THE GARDEN SHOW
“I want to make everyone happy,” says Heiko Nieder of his open-air restaurant Blooms. It’s perhaps the biggest culinary show on offer at Swiss Deluxe Hotel The Dolder Grand on the Zurichberg – not least because the integration into a huge, carefully tended garden is exceptionally beautiful. “It makes sense to introduce vegetarian cuisine right from the start,” explains the hotel’s culinary director. It makes life simpler for the cooks and happier for the customers, he explains.
CULTURE AND INSPIRATION
The garden is both a natural backdrop and a source of inspiration. Before serving, the cooks, under the direction of Heiko Nieder’s sous-chef Robin Briner, scour the greenery, picking flowers, plucking herbs or harvesting berries and vegetables. “But of course, we can’t cook everything with ingredients from the garden, it wouldn’t be enough,” explains Nieder. While there certainly aren’t enough tomatoes, for example, the shiso bushes literally “exploded” in the first season last year, says the 19-point cook. “We had so many that we couldn’t process everything,” continues Heiko Nieder. Cucumbers, wild and earth strawberries, beans, basil and countless other herbs – around 70 different plants grow in the kitchen’s luxurious garden. When the harvest of a given herb or vegetable is over, a new one is planted, so that the menu naturally evolves with the season. ;
NEW: GLUTEN-FREE BREAD
For the second season, half the menu has been rewritten, but some dishes have already established themselves as classics. Such is the case with the sweet and sour tomato and strawberry salad, where the chillies in the strawberry vinaigrette add a summery touch that suits both the dish and the warm season. The tapioca and faine-based bread is brand new. It’s gluten-free and based on a recipe Heiko Nieder received from his mother-in-law. “The bread is baked in a glass jar. We don’t do this, but after some experimentation, we can make a very good bread with this recipe,” explains Nieder.
SMALL OASIS
The “Blooms” is a flagship project for the hotel – and for Heiko Nieder himself. And it’s an idea that pleases everyone, as he puts it. Although it’s hardly a big moneymaker, this fair-weather restaurant enhances the “Dolder” as a food destination and creates a good atmosphere in the establishment: among managers, cooks and guests alike. “Awareness of the beauty of nature has increased among my cooks. Everyone loves working here, everyone loves going into the garden to harvest. It’s our little oasis,” says Heiko Nieder of the restaurant’s function as a motivator. The customers, too, are “super relaxed and almost don’t want to get up”, says the head chef.
ONLY IN FINE WEATHER
From a logistical point of view, the vegan restaurant in the garden is a challenge for everyone involved, including the customers. If the weather deteriorates unexpectedly, reservations have to be canceled by phone. But everyone “reacts with understanding”, according to Nieder. Planning staff and set-up also requires a great deal of flexibility, but Heiko Nieder and a team have developed an admirably relaxed routine to provide consistently high quality service not only in “The Restaurant” (19 GaultMillau points, 2 Michelin stars), but also in “satellite restaurants” such as “Blooms” or in the changing pop-up concepts that take place in the former bar.
LIGHT AND TIRED
“The first season in the garden went surprisingly well and without a hitch,” says Heiko Nieder, looking back. For the second season, which has just begun, the 20 to 30 customers who take their seats here on a fine evening can look forward to combinations such as green tartare with zucchini, cucumber and avocado with a dressing of lettuce, green chillies, basil and lime. Warm kohlrabi stuffed with sushi rice under a dill mousse with yuzu and miso is a wonderfully light dish. And among the desserts, the coconut cheesecake on a pistachio base with raspberries and raspberry sorbet remains a bestseller – a kind of midsummer night’s dream in the form of a slice of cake and an evocative conclusion to the “Blooms” menu.
Text: David Schnapp
