A warm and creamy bowl of spätzli is the ultimate comfort food for Swiss chef, Roland Schai. He’s eaten these squiggly, egg dumplings everywhere – from Germany to Poland to Hungary and beyond. However, nothing beats a bowl of his hometown’s speciality: Appenzeller spätzli, dumplings with cheese, bacon, caramelised onions and apple sauce.
Schai was raised in a traditional Swiss home where he woke to the smell of freshly baked zopf (a type of bread) and fell asleep with a full belly of fried sausages and mash. His mother was not only the head chef for their family of six but the inspiration for Schai to pursue a career in food.
“My mother did a lot of cooking and baking, so I was always watching her and helping her out in the kitchen,” he says. “When I got older, in high school or on my school holidays, I went to hotels and worked in their kitchens, and I just loved it.”
Chef Roland Schai loves a warm bowl of Appenzeller spatzli.
Schai is now the heart and soul of the kitchen of Sydney’s only independent Swiss restaurant, The Matterhorn Swiss Restaurant. This restaurant has been 35 years in the making for him and his wife, Liarne, since they moved to Australia in 1987.
The Matterhorn’s monthly changing menu is as traditional as it gets, but it serves much more than just cheese fondue and crêpes Suzette.
“We change the full menu based on what’s in season, but we also have one unusual dish each month,” the chef explains. “Last month, we had wild boar and a wild rabbit terrine and before that, we got horse meat in from Perth.”
A permanent fixture on the menu is Schai’s much-loved Appenzeller spätzli. The hand-rolled egg dumplings are fried with bacon, drowned in cheese, crowned with caramelised onions, and served with apple sauce; the same way his mother made it for him as a child.
“Spätzli is on the menu and it’s always going to be on the menu,” he says. “It’s got that salty, sweet balance from the apple and cheese, and is such a nice combination.”
“Spatzli is on the menu and it’s always going to be on the menu.”
Perfect on its own or as a side to share, Schai often recommends pairing spätzli with The Matterhorn’s venison backstrap. It’s currently served on the winter menu with rotkraut (red cabbage) and oven-roasted chestnuts. He also suggests a glass of absinthe to digest the meal; a spirit that originated in Switzerland in the 1800s and that can be infused with many different herbs and spices.
Schai recently returned from a trip to Switzerland where he sourced speciality wines, schnapps and absinthe for the restaurant, some of which have been unavailable in Australia until now.
“We have made a huge effort to make sure the restaurant is more than just somewhere to grab a meal,” Liarne says. “We have created an ambience of old-school Europe where you feel like you have stepped into a restaurant in the heart of Switzerland instead of just a Swiss restaurant in Sydney.”
The Matterhorn Swiss Restaurant serves up a seasonal menu of traditional Swiss cuisine.
“Once, I made a lady cry because I made a dish that she remembered when she was young in Germany, and I made it exactly the same as her mother did,” Schai adds.
The Swiss chef had a similar experience on his trip home last month when he ate his mother’s home-cooked Appenzeller spätzli for the first time in years. It brought back many happy memories, which he hopes to share with all of Australia.
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