Think steaks & fondue, think Old Swiss Inn

Here’s the beef of this story: How much will you pay for steak? For a serving of Angus prime rib, gourmets will not hesitate to shell out a thousand or two to sink their teeth into a hearty cut of meat. But what if you could have your steak and eat it, too? What if you had to pay no more than a hundred bucks to enjoy your grill? What if you could have your steak now at post-WW2 prices? Too good to be true?

Not when we’re talking of the Old Swiss Inn. When it celebrates its 60th anniversary this August, the restaurant will be offering its original menu of steaks and sausages at prevailing prices in 1946, when the restaurant first opened. Says Old Swiss Inn managing director Katrina Limcaoco, "It’s a one day affair. Guests can have our steaks, sausages and pork knuckles at the prices they were sold 60 years ago."

This slice of good news will surely have steak lovers lining up outside the Old Swiss Inn’s branches in Makati, Paco and soon in Alabang. But there really is no need. The one-day affair is purely by reservation only. If you don’t reserve a table for this 60th anniversary blowout, there’s no way you’re going to get in.

However, there’s no need to wait until August to enjoy Old Swiss Inn’s menu of meats and sausages, not to mention fondue and raclette. And there’s nothing like enjoying these rustic Swiss treats in the restaurant’s quaint interiors that call to mind Swiss chalets and wait staff dressed in jumpers and dirndls.

The Old Swiss Inn was founded in 1946 by Swiss national Emil Landert who fell in love and decided to stay on in Manila. He opened his first outlet along the old Dewey Blvd. (now Roxas Blvd.), followed by another restaurant and a tourist hotel in Paco, Manila, and still another restaurant in Makati.

In the late 1980s, a local group revived the hotel and restaurant in Paco, which proved to be a successful venture. The Makati branch at the Olympia Towers along Makati Ave. in Makati City opened in 1994, and this branch has been offering 24/7 service for the past 10 years.

Limcaoco said her family has been a big fan of Old Swiss Inn ever since it first opened. Its sausages and grills were so down-to-earth that they proved to be a break from traditional Filipino cooking then. To this day, many old-timers still drop by the restaurant when they crave their favorites: pork knuckles, pepper steak, and corned beef.

The Old Swiss Inn menu retains many of the items from the original menu. The pork knuckles (gnagi) are more than just crispy pata. Available either baked or boiled, it is served with sauerkraut and boiled potatoes. The skin is a chewy mass that adds to the experience of this high-cholesterol dish. If you have it just once a year, you’ll still make it to the August blowout.

The corned beef is served in brisket slices, and not in hash like canned corned beef. It is served with sautéed cabbage and boiled potatoes in a beefy soup that will keep you warm on a really chilly day. But you can have it any time, summertime or come monsoon season.

The pepper steak Swiss Inn is another signature dish. Prime beef tenderloin is crusted with freshly cracked peppercorn, cooked to perfection, and served with french fries and young vegetables.

And if there’s pepper steak, there’s also the herb-crusted rack of lamb that is served with mint-lamb au jus and rosmarin potatoes.

By the way, those who love steaks can take advantage of the steak promo. Slabs of steak are served with unlimited hot garlic fried rice sautéed in Angus drippings. Steaks are available in 250-gram, 500-gram, 800-gram and one-kilo portions.

If you frequent just one Old Swiss Inn restaurant, you are bound to miss out on specials that are only available at its Paco and Makati branches.

The Makati-only items are daring in substance; some are even lighter fare, while others are fusion dishes combining native and European flavors. There’s the gazpacho, a chilled soup perfect for warm days; salmon al cartoccio, fish fillet cooked en papillote; anchovy pasta; prawns al grancia, grilled prawns in herb-butter sauce; corned beef caldereta; and sinigang na salmon.

The Paco-only items are old-time favorites dating back to the original Old Swiss Inn. Some of them need advanced orders because they require longer cooking times. These include escargot bourguignonne, 12 plump snails cooked in sweet garlic butter; steak tartare; black and pink steak, charred on the outside and pink and tender inside; duck cassoulet (two days’ advance notice), braised US duck stewed in white beans and Italian sausage and bacon rinds; and porchetta (two days’ advance notice), slow-roasted pork loin stuffed with chorizo, herbs and peppers.

Of course, what is Swiss food without sausages? A sausage platter that is good for four comes with pork, veal, scheublig and Hungarian sausages with sauerkraut.

Limcaoco is now pushing the restaurant’s melt-your-own raclettte promo. Banking on the popularity of the fondue-all-you-can promo years ago, she sees this raclette promo catching on big-time. As in the fondue, guests can melt and assemble their own raclette.

"I think the whole family will enjoy it," she says. "There’s nothing like seeing the whole family enjoying themselves at the table."

For many diners, the hallmark of Swiss cooking is still the fondue. Limcaoco says the fondue is popular because it is the perfect family or barkada treat. Since it takes some time for the cheese or chocolate sauce to melt or the oil to heat for the beef fondue, the group must have time on their hands. All those moments waiting for the fondue to cook should give them time to chat.

And yes, the perfect way to end any Swiss meal is still with the chocolate fondue. Make that the Toblerone tri-color chocolate fondue. Dine light and binge on fondue after. If chocolate fondue is heaven, then the Old Swiss Inn is seventh heaven.

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Old Swiss Inn has branches at The Garden Plaza Hotel and Suites, 1030 Belen St., Paco, Manila, with tel. nos. 521-3002 and 526-2739; and at the ground floor of Olympia Courtyard Suites, Makati Ave. corner Tomas Morato St., Makati City, with tel. nos. 818-8251, 818-0098, and 812-1010 locals 511 and 512.