Inside Zermatt’s first Michelin Green Star restaurant

Whether you’ve heard stories of David Bowie going off-piste, spotted Nicole Kidman at the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof or are mastering aprés ski as a Green Zone skier for life, Zermatt remains the picture-perfect ski resort for the IYKYK crew. This winter wonderland—where Moncler jackets, Loro Piana cashmeres, and Patek Philippe watches seem to be the unofficial uniform—lies in the shadow of the Matterhorn, the peak made popular by Toblerone and its odd pyramidal shape. But whether you’re royalty, Hollywood’s hottest, the scion of a billionaire, or just a wide-eyed tourist, be ready to walk or pile into the little electric buggies to get around this car-free mountain town. It seems everyone here cares most about the quietest of luxury and climate change.

It’s hard not to care for the former when you can afford it and the latter when you face it first-hand. In June last year, the Matter Vispa river, which runs through this town, overflowed its banks and turned into a muddy flash flood. It left a trail of destruction, and much of the village was closed to tourism as the residents dealt with the aftermath. Among those that had to reset and rebuild to reopen was the popular Michelin-starred restaurant Brasserie Uno, which received its first star in 2022 and then the resort town’s first Green Michelin Star for sustainability in gastronomy.

Brasserie Uno launched in 2018 with an a la carte menu of sandwiches and meatballs, but in 2019 the restaurant streamlined to a tasting menu, which allowed for the best and most efficient way to utilise its tiny 43 sqft open kitchen.

That six-course menu is what I tasted when I visited the restaurant last year, right before the floods. The 28-seater, ahead of its time in the now trendy deluge of XS eateries, is perfectly cosy with its seats draped with sheep-wool pelts and the warm yellow glow from the overhanging Edison bulbs. Dishes are served on mismatched crockery, and there’s no menu in sight, not even a chalkboard one. Instead, every dish is explained tableside. It’s an intimate, seasonal, and chef-led experience.

Mexican chef Luis Romo and Italian chef Tommaso Guardascione together serve up a constantly changing menu that is focused on seasonal produce and ferments that reflect both their personalities and cooking styles. The duo met while cooking at a hotel in Zermatt earlier in their careers, and Romo was completely wowed by Guardascione’s agnolotti in broth. When Romo dreamt up the menu concept, he knew he wanted Guardascione by his side.

The night we dined, the menu featured dishes like house-made miso with white asparagus, a blue corn tamale with Mexican cheese, a smoky caldillo with broad beans and salsa verde, and so on. It was the kind of unforgettable hearty meal that was as comforting as it was creative.

From the very beginning, this collaborative kitchen has been militant about food waste, whether it is serving easy-to-finish portions or going root to shoot, or head to tail, with the ingredients they work with. They turn scraps into broth, source local freshwater fish from the village, and play with fermentation to both preserve ingredients and create new flavour profiles. Their menu is a mix of vegan and vegetarian options, alongside Swiss meat and fish dishes, and they run as a minimal-food-waste restaurant, with whatever little food waste incurred being recycled into energy for the village.

“I know that nature can turn on itself,” says Guardascione, whose mother lives in flood-prone Tuscany and father in earthquake-prone Naples. “The person who doesn’t believe in climate change and the person who believes that our earth is not alive and has a consciousness… they still need to maybe reincarnate a few more lives to understand that this is true,” shares Romo.

But nothing could prepare the chefs for the havoc that ensued in Zermatt. The cellar flooded and destroyed two fridges, two freezers, an ice cream machine, and all their ferments. Luckily, most of their wine collection survived. “Glacier sand is super-fine dust, so we could basically clean the wines with a shoe brush,” explains Romo.

When they were ready to open, their multi-course degustation menu needed a bit of a rework. The amuse bouche, which featured their home-made miso, had to be dropped because their ferments were ruined by the flooding. “These were three-, four-year-old misos, so that was a little heartbreaking,” says Romo of his fermented paste that takes on a stronger, more pungent flavour over time.

This year, the restaurant has restarted its miso programme with plans to inoculate their koji in-house while using local ingredients like fava beans (which they started at the beginning of winter to give it a head start). They’ve also kept a single dessert on the menu through the winter, which isn’t the norm. But the celeriac root semifreddo topped with caviar has become their signature dish—beloved by the two chefs and their customers alike.

The events of the last year have only served to fortify their beliefs. Guardascione knows that it takes skill and intention to continue to “choose to work with what you have and make something extraordinary out of the ordinary”. So, what is the “something extraordinary” they are looking forward to from the coming season? A special fermentation experiment they’ve been conducting on a sack of potatoes sourced from the nearby Albula valley, which, like most varieties of mountain potatoes, have a lower water content and a distinct flavour. And the first to sample their latest creation will be the lucky diners who have nabbed the upcoming summer bookings.

Meal for two: Approx ₹33,100 (170 CHF per person for a six-course meal)

Timings: 7 pm – 10:30 pm (closed Sundays & Mondays

Address: Brasserie Uno, Kirchstrasse 38, 3920 Zermatt, Switzerland

For reservations: Brasserie Uno reopens for the summer on June 4. For bookings, go to brasserieuno.com