Restaurant Magdalena — Restaurant in Schwyz

Tl;dr: exceptional food, great service and atmosphere; in the running for the best dining experience of my life. If you have the means and opportunity to eat here, do so.

My partner and I dined here to celebrate her birthday. It was our first time at a 2* restaurant, and both of us got the full 7-course menu.

Every dish was meticulously crafted and balanced, with intense, complex flavor profiles and impeccable presentation. Highlights included the cheese and fig mustard pate a choux (part of a snack to start), the fennel amuse-bouche, and the corn & chanterelle soup. That being said, a first-rate quality was maintained across every single dish, making it nearly impossible to pick favorites. I am not vegetarian but did not miss meat or fish once, so I can wholeheartedly recommend this restaurant to any (non-vegan) food lovers.

The kitchen was extremely generous in serving us multiple additional plates or courses beyond the listed 7. If the quality wasn't so incredible it almost certainly would have been more than either of us could have eaten in a single sitting, but we happily cleared every plate.

We both opted for the wine pairing, but were encouraged to try each wine first, and were able to skip some glasses at our leisure. We only paid for the glasses we actually drank, which is an idea I hope to see more in the future. The wines we did drink all had unique backgrounds as explained by our server and paired with the dishes well.

Our servers were kind and attentive, and we are grateful that they were willing to speak English with us as my partner is still learning German. The head chef Dominik Hartmann personally served us the first and last dishes. He seemed friendly and approachable, and we were happy to be able to personally thank him for this outstanding meal.

Of course such a meal does not come cheap, but given the sheer quanity of unique dishes and the high cost of restaurants in Switzerland the price of the food genuinely seemed fair. My one criticism would be the practice of charging a significant amount for water, which has less to do with this establishment and more with Swiss (or nothern/central European?) restaurant culture in general. I don't expect bottled water to be free, but 9 chf for an unlabelled carafe of still water is a lot, even (or especially?) when you are already paying several hundred for dinner.

The restaurant decor is simple yet sophisticated, with and understated refinement completely devoid of pretentiousness which allows the food to always be in focus. The beautiful view of the Vierwaldstättersee and surrounding mountains were a perfect backdrop.

Overall, our experience was overwhelmingly positive. It was a true joy to experience the many unique flavor combinations from this exceptionally talented and innovative team. Given the right occasion we would be thrilled...

we had a very nice experience at Magdalena. The staff was very welcoming and the atmosphere was very cozy. The food was mostly great!

I'm vegetarian with some special requirements which were all accommodated without any issue.

All in all 4.5 stars - 9/10 but just not a 10 because of price. We paid 600 chf for two, which is cheap for 2 star Michelin though.

Only a few very minor things that stood out. Some of the dishes were very sour oriented and with high acidity, my partner confirmed that this was also the case previously, which is not super our thing. But who knows maybe for others. the first white wine that came (sauv blanc) had also high acidity, switched to a merlot, no biggie, but maybe a concept. had some longer wait time for water, but once I moved my glass to a more visible area they came right away! personally I like the concept of the waiter introducing themselves, but the concept is different here, there is always somebody different from the team showing up. call me old school but I like the sort of personal waiter introducing themselves with their name. But might be different concept, felt for me a little impersonal.

highlights: cozy atmosphere and the staff ventilated the restaurant in between! super cool cutlery and dishes a lot of of food everything veggie which is great, and a lot of variety! the bread and butter was awesome staff brought by accident a tempranillo which I loved. staff fun and friendly

thank you for...

The interior of the restaurant is very modest and simple. I did not expect much because i saw some pictures on Google before coming and wasnt even sure if the vibe will be good for a romantic dinner with my husband, but when we entred and wow. I was pleasantly surprised. This restaurant has a beautiful view on mountains. The food looked amazing. Every dish looked like a small garden on a plate and tested delicious, we had alcoholic paring as well as non alcoholic. Both were great and really complimented the food perfectly. The funny thing is we did not know that Magdalena is a vegetarian restaurant. After the main course we asked the waitress if there will be any meat dish so she told us they are a vegetarian restaurant. We did not even mind. Honestly the food was delicious and we were so satisfied that we did not even...