Wood — Restaurant in Valtournenche

The iconic Matterhorn mountain straddles the Italian- Swiss border and overlooks the town of Zermatt in Switzerland (think ‘Night Manager’, recently broadcast by the BBC) and Breuil Cervinia, in the Aosta Valley of Italy. In Italian its know as Monte Cervino and is part of the Monte Rosa mountain range.

Within the fairly undistinguished, save for the view of the Matterhorn, ski resort of Breuil Cervinia, is the restaurant Wood. If you try googling it you’ll find a Facebook page and references to it on various review websites but it doesn’t have its own website. The timber decor is what gives the place its name and it has the feel of a designer Alpine refuge. The Michelin guide gives it a plate (good cooking) and two knives and forks (good standard).

On booking, by telephone, we were told we must arrive at 1230, making us feel grateful that we’d been able to get a table at all but when we arrived at 1245, having telephoned to say we’d been delayed getting out of Milan, the place was empty and apart from our table for two it remained empty throughout the service.

Service from the waiter was generally efficient, if without warmth, but he subjected me to one of my pet hates. It seems that waiters in Italy do not change their shirts often enough and in this case the guy’s black shirt was covered in food stains, presumably from the day before. There’ no excuse for this and it is off-putting. I was also subjected to another torment; the non-conventional placement of cutlery on the table. Often, these days, one finds things set a jaunty angle or everything to one side but at Wood this happened:

What’s this all about? The menu looked very interesting indeed and was firmly in the modern idiom and I started with Uovo 60 C, which was described as Egg cooked at 60 degrees with potato foam, marinated egg yolk, thyme and rosemary crisp potatoes. It looked lovely but in reality it lacked any real depth of flavour and the egg was just a little underdone so it didn’t ooze its yolk into the foam to make an unctuous sauce as I’d hoped it would.

Next up was Fish & Crunch, which was scallops, crispy sweetbreads in panko breadcrumbs, celeriac cream and liquorice. The liquorice came in the form of a powder, dropped around the circumference of the plate. If it had been somehow applied to the scallops it might’ve been better integrated into the dish but as it was it added very little to the experience. The sweetbreads were well cooked and tasty but lacked the promised crunch and the scallops themselves were nothing special at all. Scallops are a favourite of mine and I was disappointed not to enjoy them more than I did.IMG_0049.jpg

My notes about desert have been lost but looking at the photograph (below) and comparing it to the menu I’d copied, I really can’t match it, not does it evoke any particular memory – good or bad, which sort of sums up the whole experience really.

The coffee when it arrived was cold, not tepid but really quite cold. This is presumably because the coffee machine hadn’t been used since the previous evening and wasn’t sufficiently pre-heated. Replacements were brought and I promptly spilled mine over the white linen table cloth. I apologised profusely to the waiter, which is more than he did to me when I sent back the cold cup of coffee, but he did nothing to put me at ease, rather he silently brought another replacement.

I probably wouldn’t eat at Wood again, the food was well presented but the flavours didn’t live up to the visual experience. I certainly wouldn’t go out my way to visit it again but if you are skiing nearby, and fancy giving it a go, I won’t advise you not to do so. It might be better when it’s busier.

One final good point to note, is that there is no cover charge and wifi is free. I’ve never really understood cover charges, which are no more than a tax for giving one’s custom to a particular restaurant; better to load all of the costs into the price of the...

For a Michelin star restaurant normaly you're expecting the best of the best. It is imposibile to go to a Michelin⭐ restaurant and give Les then 5*. Tre staff was warm and helpful, the most of the food was tasty and good looking. Some weakness from the staff (didn't bother us) should be improved: the table should be cleaned always from rest overs after every dish not only after the last dish they should find a better (or an official way) to serve the cognac especially when is a XO .... Not just bring you the bottle to show it to you but they bring you the bottle after they put the cognac in a cold and very cheep glass (nothing special except the fine cognac that we served) if a plate is dirty it should be replaced right away:( the glasses and the cutlery was not the best quality (medium at the most)

This is just a feedback for improve your skills is not a bad feedback cause we were satisfied about the restaurant but we did have much and hi value experience in other Michelin ⭐...

Semplicemente assurdo e disgustoso. Ristorante che scimmiotta i ristoranti stellati senza avere ne' le competenze ne' la qualità. Il tentativo di farvi vivere un'esperienza di cibo si infrange su un capello trovato nel piatto. Purtroppo sono incidenti che capitano (specie alle persone poco professionali), ma la gestione dell'incidente ha dell'incredibile: chiediamo un altro piatto mostrando comprensione per l'accaduto e la risposta è stata: "si glielo portiamo ma deve comunque pagare il piatto dove ha trovato il capello " (tra parentesi il capello era corto e nero mentre io sono quasi calvo e mia moglie e mia figlia sono bionde con i capelli lunghi). In poche parole non solo dimostrano incompetenza nella preparazione dei piatti, ma sopratutto nella gestione della clientela, facendo intendere che stavamo cercando di truffare. Il tutto si conclude con il goffo tentativo di offrirci un dolce. Se qualcuno è interessato, aggiungo che i piatti erano solo ben impiattati ma ben lontani dalle esperienze culinarie dei veri ristoranti. La serata si conclude, dopo aver pagato il conto, con le mie rumorosissime lamentale e il responsabile che, inseguendoci fuori dal locale, ci accusava di aver consumato quasi tutto il piatto; forse si aspettava pure le nostre scuse per il fatto che, nella penombra del locale, ci siamo accorti quasi alla fine del disgustoso intruso ?

Simply absurd and disgusting. Restaurant that mimics starred restaurants without having any skills or quality. The attempt to make you live a food experience breaks on a hair found on the plate. Unfortunately they are accidents that happen (especially to unprofessional people), but the management of the incident is unbelievable: we ask for another dish showing understanding for what happened and the answer was: "we bring it to him but you must still pay for the dish where you found the hair "( the hair was short and black while I am almost bald and my wife and daughter are blondes with long hair). In a nutshell, they not only demonstrate incompetence in the preparation of the dishes, but above all in the management of the customers, making us understand that we were trying to cheat. It all ends with a clumsy attempt to offer us a dessert. If anyone is interested, I would add that the dishes were only well served but far from the culinary experiences of real restaurants. The evening ends, after paying the bill, with my extremely loud complaints and the person in charge who, chasing us out of the room, accused us of having consumed almost the whole dish; perhaps he was also expecting our apologies for the fact that, in the darkness of the place, we noticed the disgusting intruder almost...