This year my European travels took in northern and southern Italy as well as Switzerland. All areas that make delicious, unassuming sweet treats from fresh local ingredients.
In autumn that often means stone fruit as well as grapes (it’s harvest season in the vineyards). Ice cream and gelato are freshly churned and garnished with tasty syrups, while meringue and pastry add crunch. Here are the best desserts from around the world I had this year. You’ll find my list of favourite savoury dishes here.
Red Plum Gratin Belle5 (Mont-Vully)
Among the steeply terraced, vineyard-covered hills overlooking Lake Murten, we happened across a quirky, casual restaurant serving some of the best food I’ve had all year. It’s the perfect spot for a leisurely al fresco Sunday lunch. The steak tartare prepared tableside was impressive and delicious, but the star was this beautiful gratin of local plums with crunchy hazelnut crumbs.
Red Wine-Poached Plums Landgasthof Bären (Emmental)
A landgasthof is the Swiss equivalent of a country pub, serving local beer and wine alongside plates of hearty traditional fare. They’re nearly always called Bären (bear), Löwen (lion) or Kreuz (cross) and my favourite is the Bären in the Emmental village of Sumiswald. Here I had a delicious meal of local venison finished off with this dessert of dark plums poached in red wine and served with cinnamon ice cream.
Gelato with Baked Grapes Hosteria Giusti (Modena)
In the cellar of an ancient provedore in the heart of the old city of Modena, there’s a tiny restaurant with just 4 or 5 tables, serving fresh, traditional dishes. They’re often dotted with Modena’s famous balsamic vinegar, but this simple dessert of fiordilatte gelato and baked grapes was drizzled with a simpler variant made from Lambrusco grape must that’s aged in clay amphorae.
Sheep Milk Gelato with Salted Lemon & EVO da Lucio (Rimini)
One of Italy’s finest seafood restaurants moved in 2024 from the back streets of the seaside town of Rimini to prime position on the tip of its huge marina. Great views now accompany the superbly prepared dry-aged fish and other Adriatic seafood, but the dish I can’t stop thinking about is this simple palate cleanser contrasting creamy gelato, tangy, salty preserved lemon and bright herbal olive oil.
Cassis Sorbet with Sparkling Wine Château Salavaux (Lake Murten)
A 16th century château among the vines on Lake Murten is now home to an elegant boutique hotel run by three passionate young hospitality professionals. Seeland – the area around the nearby lakes – has some of Switzerland’s best farming land and the kitchen makes great use of local produce, including blackberries churned into a vibrant sorbet topped with local sparkling wine as a palate cleanser.
Liquorice Meringue with Lemon Curd Locanda Aurilia (Padua)
I found one of the most exciting traditional Italian menus in a small town just 40km from Venice. Offal fans (like my husband) are in heaven, I had the tastiest salad of shaved artichoke and we gorged on one of the best cheese trolleys I’ve ever seen. Yet when dessert came around, we still ate every skerrick of this delicious liquorice-tinged meringue with a centre of tangy lemon curd.
Millefoglie, Chantilly Cream, Caramel La Zanzara (Po Delta)
Michelin-starred restaurants come in all shapes and sizes, including one in an old fishing hut on an islet in the UNESCO-listed Po Delta. Chef Sauro Bison’s superb savoury menu changes daily, featuring his selection of the catch from the delta and nearby Adriatic. But dessert is always this assemblage of airy pastry with Chantilly cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce.
Raisins à la Lie Cafe de Riex (Lake Geneva)
Wine regions often find innovative ways to use grapes, and by-products, beyond the obvious winemaking. So, in one of my favourite Swiss restaurants, in the wine town of Riex on the steep-terraced hillside overlooking Lake Geneva, we had this delicious dessert of dried grapes, rehydrated in wine mixed with the lees (dead yeast cells) leftover from winemaking. A very refreshing finish to a delicious lunch.
Ricotta Mousse with Salted Caramel Il Trappeto (Matera)
Just across the ravine from the UNESCO-listed troglodyte city of Matera, in a small town called Montescaglioso, is Il Trappeto, a restaurant in a converted olive oil mill. They serve excellent pizza (including sausage and mushroom topped with the local dried chillies, peperone crusco) and this so simple but so delicious dessert of creamy smooth ricotta mousse with thick can’t-get-enough-of-it caramel sauce.
Sour Cream, Wheatgrass & Elderberries Restaurant Haberbüni (Bern)
Haberbüni, in the converted loft of a traditional wooden farmhouse on the outskirts of Bern, may just be my favourite Swiss restaurant! And this delicious dessert of vanilla-scented sour cream with wheatgrass essence and a jelly of elderberries, is one of the reasons. The menu walks that rare line of reinterpreting traditional ingredients without creating a jarring confusion.
