Löwengarten, Rorschach: Venison, Spätzli and Five Swiss Cheeses in an Old Brewery

I review restaurants the way some people inspect used cars: sceptically, slowly, and with a firm belief that the shine on the outside rarely tells you the truth about what is underneath. After two decades of restaurant reviews on Luxvisor, I have learned that the honest test of a kitchen is not the tasting menu with twelve foams but the classic it cannot hide behind. In autumn in Eastern Switzerland, that classic is game. So this Löwengarten Rorschach restaurant review comes down to one plate and one question: can they cook a venison schnitzel properly?

A Brewery That Learned to Cook

The setting does a good deal of the talking before you have even sat down. Restaurant Löwengarten occupies the former bottling hall of the old Löwengarten brewery, a listed building that belongs to Rorschach as much as the Kornhaus and the lake itself. The beer has been brewed in St. Gallen since 2007; what remains here has been restored with real care into a restaurant with a beer garden, a garden room, a vaulted cellar and a roof terrace.

Straight-line distances. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

I took a seat at the bar, which is where I prefer to judge a restaurant: you see the team at work, you see who gets attention and who does not, and nobody can stage anything for your benefit. Dark wood, a back bar lit like a jeweller’s window, arched industrial windows and a candle in a glass the size of a goldfish bowl. It manages to be warm without tipping into kitsch, which is harder than it looks in a converted brewery.

Getting there is easy, I will give them that: there is an underground car park in the building and a bus stop, aptly named Löwengarten, right outside the door. Rorschach Stadt station is a short walk away.

I started, as I do when I am working, without alcohol: an Aperitivo SENZA over ice, bitter-orange and bright, alongside a bottle of Appenzeller mineral water. It is a small thing, but a restaurant that takes its alcohol-free aperitivo as seriously as its spritz has usually thought about the rest of the evening too.

Main Course: The Rehschnitzel

And so to the plate that decides the review. Two venison schnitzel, seared so that the outside had colour and the inside stayed rosy, under a Wildrahmsauce, the game cream sauce that separates cooks who know the season from cooks who merely put it on the menu. This one was velvety, deep and properly seasoned, rich enough to carry the meat without drowning it.

Around it, the full autumn liturgy, done right: a scattering of chanterelles and mushrooms, glazed chestnuts, a neat mound of red cabbage that had been braised long enough to be sweet and still had bite, three Brussels sprouts with actual flavour, and the classic poached apple filled with lingonberries. Nothing on that plate was decoration. Every element had a job and did it.

The Spätzli came separately in a small bowl, freshly made, buttery and golden, finished with a few blue cornflower petals. I have eaten industrial Spätzli in restaurants that should know better, the kind that taste of the bag they came in. These were the real thing, irregular and tender, and I finished the bowl, which tells you more than any adjective.

Dessert: Five Swiss Cheeses Instead of Something Sweet

Here I exercised one of my house rules. When a kitchen offers a serious cheese board, I take it over dessert, because a cheese board cannot be faked: either someone has sourced well or they have not. Löwengarten works with Kündig Feinkost, and the selection, chalked up on a little board on the bar, was a short tour of Eastern Switzerland’s best dairies.

Nicola, a sheep’s milk cheese from W. Schmid. The mild Königs Chäs of Schwingerkönig Arnold Forrer, aged two and a half to three months. An Appenzeller Bergbrie, soft and gently mushroomy. The Schlossberger Grossvater, matured for 20 to 24 months, crystalline and nutty, the best thing on the plate. And Jersey Blue, again from W. Schmid, made from Jersey milk with a nutty, faintly smoky finish. Grapes, walnuts and a fruity chutney completed it. Five cheeses, five characters, served at the right temperature, which is rarer than it should be.

By the time the last piece of Grossvater was gone, the room around me had filled with locals, couples and a table of friends who clearly come here often, the bar had settled into the easy rhythm of a weekday evening, and I had stopped taking notes. The team is young and quick, friendly without being familiar, and nobody seemed troubled by a guest photographing his schnitzel from three angles. That relaxed confidence, more than any single dish, is what makes a place worth returning to.

Roger Hohl is the founder and Executive Editor of Luxvisor. He dined at Restaurant Löwengarten, Rorschach, choosing the venison schnitzel from the game menu and the cheese board instead of dessert.

Restaurant Löwengarten, St. Gallerstrasse 41, Rorschach (Switzerland) · restaurant-loewengarten.ch

About the author

Roger Hohl

Roger Hohl has been at the helm of Luxvisor since 2006. From his base in Switzerland he travels to test what the luxury travel industry promises, from the seat at 40,000 feet to the last course of a tasting menu, and writes about it with an independent eye.