You can talk about fresh powder, perfectly groomed pistes and glorious bluebird days all you like, but there’s another very important reason for going skiing.
Lunch.
More specifically, enormous mountain lunches involving bubbling cheese, crispy potatoes, dumplings, pasta, pastry and the sort of desserts that would normally constitute an entire meal.
Because Alpine food isn’t delicate. It was made for cold mountains, hungry people and days spent outside. It’s warming, filling and wonderfully unapologetic – which also makes it extremely well suited to anyone who has spent the morning skiing and suddenly believes they deserve 4,000 calories before 2pm.
Every ski country does things a little differently, but there are certain dishes that really ought to appear on your table at least once. So loosen the waistband on your salopettes. Here are the must-eat meals of a ski holiday.
The Ski Demon Alpine Food Bucket List
There are ski runs you should tick off, resorts you should visit and views you really ought to see at least once. But frankly, we think Alpine food deserves its own bucket list too.
So here it is: 10 dishes every skier should tackle at least once, complete with our highly scientific Salopette-Busting Rating.
Five buttons means you may want to loosen yours before ordering dessert.
| Must-Eat | Where to Find It | Sweet or Savoury? | What You’re Getting Yourself Into | Salopette-Busting Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tartiflette | 🇫🇷 France | Savoury | Potatoes, bacon, onions, cream and bubbling Reblochon. Subtle it is not. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠🟠 5/5 |
| Raclette | 🇨🇭 🇫🇷 Switzerland & France | Savoury | Melted cheese over potatoes, cured meats and pickles. Repeat until movement becomes difficult. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠🟠 5/5 |
| Cheese Fondue | 🇨🇭 🇫🇷 Switzerland & France | Savoury | Bread dunked into a communal pot of melted cheese and wine. Alpine dining at its finest. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠⚪ 4/5 |
| Rösti | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | Savoury | Crispy grated potato, often improved considerably with cheese, bacon and a fried egg. | 🟠🟠🟠⚪⚪ 3/5 |
| Tiroler Gröstl | 🇦🇹 Austria | Savoury | Crispy potatoes, onions and meat topped with a fried egg. Proper ski-day fuel. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠⚪ 4/5 |
| Käsespätzle | 🇦🇹 Austria | Savoury | Soft egg noodles, melted cheese and crispy onions. Austria’s rather fabulous answer to mac and cheese. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠🟠 5/5 |
| Kaiserschmarrn | 🇦🇹 Austria | Sweet | Fluffy torn pancake, icing sugar and fruit compote. Technically pudding. Realistically lunch. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠⚪ 4/5 |
| Germknödel | 🇦🇹 Austria | Sweet | Giant steamed dumpling, plum jam, butter or vanilla sauce and poppy-seed sugar. Approach confidently. | 🟠🟠🟠🟠🟠 5/5 |
| Pizzoccheri | 🇮🇹 Italy | Savoury | Buckwheat pasta, potatoes, greens, butter and cheese. Yes, pasta and potatoes | 🟠🟠🟠🟠🟠 5/5 |
| Canederli | 🇮🇹 Italy | Savoury | Hearty bread dumplings with speck, cheese or herbs. Particularly worth hunting down in the Dolomites. | 🟠🟠🟠⚪⚪ 3/5 |
🏆 Maximum Salopette Danger: Tartiflette, Raclette, Käsespätzle, Germknödel and Pizzoccheri.
Our completely unofficial rule: anything scoring 5/5 should ideally be followed by a gentle blue run, a long lie-down or absolutely no further plans whatsoever.
And yes, Bombardino is missing from the official ten. Drinking warm boozy custard topped with whipped cream deserves its own category entirely.
Tartiflette – France
Let’s start with one of the great achievements of French mountain cooking.
Potatoes + onions + bacon + cream + Reblochon cheese.
Tartiflette is essentially what would happen if a baked potato went on a skiing holiday, discovered French cheese and abandoned all thoughts of moderation.
Associated with the Haute-Savoie, it has become one of the classic dishes you’ll spot around French ski resorts. A proper tartiflette arrives bubbling around the edges, with melted Reblochon covering potatoes and smoky lardons underneath.
It is rich. It is magnificent.
It is also not the lunch to order immediately before announcing that you fancy spending the afternoon smashing out another 25km of pistes.
Ski Demon verdict: Absolutely compulsory on a French ski trip. Ideally eaten when you’ve already accepted that your afternoon skiing ambitions are becoming increasingly theoretical.
Raclette – France & Switzerland
Raclette isn’t merely dinner.
It’s an evening’s entertainment involving cheese.
Traditionally, a large piece of raclette cheese is heated until the surface melts, then that glorious molten layer is scraped over potatoes and served with cured meats, cornichons and pickled onions.
Modern restaurant versions often bring a tabletop grill or individual pans so you can melt your own. Which sounds wonderfully civilised until six hungry skiers start aggressively monitoring whose cheese is ready.
Raclette is particularly associated with Switzerland and the French Alps, and it’s one of those meals that works brilliantly with a group.
There is no rushing it. There is no elegant way of eating it.
And nobody leaves hungry.
