Zur Säge, Flüh, Basel

Somtimes a small trip can be well worth your while. The restaurant Zur Säge in Flüh is approx. 30 minutes away from Basel main station, but with a newspaper it’s a pretty smooth ride and time passes quickly. The welcome was heartfelt and the lovely Ms Marugg does an excellent job of welcoming guests in the dining room. The restaurant doesn’t have a written menu and offers a selection of tasting courses dependent on the season and local availability of produce. Out of four amuse bouches, the small meatball with scallions was the best combination. Sweetbreads and pumpkin were up next and there the chef’s skill clearly showed. The use of the herbs was excellent, mixing mint from marocco and lemon thyme to accent the sweetbread. Hunger drove the need to have an extra course, consisting of a South African Scampo (not the most local of all produce…) and silky noodles, before moving on to some ravioli. Service was very proud of the small grapes from the own garden sprinkled over the raviolis, but the aggressive acidity made this the least successful dish of the whole dinner. Beef from Emmental with some mediterranean vegetables and a prosecco risotto finished off an overall successful meal. Again the use of a different type of mint, complemented the strong flavours of the vegetables and beef perfectly. Dessert was a slight rush in order to catch the tram back to the station, the best item being a creme brulee with burnt almonds. Overall it was a very pleasant experience, the kitchen well worth the 17 Gault Millau points, the true strong point being the use of herbs as called out before. Pricey, but as in most places – you get what you pay for.