Clocks…
Clocks…we waited with bated breath for the cuckoo to pop out!
And more clocks!
I’ve known my friend Lulu since High School. We’ve kept in contact through all sorts of moving, living overseas and moving far away and most recently she and her husband moved to the Blue Mountains. And she’s a reader of my site as much as she can with a 1 year old and another on the way. She does know of my predilection for the unusual and kitsch and when she and her husband dined at Swiss Cottage a while back they eagerly told me all about it from the great food to the waiter that balances chairs on his chin.
Bamboo ski poles!
Traditional boy’s outfit
I was of course intrigued. I had visions, and I don’t know why, of the giant from Twin Peaks balancing chairs on his chin and the dwarf dancing alongside. Perhaps it’s the fact that the Great Northern Hotel in Twin Peaks looks like it might be a setting for a Swiss restaurant-the Blue Mountains certainly has that Twin Peaks air about it. Or perhaps, and more likely, I have an overactive and inaccurate imagination. In any case I rang to book and asked the woman on the phone whether the chair balancing waiter would be there and she assured me yes.
Huge cow bells
Wooden ice skates
We’re early for our reservation as we need to head back to Sydney a bit earlier than planned and this is not a problem at all. We sit down in this adorably decorated cottage adorned with all sorts of Swiss memorabilia from vintage bamboo ski poles, lots of sets of skis; Swiss cuckoo clocks, a traditional knife sharpener and children’s outfits.
We order a range of dishes to share as we all want to try as much Swiss cuisine as possible. Walking through the lobby we see pictures of celebrities that have dined here including Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman when they were married. Of course I asked what they ordered – it was cheese fondue and soup and the smiling French Swiss owner says that they stayed for quite a while.
More wooden skis
Raclette $54 for two
The raclette is the first to arrive and there’s a small two part grill (a coupelle). We’re given a 12 thickish slices of cheese to pop in each of the two trays to grill under the heat as well as a plate of boiled potatoes, bread and salad.
Once the Raclette cheese (a mild cow’s milk cheese) is melted and bubbling we take the scraper and pour it over the potato or bread on the plate. It would be great on a cold winter’s night but I admit it is more a novelty to me and I enjoy the melting and scraping process.
We find that the two slices of french bread are not enough and we request more (charged to us at a cost of an additional $2 per 2 slices). However whilst we love the novelty, we are finding it hard to see value in the $54 dish.
Escargot 12 for $24
The little escargot snails, served out of their shells on the ceramic glazed escargot plates with the indents to hold the garlic buttery morsels. They’re heady with garlic butter and parsley and are delicious. Even my food fearing father enjoys them.
Saucisson Vaudois Smoked pork sausage wrapped in home-made puff pastry, served with French mustard and rosti $23.50
We try the Saucisson Vaudois which is a coarse ground smoked pork sausage wrapped in home-made puff pastry, served with French mustard and rosti. It’s quite delicious, the robust smoked sausage chewy and smokey against the flakey puff pastry.
White Farm Rabbit Farm rabbit in a wonderful basil sauce, served with rosti $27
The dish that intrigued so many was the White Farm Rabbit – the house speciality farm rabbit served with rosti. It’s served with a creamy brown mushroom sauce and it is eagerly sampled by everyone. I don’t usually like rabbit but I do like this dish and we order more bread to soak up the mushroom sauce.
Bacon and Onion Rosti $14.50
The Bacon and Onion Rosti is served in an entree size and it’s not bad although I have to admit I preferred Una’s buttery and unputdownable version as this is a bit floury for my taste.
At this point blythe points out that our waiter is Johnny Balance, the juggler, balancer and magician and today he’s the chair balancing waiter. He’s nothing like what I envisaged and he gives us a sample of the chair balancing on his chin complete with flourishes to much applause throughout the restaurant. The owner Monique explains that the reason why they get so many celebrities is in part due to Johnny and his work with them.
The 10% public holiday surcharge and extra charges for bread adds $22 to the bill but the charming service, interior and chair balancing helps to make up for it. We also want to kidnap the cow bearing the bill but refrain from doing so.
Swiss Cottage
132 Lurline Street, Katoomba NSW
Tel: (02)4782 2281
http://www.swisscottage.com.au
Open Wednesday to Sunday Lunch & Dinner
Open Fire/Garden Setting
No credit cards – No dessert only bookings – No BYO cakes
The outside area
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26 Comments | Add your own
How fun! I haven’t been here, but it looks like a fun place to eat.
What a cute place. I love the paraphenalia, especially the bells and the wooden skis.
That rabbit looks divine! Now that your taste for it is growing you will have to try cooking some!
Looks like a fun place to visit. A pity it was so pricey. $54 for melted cheese some boiled potatoes with salad and bread is insane! although, have you seen the price of cheese recently
Interesting place! What does the rabbit taste like ? Is it ‘gamey’ at all ?
hahah Loving the chair-balancing man. Hilarious! But do agree the prices are a bit steep. Grilled cheese shouldn’t be more than 50 bucks no matter how nice the cheese is.
I love the wooden skis and skates. The food sounds lovely, but pricey.