Ski Demon verdict: One of the best ski-holiday dinners going. Order wine, settle in and accept that you’re essentially spending two hours pouring melted cheese over potatoes.
Fondue – Switzerland & France
You haven’t really embraced Alpine life until you’ve chased a cube of bread around a bubbling cauldron of cheese with an unnervingly long fork.
Cheese fondue varies by region and recipe, but you’re generally looking at a mixture of melted cheeses, white wine and garlic, served communally with bread for dipping. Simple.
Except fondue comes with rules.
Don’t lose your bread.
Don’t steal someone else’s bread.
And definitely don’t drop your bread into the cheese and pretend nobody noticed.
Fondue is particularly good on those snowy evenings when leaving the restaurant afterwards feels like venturing into Narnia.
You’ll find versions across Switzerland and the French Alps, with different cheeses giving each its own regional character.
Ski Demon verdict: Yes, it’s a ski-holiday cliché. Yes, you should order it anyway. Some clichés exist because they’re brilliant.
Croûte au Fromage – Switzerland
This one doesn’t always receive the international attention given to fondue and raclette.
It should.
Croûte au fromage is essentially bread soaked with white wine, covered in cheese and baked until everything becomes bubbling, golden and extremely difficult to resist.
Depending on where you order it, you might also find ham, mushrooms, tomatoes or an egg joining proceedings. Think Alpine cheese on toast after it received a substantial inheritance.
It’s exactly the sort of mountain lunch you want when the temperature has dropped and you’ve spent the morning skiing through falling snow.
Ski Demon verdict: If you’re in Switzerland and see this on a mountain menu, investigate immediately.
Rösti – Switzerland
Switzerland took potatoes, grated them, fried them until crisp and somehow created something capable of working at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Rösti traditionally consists of grated potato cooked into a crisp golden cake. On the mountain, things can become considerably more exciting.
Cheese? Excellent.
Bacon? Obviously.
Fried egg? Get it involved.
The result is crispy around the edges, soft in the middle and extremely satisfying after a morning on the slopes.
It’s also one of those rare Alpine dishes that can feel comparatively restrained.
Until you add cheese, bacon and an egg. Which you probably will.
Ski Demon verdict: Peak mountain comfort food. Crispy potatoes with a view of the Alps. Hard to argue with that.
Tiroler Gröstl – Austria
Austria understands hungry skiers.
Tiroler Gröstl is proof.
This Tyrolean favourite is a glorious frying-pan combination of potatoes, onions and pieces of meat, traditionally using leftover roast beef or pork, topped with a fried egg.
It’s rustic rather than fancy, and that’s exactly the point. This is the meal you order after a properly energetic morning when a bowl of soup simply isn’t going to cut it.
A good Gröstl arrives sizzling, with crispy potato edges and a runny egg waiting to be demolished across the top. You’ll often see it served in the pan. Even better.
Ski Demon verdict: Austria’s answer to the question: “Can I have something enormous involving potatoes?”
Käsespätzle – Austria
Imagine macaroni cheese.
Now imagine its cooler Austrian mountain cousin.
Käsespätzle combines small, soft egg noodles with melted cheese, usually topped with crispy fried onions. It’s gloriously comforting and exactly the sort of thing you want when it’s snowing sideways outside and you’ve temporarily lost all feeling in your toes.
Different Alpine regions have their own variations, but the basic formula remains extremely difficult to improve upon.
Noodles. Cheese. Onions. Done.
Ski Demon verdict: One of Austria’s finest contributions to post-ski happiness.
Wiener Schnitzel – Austria
Not exclusively an Alpine dish, admittedly.
Do we care? Absolutely not.
A proper Wiener Schnitzel is thinly pounded veal, coated in breadcrumbs and fried until crisp and golden. You’ll also see plenty of pork schnitzels on ski-resort menus.
They are frequently enormous. And we mean why is my dinner hanging over both sides of the plate? enormous.
Usually served with potatoes, salad, lemon or lingonberry preserve, schnitzel is dependable mountain fuel and particularly good when you’ve reached the point in the holiday where your body is requesting calories in industrial quantities.
Ski Demon verdict: If your schnitzel doesn’t make you briefly wonder whether they’ve accidentally served you two, we’re disappointed.
Germknödel – Austria
Now things get serious.
Because Austria doesn’t mess around with pudding.
Germknödel is a large steamed yeast dumpling traditionally filled with plum jam, covered with melted butter or vanilla sauce and showered in a mixture of poppy seeds and sugar.
It looks innocent enough. It isn’t.
One Germknödel can turn “I’ll just have something sweet” into “perhaps we should get the gondola down.” And yet somehow, sitting in an Austrian mountain hut with snow outside, it makes complete sense.
Ski Demon verdict: Pudding pretending to be a small mountain. Magnificent.
Kaiserschmarrn – Austria
Possibly the greatest ski-holiday pudding of them all.
We will entertain arguments, but you’ll struggle to change our minds.
Kaiserschmarrn is a thick, fluffy pancake torn into pieces, caramelised slightly and dusted heavily with icing sugar. It’s generally served with fruit compote, often plum or apple.
