Swiss food is more interesting than its reputation suggests. While fondue and raclette are genuine staples and not just tourist inventions, the cuisine varies substantially across the country's linguistic regions.
Cheese dishes are the backbone of Swiss cooking. Fondue — melted cheese with white wine and kirsch served with bread cubes — is at its best in Fribourg, where the traditional blend is half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois. Raclette, the Valaisan speciality, involves melting a half-wheel of cheese and scraping it onto boiled potatoes with pickles and dried meat. Both are winter dishes that work best in cold weather.
Rösti is the German-speaking Swiss answer to hash browns: grated potato fried into a thick cake, crispy outside, soft inside. It originated as a farmer's breakfast in Bern and remains a staple across the country. The "Rösti divide" (Röstigraben) is the semi-ironic term for the cultural boundary between German and French-speaking Switzerland.
Zürcher Geschnetzeltes is Zurich's most famous dish: veal strips in a cream and white wine sauce, served with rösti or noodles. Found in restaurants throughout the German-speaking region.
Ticino brings Italian influence to the table: polenta, risotto, fresh pasta, and brasato (braised beef). The cuisine here is genuinely different from northern Switzerland and the quality of Italian food in Lugano and Locarno is high.
Bread and pastries are taken seriously. Zopf, a braided egg bread, is a Sunday morning institution. Berner Leckerli (hard spiced biscuits from Basel) and Tirggel (thin honey wafers from Zurich) appear at Christmas markets.
Swiss wine is little known internationally because almost none is exported — it is consumed domestically. The Valais produces robust reds (Pinot Noir, Cornalin) and the dry white Fendant (Chasselas). Vaud's vineyards along Lake Geneva make light, drinkable whites. Ticino produces good Merlot. If you see wine from small Swiss appellations on a restaurant list, order it — you will not get the chance elsewhere.
Supermarkets are the practical solution for budget eating. Migros and Coop both have self-service cafeterias with hot meals at reasonable prices (CHF 12–18 for a full meal). The Coop in particular is excellent for ready-to-eat food. Denner and Aldi are cheaper for groceries.
Switzerland is expensive to eat out in. A simple restaurant lunch runs CHF 20–30 per person. Fixed-price lunch menus (Tagesmenü/plat du jour) are typically CHF 18–25 and represent better value than ordering à la carte.