Whether you’re after fine dining or something more casual, Bern has some of the best restaurants in Switzerland.
From a beautifully restored farmhouse on the city’s outskirts to a riverside microbrewery and historic wood-panelled dining room that’s the locals’ favourite lunch spot, there’s something for everyone among my list of the best restaurants in Bern. For where to stay, drink and shop, see my Bern food lovers’ guide.
Innovation Haberbüni
I adore this restaurant in the spacious repurposed hayloft of an old farmhouse on the city’s outskirts. Marrying tradition with innovation, local seasonal produce is combined with rarely seen ingredients like pine and spruce from the surrounding forest, in beautifully presented dishes. Wine selection and service by the charming Dominic and his team are first class too!
Tradition Restaurant Harmonie
Full of locals enjoying a lunch of traditional fare, Harmonie is always my first stop in Bern, whether for a classic fondue or excellent rösti with speck and spiegelei. This casual wood-panelled dining room has been the lunch spot of choice for the Bernese for over 100 years, so I was delighted to see that nothing’s changed with new ownership since 2023. The menu of the day is still great value too.
Casual Altes Tramdepot
Sometimes you just want a delicious snack rather than another fancy meal! That’s when I head to this microbrewery next to Bern’s famous Bear Park overlooking the River Aare at the bottom of the historic city centre. A freshly baked pretzel filled with ham, tomato, pickles and mustard works a treat with a tasting tray of five of their beers, including seasonal specials like Hoppylirium made with plum and apricot.
Bernese Classics Restaurant Della Casa
This 16th-century house at the top of the Altstadt has been a place of refreshment since the mid-1800s. I love the feel of the grand old wooden dining room, and it was my father-in-law’s favourite restaurant for classic dishes like gnagi and bollito misto. Today it’s the best restaurant in Bern for a traditional Berner Platte (see FAQ below), though I prefer the generous salads, excellent steak tartare and interesting seasonal vegetable soups.
Something Different Sua
As much as I love Swiss food, every now and then – even in Bern – I crave something a little different. That’s when I head to Sua, just a few doors down from the iconic Restaurant Harmonie (above). Their menu offers a range of slow-cooked dishes, from Moroccan tagine to Greek stifado and Indian curry. Plenty of salad and fresh veggies too.
Bern’s signature dish is the Berner Platte (or Berner Teller if it’s a single serve), a generous platter of smoked and cured pork, beef, bacon and sausages served with juniper-scented sauerkraut, dried green beans and potatoes. Tradition says it was born on 5 March 1798, when the Bernese defeated the French at Neuenegg and the community pooled its winter provisions for a victory feast. Its star is the Berner Zungenwurst (‘tongue sausage’), which, despite its name, doesn’t contain any tongue.
Gnagi is a much-loved Bernese classic of boiled pork off-cuts, including things like snout, trotter, hock, knuckle, tails, ears, even head – the more gelatinous the better. If you see gnagi on a menu today it will most likely be pork knuckle. Regardless of cut, the pieces are usually salt-brined then boiled (often in a vinegar-laced court bouillon) and served with mustard, sauerkraut and boiled potatoes.
Rösti is widely credited to Canton Bern, where it began as a hearty farmers’ breakfast – its French name, röstis bernois, reflects those roots – though Zürich also claims it.
Even the method is debated: some cooks grate the potatoes raw, others boil them the day before, and every region and family has its favourite. My Swiss family has always made rösti with raw potato and a generous amount of butter, insisting that this ‘ankerösti’ (butter rösti) is the traditional Bernese version.
Rösti is so central to German-speaking Switzerland that the language border with the French-speaking west is called the Röstigraben (‘rösti ditch’). It roughly follows the Saane (Sarine) river near Fribourg, so crossing the river is said to be crossing the Röstigraben.
In 2023, after more than a century with the Gyger family, Harmonie passed to Bern restaurateur Kurt Dallmaier. Often called Bern’s ‘gastro king’, Dallmaier was once the operator of 14 McDonald’s restaurants.
An inn since at least 1836, Harmonie was taken over by the Gygers in 1915 and led from 1981 by Fritz ‘Jimi’ Gyger III, alongside long-time chef Walter Aebischer. With no fourth generation to follow, they chose Dallmaier, himself from a well-known family of hosts, who promised that ‘the Harmonie stays the Harmonie’. He’s kept his word: the Swiss classics are still on the menu, the menu of the day is still great value, and locals still fill the tables at lunchtime.
After nine years, chef Markus Arnold handed over Steinhalle at the end of September 2026 to chef Manuel Schmid.
Opened in 2017 in the west wing of the Bern Historical Museum, Steinhalle grew from a museum bistro into one of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants under chef Arnold, earning a Michelin star and 17 GaultMillau points.
Arnold and his entire team have moved to MYLE, their new restaurant in a former 1970s cinema beside Bern’s railway station, where he’ll continue to evolve his globetrotting ‘Cuisine Voyage’ menu concept.
Since October 2026, Schmid has run ‘new Steinhalle’ – relocated to within the museum’s main building – as a bistro with Sunday brunch and pop-up evening dining.
