A true fondue delight

Demi HEWAMANNA

It’s always a good feeling that someone you meet only once, a year ago, is able to remember you and greet you with a warm smile. That is exactly how I felt when I met Chef Alexander Kroll from Switzerland, who is down at the Mount Lavinia Hotel for the Swiss food festival for the second time with Chef Tony Rudolph.Just before they began exploring the kitchen of MLH and beginning their country’s culinary magic, I got the chance to chat up with the chefs for a little while. When asked what are the changes he has seen from his last trip to Sri Lanka, Chef Alexander said that everything has changed here and there except for the traffic. He added that this time, he is familiar with the people and the kitchen and now he knows how to cater to the guests.

This time he is prepared ahead as to what to make with fresh ingredients and new style. Chef Alexander is now the Executive Chef at Widder Hotel in Zurich. He was previously working as the General Manager at Hotel Prem which was a 1 Michelin Star and 5 star hotel, for three years. A little history on Chef Kroll -

Executive Chef at the Arabella Sheraton Golfhotel at Waldhaus (4 Star Swiss Hotel), Executive Chef at Grand hotel, Zermatt (5 star) and Carlton Hotel St. Moritz (5 star), a 2 year service at the Private Gourmet Service , Formula 1 (Spa Belgium and Monaco) owned by Michael Schumacher as well as the “WEF” (World Economic Forum in Davos ) Switzerland for 6 years and finally he has cooked for “A heart for children” in Africa and “cooking for blind people” in Ethiopia.

Anyone who meets Chef Kroll will know that it is very easy to converse with him and that he too loves to sip a cold beverage and have a heart conversation. Moving on Chef Tony Rudolph, this has been his first visit to Sri Lanka and he being out from the cold country sought of seemed to be loving the warm weather that we are not ‘liking’ very much. Chef Tony has been in the field of cuisine for the past 7 years and began cooking when he was 22 years old. He began his liking towards cooking when he used to cook at home with his family.

In his 7 years of cooking he has been to Australia and Dubai. He is now working as the Executive Chef at the Prato Borni of the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof, Zermatt.When Tony is not cutting or baking, he spends his free time hiking, skiing, mounting biking and snowboarding. For the Swiss Circle dinner that was held last Sunday, the chefs had made some true authentic traditional Swiss food. With the main highlight and favourite being the fondue, the salads with cheese cubes cut in were making guests coming for seconds serves. One of my favourite dishes was the pasta and the mash potato pie.For the desserts, they had brought their own blue berries to make the blueberry pancakes. And they had planned on combining the Swiss recipes with some of the Sri Lankan flavours.To all the guests who missed out on the great treat will have to wait next year to taste some of Switzerland’s great cuisines.