2026 brings Italian chestnuts, grapes and wine to the village square of Simplon Dorf. In Solothurn, look for the Cheschtele-Muni, a chestnut stand that has been run by the same family for almost 200 years.

Alastair finds his inspiration on his doorstep, ‘whether that’s looking across the lake, whether that’s looking up to the vineyards, whether that’s looking at a beautiful sunrise or the sunset.’ Those vineyards are Lavaux’s UNESCO-listed terraces. Very little Swiss wine is exported, so the best way to taste it is to come and find it.

Autumn is the time to do it. In La Côte, winemakers open their cellars to pour bourru, the cloudy, just-fermented first wine of the year. The Nyon Wine Festival celebrates the harvest with tastings and grape-picking. In Ticino, raise a glass to 120 years of Merlot, first planted in the Malcantone region.

We know we said Switzerland wasn’t all about fondue… but it would be remiss to ignore it altogether. Fondue isn’t only for ski season, and in autumn it gets more inventive. On Lake Lucerne, the Hotel Vitznauerhof serves it on a fondue boat. In Solothurn, the Öufi boat runs a new two-hour fondue cruise on the Aare every Friday from October. At Domaine Vitis Musicalis in Vaud, you can even eat fondue inside a wine barrel among the vines.

Near Gstaad, Fondueland Abländschen puts oversized fondue pots out in the landscape for picnics with regional cheese. And above Solothurn, the cable car takes 12 minutes to reach Weissenstein, where Hotel Weissenstein packs a raclette basket for you to cook in the open air while catching some rays of autumn sunshine.

Every region has its autumn specialities, and some are hard to find anywhere else. In the Maggia Valley in Ticino, grotti put cicitt – a thin, traditional goat sausage – is on the menu. On Lake Zug, the Zuger Rötel, an Arctic char, is only caught for a few weeks in late autumn and rarely leaves the canton.

In Chur, end an autumn day with Alpine cheese, Bündnerfleisch and a glass of local wine, followed by capuns. In the Neuchâtel Jura, join a torrée, where sausages are cooked in the embers of a forest fire.

Yes, Switzerland has its own truffles. Fresh Swiss Burgundy truffles go on sale at the Zug Truffle Market in Baar and at the Murten Truffle Market in October. In November, Bern’s Zibelemärit is a day-long celebration of the humble onion.

In Gruyères, La Maison du Gruyère shows how the famous cheese is made. For more harvest festivals, markets and fairs, browse Switzerland Tourism’s events calendar.

Some of the best autumn meals come at the end of a walk. In Nendaz, the Rando’Miam gourmet trail follows colourful irrigation channels, with a starter, game main course and dessert served at different stops along the way (daily until 25 October). In the Engadin, the Via Culinarica links mountain villages by their food. For more trails, see our autumn hiking guide, and for getting around by rail, our train travel guide.

For somewhere to stay that feeds you as well as it sleeps you, look to the Typically Swiss Hotels: family-run, full of local character, with kitchens that cook from the region around them. Or book into one of the Swiss Historic Hotels, where autumn’s game menus are served in dining rooms that have barely changed in a century. And Helvetic Kitchen is bringing a taste of it home with Swiss autumn recipes.