The Japanese by The Chedi Andermatt

Omakase at altitude

The first cuts for omakase put Dominik Sato, Chef at The Japanese by The Chedi Andermatt in Andermatt, close to the counter before the room fills. He works in a restaurant set on Mount Gütsch, above the town, where the pass faces a dining room of dark wood, natural stone, glazed walls and mountain light. Sato’s route to this station ran through Bern and Thun: Head Chef at Zum Äusseren Stand in Bern until 2023, Executive Chef at Congress Hotel Seepark in Thun until 2023, then Executive Chef of The Japanese Restaurant and The Japanese by The Chedi Andermatt from 2023 to the present. The house cooking is Japanese-inspired, with European influence held in the structure rather than announced on the plate. Sato’s named forms are Shidashi Bentō, Omakase, Kaiseki and Sushi, disciplines that ask for sequence, restraint and a precise hand. His own account begins with food and the science behind cooking, a route that led him into fine dining. At Gütsch, that curiosity has to meet a sharper condition: a Japanese kitchen working at a mountain station, with the tempo of a counter and the exposure of an open kitchen.

Kaiseki shaped by the pass

The program here moves through the set forms the restaurant publishes: Omakase Kaiseki Menu, a vegetarian version of that menu, Shidashi Bento, sushi, sashimi, tempura specialties and N25 caviar. None of those categories forgives drift. Omakase puts judgment at the pass; kaiseki asks the kitchen to carry pace, season and proportion through a sequence; sushi brings the work back to rice, cut, temperature and timing. The restaurant is Japanese haute cuisine with subtle European influences, with the European note sitting beside the Japanese method rather than replacing it. The altitude gives the work another measure. The Japanese by The Chedi Andermatt is situated between 2,300 and 2,400 meters above sea level, and has been described as the highest Japanese restaurant in the world to hold a Michelin star. That fact is not decoration for the menu. It changes the sense of arrival, the light in the room, the relation between the counter and the mountains beyond the glass. The craft still has to land in the bowl, the bento, the nigiri.

The room above Andermatt

The room keeps its materials close to the landscape: dark woods, natural stone fittings, alpine architecture, large glazed panel walls and open fireplaces. From the tables, the view runs toward the Gotthard, Oberalp Pass, the Ursern Valley and the surrounding mountain panorama. Inside, the open kitchen gives the room its center of gravity. Guests can see the pass working, the sequence moving, the counter rhythm tightening as sushi, sashimi, tempura and kaiseki courses leave the kitchen. The dining room is not a hotel lobby transported uphill; it is a mountain station restaurant built around a Japanese program. The terrace widens that feeling, but the essential texture remains bench-side: hands, heat, rice, fish, stone, wood, glass, snow or summer light outside.

One star on Gütsch

The restaurant holds 1 Michelin star and 17 GaultMillau points, recognition attached to this house on Gütsch. Sato also carries the Michelin Young Chef Award presented by Blancpain and Cook of the Year at the Anuga, but the daily test here is smaller and more exacting: keeping them in discipline at altitude. On the counter, Dominik Sato’s next service still has to pass through the Omakase Kaiseki Menu.