Oh Raclette, takes me down memory lane. I agree, poor value for it here. In Switzerland, some charcuterie and vegies sometimes come included and it still didn’t cost as much. Ahwell, it’s not like there’s enough competition to drive prices down lol.
It looks like it was a lot of fun and there was some nice looking food.
oh wow so interesting!! escargot…i’m hesitant but i’d be willing to try it…the sausage in the puff pastry looks amaaazing though!
Looks great! My father lives near Katoomba so I’ll have to check it out the next time I’m down there.
What a great find. You seem to have uncovered all the quirky eats in the Blue Mountains region
I’ll have to bookmark these for the next time I’m in the area!
Delurking from Switzerland! Having moved here in April and wondering about all the Japanese tourists eating fondue for lunch at the height of summer, I made the decision to save my first Swiss fondue/raclette experience for a cold, winter day.
Since it’s now freezing cold, it can only be a matter of days before the snow arrives and then I’m off to eat melted cheese and potatoes on a snow-covered mountain top
OOh wooooww! I want to try all those delicious looking foods yummmm! A meal and a show – brilliant!
I think the melting cheese has got me suckered in as well hee hee
He balanced a table when I was there. Interesting/odd.
While the rabbit was just good and the rosti okay for me, the escargots were amazing. A must have.
Their dessert plate is HUGE as well. Good if you like chocolate.
i’m not sure i would’ve been able to resist slipping the cow into my purse…
and johnny balance? impressive!
You weren’t kidding about balancing a chair. Holy crap. That’s amazing.
I probably would have worn pigtails and a Swiss Miss outfit.
Hi Cakelaw-It was really cute-and from the sign we saw up for sale! I was tempted for a bit!
Hi Y-We spent the first 15 minutes examining everything there was so much to see
Hi Annie-I know, I saw your rabbit but I don’t know if I’m ready to cook it just yet!
Hi Cappucino-I have to agree about the raclette. The rest was very reasonable but I didn’t think the raclette was very good value.
Hi Howard-Nope not gamey at all. The sauce was really nice and creamy
Hi K-Yeah he was definitely a drawcard plus he was a really nice waiter too
Yeah I was hoping there would be more to it than what we got!
Hi Arwen-Yes they were so precious! I’ve never seen wooden skates before
Hi Miss Honey-True, I think they said you could get a plate of cold meats for an additional $13 but I didn’t think we’d be in dire need of it
Yep I don’t think there’s much competition here!
Hi Kevin-It was fun melting the cheese, it’s things like that that keep me amused
Hi Madison-they taste mostly of the garlic butter and they remind me of tender squid so not bad at all!
The sausage was really nice I have to say.
Hi Marc-definitely! Has he been there at all?
Hi Helen-Hehe if it’s kitsch and quirky I’m there
Definitely worth a visit, especially if it’s cold!
Hi Lisbeth-Ah wonderful, hello! That’s a prudent idea although we were like those tourists as is was a hot summer’s day but alas there aren’t many Swiss places in Sydney and we were here
That description sounds so lovely and I can imagine that’s exactly how it was meant to be eaten!
Hi FFichiban-Definitely, the Blue Mountains is foodie heaven, honestly! Haha I think the saying should go “You had me at Melted Cheese” insteaed of Hello.
Hi Jobe-He didn’t have time to balance a table unfortunately as the other waitress was sick and he was doing all of the service. I thought the escargots were very nice but they always taste strongly of garlic butter and it’s hard to do wrong, well at least every time I’ve had them that’s the case as I’ve never had bad escargot.
Hi grace-Haha the poor little cow was broken in places but they glued him back together. He was very good indeed!
Hi Blond Duck-Yep he did it with such ease too! It was great! Haha you might have gotten extra dishes if you had
Melted cheese is heaven to me, that gooey salty goodness is the greatest thing! I need to find somewhere that does fondue near me!
Hi Jorden-Definitely,a well done fondue is a beautiful thing to behold!
Swiss Cottage is a great restaurant – they do the best cheese fondue I’ve had in Australia. How funny – I have exactly the same photo of the chair-balancing waiter! Nice post & great photos.
Hi Gail-That’s fantastic, I have to say that he is very entertaining! Sadly we missed out on the cheese fondue-next time maybe!
Raclette should include a whole bunch of condiments to put on the potato bewtween the cheese. Cornichons, pickled onions, whatever you can think of really. This place should definitely have these on offer for real Raclette experience. By the way, you can hire the raclette macines from the Mosman Cheese shop and they have the cheese too.
Hi Nicole-There was a little bowl of pickles, I don’t think we got photos of that. Good to know that, we’re just near there. It would be great for Winter!
Hi!
I recently visited this restaurant and I think it was fantastic as you described! I asked why the raclette cheese was so expensive and its because they import it from France – the price is actually for two so its really only $27 per person. Its really quite reasonable when you look at the price of a wheel of raclette!
The balancing waiter is great! He did some magic card tricks for us at our table! Beautiful restaurant and you really captured some great photographs
Hi Emily-Oh right, that’s good that you asked. You’re right it is $27 per person as it’s for two but I think I would have really like a plate of cold meats to be included in the price as I wasn’t full and I’m not a huge eater. But it was definitely a nice place and I’m glad I visited!
Lucky you! He was on alone so he didn’t have time to do a lot of stuff for us.
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