Haute Cuisine 6.0 at the W Verbier featured 10 chefs with a total of 14 Michelin Stars. The hotel’s Culinary Director and Chef, Sergi Arola, helped host the sixth edition of this festival, which included an opening night dedicated to Valais. As a guest of the hotel, I attended this exclusive 5-course dinner to kick-off the festival.

Sergi Arola has been with the W Verbier since the hotel opened in 2013. Now based in Chile, he also has a Michelin-starred restaurant, LAB By Sergi Arola, in Sintra, Portugal. Several times each year, he makes his way to Verbier, to oversee the menu planning at his Eat-Hola Tapas Bar. 

The Haute Cuisine event gives Arola the chance to collaborate with talented chefs working around the world. Working together, they developed a series of workshops and dinners for guests at the W Verbier.

The guest chefs for W Verbier’s Haute Cuisine 6.0 opening night:

• Thierry Drapeau – Executive chef of the Michelin-starred Signature Bangkok restaurant in Bangkok. Prior to arriving in Thailand, he ran a two-Michelin star restaurant in Pays de La Loire, France.
• Vanessa Huang – Hailing from Taiwan, she is the owner and chef at Ephernité, recognized as one of the best French restaurants in Taipai. She was also named one of Asia’s top nine female chefs by the Michelin Guide in 2019.
• Gary Kirchens – Executive chef at Aurum (1 Michelin star) in Sint-Truiden, Belgium.
• Jean-Baptiste Natali – One Michelin star at La Montagne Hotel-Restaurant in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, France.
• Nicolas Sale – Former chef of two gastronomic restaurants at the Ritz Paris: La Table de l’Espadon (2 Michelin stars) et les Jardins de l’Espadon (1 Michelin star).

A Taste of Valais

These five chefs each prepared a dish for the 5-course menu with the goal of showcasing Valaisan terroir (CHF 395 per person, including wines and drinks). Ozenit, based in Granges (Valais), provided all the wines for each course. Here was the menu:

Jean-Baptiste Natali
“Féra ou bien”
Féra du lac, saké, poivre de tasmanie
Petite Arvine

Nicolas Sale
“T’as la Saint-Jacques”
Saint-Jacques (scallops), huîtres (oysters), choux-fleur (cauliflower), curry
Heida

Gary Kirchens
“Le sandre d’en haut”
Sandre, nori, céleri, aïoli
Kosmo

Thierry Drapeau
“Bô le veau”
Entrecôte et foie, tamarin, choux-fleur (cauliflower), noix (walnuts)
Cuvée W

Vanessa Huang
“Tcheu La Mousse”
Chocolat blanc, coco, poire (pear), meringue
Litchi Martigny

My two favorite dishes of the evening: First was the “Le sandre d’en haut” prepared by Gary Kirchens. The tender fish was wrapped in a bundle with nori and served in a vibrant lemon aïoli with finely diced celery root. I also enjoyed Vanessa Huang’s dessert, which had a poached Valaisan pear covered in cream, white chocolate and meringue, with the delicate flavor of coconut.

W Verbier, Rue de Médran 70, Verbier, 1936 Switzerland, +41 (0)27 472 88 80.

Please note: I stayed at the W Vebier for one night as a guest of this hotel. As always, the thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are purely my own.

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