And the crucial point is this:
You may see it listed under desserts. Do not underestimate it. A large Kaiserschmarrn can comfortably feed two people.
Unless you’ve been skiing hard all morning. Then apparently normal dietary rules cease to apply.
There are few finer things than sitting outside an Austrian mountain hut in the sunshine with an enormous plate of Kaiserschmarrn in front of you.
Ski Demon verdict: We’d book another Austrian ski holiday for this alone.
Apfelstrudel – Austria
The elegant one.
Well, comparatively.
Layers of thin pastry wrapped around warm spiced apple, usually involving cinnamon and raisins, then dusted with icing sugar. Add vanilla sauce, cream or ice cream and suddenly that little slice of apple strudel becomes rather more serious.
You’ll find Apfelstrudel everywhere from smart restaurants to wonderfully traditional mountain huts, and it pairs particularly well with coffee during the mid-afternoon “we’re definitely skiing again in a minute” stop.
Ski Demon verdict: Best consumed at altitude while pretending the apple makes it one of your five-a-day.
Bombardino – Italy
We’re stretching the definition of “meal” here.
We make no apologies.
The Bombardino is one of the great Italian ski inventions: a hot, creamy alcoholic drink usually made with egg liqueur and brandy or rum, then crowned with whipped cream.
Essentially, someone looked at après-ski and thought:
This needs custard.
It’s especially associated with Italian ski resorts and is exactly what you want when the sun disappears behind the mountain and the temperature suddenly plummets. Just remember that despite looking suspiciously like pudding in a glass, there’s booze lurking underneath that cream.
Ski Demon verdict: Hot. Boozy. Creamy. Italy understood the assignment.
Polenta – Italy
If you’ve only encountered uninspiring polenta elsewhere, don’t judge it until you’ve eaten it in the Italian mountains.
In Alpine Italy, polenta frequently arrives alongside rich stews, sausages, mushrooms, melted cheese or slow-cooked meat. It’s warm, hearty and beautifully suited to cold mountain days.
You may also find it grilled or baked, and regional variations can change considerably depending on where you’re skiing.
This is proper mountain food rather than flashy restaurant food. And that’s precisely why it’s good.
Ski Demon verdict: Order the version involving local cheese or a slow-cooked stew and prepare to become strangely enthusiastic about cornmeal.
Canederli – Italy
Head into the Dolomites and South Tyrol and menus begin blending Italian and Austrian influences in extremely delicious ways.
Canederli are bread dumplings, often flavoured with speck, cheese or herbs, and served either in broth or with butter, cheese and other accompaniments.
They’re filling without necessarily producing the full tartiflette-induced afternoon shutdown, making them a rather good mountain lunch.
And if you’re skiing somewhere like the Dolomites, they’re part of the fun of discovering a region where linguistic and culinary borders have become wonderfully blurred.
Ski Demon verdict: One of those dishes you might not know before your holiday and start actively hunting down by day three.
Pizzoccheri – Italy
This is another mountain dish that deserves considerably more attention.
Pizzoccheri comes from Valtellina in northern Italy and uses buckwheat pasta traditionally combined with potatoes, cabbage or chard, butter and plenty of cheese.
Yes. Pasta and potatoes together. Carbohydrates have apparently stopped competing and formed an alliance.
It’s rich, earthy and wonderfully comforting, particularly when eaten somewhere cosy after a freezing morning. You’ll encounter it most readily when skiing around Lombardy and nearby Alpine areas.
Ski Demon verdict: Pasta + potatoes + cheese. We’re not sure what else you need us to say.
Goulash Soup – Austria and Across the Alps
There comes a point on almost every ski holiday when you don’t want an enormous lunch.
Perhaps you’ve booked a big restaurant dinner. Perhaps the snow is brilliant and you don’t want to stop. Perhaps yesterday’s fondue is still making its presence felt. Enter goulash soup.
Rich, warming and generally packed with tender beef, paprika, vegetables and potatoes, it’s the perfect compromise between “just soup” and an actual meal.
Add a hunk of bread and you’re back outside surprisingly quickly.
Ski Demon verdict: The thinking skier’s lunch when conditions are too good to waste two hours eating cheese.
And Then There Are the Mountain-Hut Extras…
Some things aren’t quite meals.
They are, however, essential ski-holiday research.
A warm pretzel at an Austrian hut. A slice of blueberry tart in France. Italian hot chocolate so thick your spoon practically stands upright.
A charcuterie board that mysteriously turns one drink into three. Fresh crêpes covered in sugar. A slab of mountain cheese you’ve never heard of.
And chips.
Because regardless of which Alpine country you’re in, there will eventually come a moment when somebody orders a bowl of chips for the table and everyone who said they didn’t want any suddenly becomes extremely interested.
Final Thoughts from the Team at Ski Demon
A ski holiday is one of the rare occasions when eating melted cheese at 2,000 metres can legitimately be described as part of the cultural experience.
So embrace it.
Try the regional dishes. Have pudding at lunchtime. Order the suspiciously enormous dumpling. Share the raclette. Discover that “just one Bombardino” is a surprisingly flexible concept.
You can always ski it off afterwards. Or at least that’s what we’ve been telling ourselves.
