Reto Mathis brings his Swiss specialities and champagne sabreing to this year’s World Gourmet Summit.

La Marmite, Reto Mathis’ signature establishment, is open for about four months a year. During that short period, the chef runs through 100kg to 120kg of caviar. “We use no less than 1kg a day,” says Mathis during his recent trip here for the World Gourmet Summit. Mathis puts caviar — heaping tablespoonfuls of it — on mashed potatoes and rösti. It is smeared over melted cheese and slivers of smoked salmon. And it is always, he says, of the best quality. “You might say it’s expensive, but you would never say it is bad.”

Located in the glitzy Swiss resort town of St Moritz, La Marmite has been serving its guests gourmet delicacies for years. Mathis recounts how his father placed caviar on the menu after the Shah of Iran paid a visit to the restaurant many years ago and brought a haul of Iranian Beluga caviar with him. He admits he did not enjoy his first taste, but has since learned to appreciate its finer points. In fact, today he personally tastes and approves every batch of caviar served at the restaurant.

“Caviar is a natural product,” Mathis explains. “You cannot standardise it. Each animal is an individual. It eats differently, grows differently and swims in different waters.” One sturgeon can produce between 3kg and 4.5kg of caviar, which is typically sold in 1kg cans. So, Mathis will hand-pick about 50 cans every season. Doing this requires tasting his way through about 200 cans, he says. “It takes two days to select my caviar for a season.”

Good caviar should crack when you press it between the tip of your tongue and the roof of your mouth, he says. To get that texture, the caviar has to be harvested at just the right moment: as the sturgeon are swimming from the sea into the river to lay their eggs. “The nearer the sturgeon comes to the point where it is laying its eggs naturally, the softer the eggs become,” he explains. “Of course, it’s easier to catch the sturgeon in the river. You just have to close off the river. But by that time, the eggs are already too soft. So, the quality of the caviar is not [good].”

Then, there is the marinating process. Mathis looks for just the right balance of saltiness, which will be affected by how much salt is used, the use of borax and how long the caviar is marinated for.

When his father was running La Marmite, Mathis says, the best caviar came from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea. But a ban on sturgeon fishing there has forced him to turn to other sources. Oddly enough, Mathis thinks the best caviar today comes from farmed sturgeon in China. “Because Persia is closed, they hired all the Persian caviar [experts], who went to China and brought in all the knowhow — how to handle and process it. So, the quality of Chinese farmed caviar is amazingly improving every year,” he says. “Since five years ago, I have used only Chinese caviar.”

Dining in the mountains
La Marmite sits 2,486m above sea level. Mathis, 58, took over the restaurant from his father in 1994. It was a proud moment for the father and son, given the road Mathis had taken. He confesses that he was a difficult child. At 16, his parents decided to pack him off for an apprenticeship. “It was not purely a voluntary decision for me,” he says. For three years, he worked at Hotel Palace Lucerne, a luxury Swiss establishment. It turned out to be a good move, as Mathis gained both discipline and a passion for food.

Mathis went on to hone the theoretical and administrative aspects of his knowledge, attending the Lausanne Hotel School and the American University of Hotel Administration in Cornell. In between, he also spent six months at The Dorchester Hotel in London. He has spent time both in the kitchen and out of it, having worked as a manager’s assistant at Hotel Schweizerhof St Moritz and spending two years at the Alt München restaurant in the African nation of Togo.

Since returning to St Moritz, Mathis has continued in his father’s tradition of serving the ultimate in luxury to restaurant guests. He now has other restaurants under his wing too. His company Mathis Food Affairs also runs Bütschella, a self-service market-style restaurant; De Fät Moonk, a lounge restaurant offering contemporary Alpine cuisine; Terrazza, a mountain terrace restaurant serving some of Mathis’ specialities; Quattro Bar for snacks and drinks; Caviar House & Prunier Seafood Bar, a caviar speciality joint; Mathis Lounge with some moderately priced dishes; Cascade, a seafood and pasta restaurant; and Polo Bar, which serves drinks and sandwiches.

His business has expanded beyond restaurants and catering. There is Reto Mathis’ Delicatessen, which retails gastronomic gems that Mathis has discovered in his travels across Europe and Asia. He has started a franchise called Krispy Kröst, a modern version of the Alsatian tarte flambée or crispy thin pizza. And Mathis is the co-founder of the St Moritz Gourmet Festival, an annual culinary event in the mountains.

The art of sabrage
Mathis is also the founder of St Moritz Champagne Topless Club. In 1991, he says, he received an invitation from the Confrérie du Sabre d’Or to visit France. Translated loosely as the Brotherhood of the Golden Sword, this is an order devoted to pro moting the art of sabrage and the enjoyment of champagne. According to tradition, sabrage dates back to the Napoleonic wars when soldiers would use their sabres to pop open champagne bottles in celebration of victory.

“They wanted to open a chapter in Switzerland — St Moritz is known for its [dry, sparkling] champagne climate — and asked me if I would be interested,” he says. Mathis balked at the idea of paying money to the French club though. Instead, he chose to start his own club. “Why should I send money to the French for something I can do myself?”

St Moritz Champagne Topless Club has only 25 members, and membership is strictly by invitation. “I didn’t want to create another club that needs a secretary and organisation. It’s pure fun,” he explains. Members of the club — known as Caveaux — include restaurants, wine bars and hotels. Here, guests can sabre a bottle of champagne and receive a diploma. “You can say, ‘Tonight I’m here, I’m celebrating my birthday and I want to sabre a bottle of champagne.’ The chef will explain how to do it. And of course, it has an economic reason. It only works once. If you have a group of five and you all want to do it, you need to buy five bottles of champagne.”

As part of the World Gourmet Summit this year, Mathis brought this art of sabrage, launching a Singapore chapter of St Moritz Champagne Topless Club. At a dinner at Stellar @ 1-Altitude hosted by chef Chris Millar, Mathis kicked off the night sabreing a bottle of champagne alongside Peter Knipp. The latter is founder of Peter Knipp Holdings, which organises the World Gourmet Summit.

Guests attending the event sat down to a dinner of Mathis’ caviar- and truffle heavy specialities, paired with six varieties of champagne. Several were also given the chance to try their hand at popping the cork on these bottles, and were awarded their diplomas accordingly.

Events like these, with diners who show a passion for good food and joie de vivre, are what inspire and motivate Mathis to keep to his standards of perfection. “That’s what makes it worth it to take all the trouble,” he says.

This article appeared in the Options of Issue 730 (May 30) of The Edge Singapore.