Affordable Swiss eatery

Vegetables, salads and wholesome food in an almost fast-food environment? During our September ’07 visit to Switzerland, that’s what we found in Lausanne at a Manora Restaurant (Rue Saint-Laurent 7,1002 Lausanne, Switzerland; phone +41 [0] 21 321 36 99). Affordable food in a country where restaurant prices can be as breathtaking as the Alpine views? Again, that’s what we found in the Manora.

All too often when traveling, we find ourselves studying menus filled with meat and starches but few options for well-balanced meals. Often, department store cafeterias are a smart option for inexpensive and healthy meals; Switzerland’s Manor department store chain is the best example of this that I’ve encountered. In addition to the Manora Restaurants, many of the stores operate stand-alone restaurants in many Swiss cities.

The Manora website (www.manora.ch/de/food/restaurant/manora.cfm), in German, lists approximately three dozen restaurant locations throughout Switzerland (not all in Manor stores). You’ll find some of these listed in the guidebook “Rick Steves’ Switzerland”; that’s how we learned of them.

We dined at the Manora in Lausanne for three evenings during our stay in that city. This easy-to-find restaurant is conveniently located at a major intersection near the Church of St. Francis in the Vieille Ville (Old Town) section of Lausanne. For each of our three visits, the bill for both my wife and me was about $35, including wine.

Manora is a self-service restaurant that functions similarly to the Marché restaurants that we frequent during our visits to Canada. There are stations for salads, seafood, vegetables, meats, pizza, panini sandwiches, bread, desserts, drinks, etc. You can build your own salad (three different sizes are available) or select a prepared salad.

If you select a meat or seafood entrée, it will be cooked as you wait. Each night of our visit there was a special offer for an entrée, with all of the vegetables and starches you could fit onto your plate priced between CHF10 and CHF12 ($8.50-$10). This special also included a nonalcoholic drink.

I sampled several different quiches and was pleased with each of them.

A large variety of desserts (mostly fruit-based) and many different smoothie-type drinks were featured. In addition to various sodas, fruit drinks and bottled waters, beer and wine were available. As we found elsewhere in Switzerland, wine was conveniently offered in ¼-, ½- and ¾-liter screwtop bottles. We usually drank the locally grown wines, which, while modest, were appealing and pleasant. Tap water was available at no cost from a fountain in the lower level of this 3-level restaurant.

The Manora Restaurants aren’t fine dining. Nevertheless, each is a fine choice for wholesome, tasty and affordable meals when in Switzerland.

STEPHEN O. ADDISON, Jr.

Charlotte, NC