Where to eat in Arosa: village restaurants, mountain huts and Swiss classics

Arosa sits at around 1,800 metres at the closed end of the Schanfigg valley, about an hour by rail from Chur, and it feeds far more people than a village of its size normally would. The official tourism directory lists more than a hundred places to eat across Arosa and the Schanfigg, which is generous choice and also a lot to sort through. Choosing a restaurant in Arosa really comes down to three questions: village or mountain, lunch in ski boots or dinner at a proper table, and how far you want to walk afterwards. What follows is a practical guide to where to eat in Arosa, organised by occasion rather than by ranking, written for guests staying at Altein, Arosa, and just as useful if you are searching in German for Essen in Arosa.

Dining in the village

Most of the Arosa restaurants that run year round sit along Poststrasse and the streets dropping towards the Obersee, which makes the village easy to browse on foot before you commit.

aifach Arosa has been running since 2012 and cooks in the middle of the dining room, so the kitchen is part of the evening. There is a sun terrace for the afternoon and a separate lounge for later, and the menu changes often enough that regulars turn up without checking it first.

Grottino covers the Italian side of the village with pizza and pasta. The same group runs Bellini for Mediterranean plates and tapas, Alpenwok for Asian dishes and a steakhouse built around hot stone cooking, so one phone number opens up four fairly different evenings. The group works to a seasonal calendar, so confirm before you set out.

For something plainer and more traditional, the Astoria-Stübli inside Hotel Astoria is a cosy, small-scale dining room of the kind Arosa has always had, with meat, fish and vegetarian dishes alongside the grill.

Swiss classics and fondue

If you came for cheese, the Vetter Stübli on Seeblickstrasse names cheese fondue and cordon bleu as its two house specialities and does not pretend otherwise. It is also one of the few kitchens in the village that runs across both the summer and the winter season rather than closing in between, which makes it a reliable fallback in the shoulder weeks.

Up at Hof Maran, the Bündner Stübli concentrates on cheese specialities including fondue and raclette, with the larger Maraner Stube in the same building covering a broader Grisons menu. On the meat side, the Grottino group's steakhouse does the classic Swiss hot stone service, where the cooking happens at your table.

Mountain restaurants

The word to look for on a signpost is Bergrestaurant, and the Arosa Bergrestaurant network is the reason plenty of people keep coming back. The tourism board's own list runs to around eighteen huts and restaurants above the village, which is a lot of terrace for one valley.

The highest is the 360° Panoramarestaurant Weisshorngipfel at the top of the Weisshorn, and the name is accurate. Lower down, Bergrestaurant Brüggerstuba sits mid mountain with the Sternebar alongside it, and the Carmennahütte pairs a large terrace with a regular programme of live bands. In winter the Tschuggenhütte and its KuhBar run loud and late, and the Sattelhütte opens for the ski season.

Above the village on the Prätschli and Gspan side, the Alpenblick has both a large terrace and the Caduffstube indoors, with the Prätschalp Beizli higher up the same slope. Hörnlihütte serves the Innerarosa slopes. Walk further out and you reach the Bergbeizli Ochsenalp, the Berg-Beiz Alpenrose at Medergen and the Berggasthaus Strassberg above Langwies, all of which reward the effort of getting there. AlpArosa, at Hintere Hütte, runs through the winter season only. Several of these sit directly on the hiking and biking routes, so they slot neatly into what else fills a day here.

A quieter or smarter evening

Arosa has exactly one starred kitchen. La Brezza at the Tschuggen Grand Hotel holds two MICHELIN stars for modern cuisine, and it is the only starred address in the village, so book well ahead.

Short of that, the Locanda at Hotel Prätschli is a gourmet hotel dining room up above the village, far enough from the centre that the room stays quiet. In the village itself, the lounge at aifach works for a long evening that starts with dinner and does not have a fixed end.

Coffee, cake and daytime

Gadient's Gnuss Puur is the café and confiserie to know, occupying the former Café Kaiser premises with a counter filled each morning from its own in-house bakery. It is the obvious stop between a morning walk and lunch.

On the mountain, the mid-afternoon stop is its own small ritual: a coffee on a hut terrace, taken slowly, usually with the sun on it. Almost every Bergrestaurant above the village is set up for exactly that, which is why the walk down tends to start later than planned.

Dining at Altein

Altein, Arosa, a Faern Collection Resort, sits between two alpine lakes roughly 200 metres from the railway station, and it runs four places to eat and drink under one roof.

Alpensand Panoramic Restaurant and Social Club occupies the top floor, serving à la carte with a woodfire pizza oven and a view across the village to the peaks. The pizzas are also available to take away, which is a useful thing to know on a night when nobody wants to change clothes.

Zus Brasserie is the half board room, with the breakfast buffet in the morning and a multi-course dinner in the evening built on local and Swiss ingredients. The Alchemilla Parlour Bar opens in winter beside the ski room, with live music on Thursdays, and works well as the stop between coming off the mountain and sitting down to eat. In summer, the Pool Bar takes over the daytime with cocktails, casual food and homemade cake against the Arosa skyline.

Full opening details for all four are on the restaurants and bars page, and it is worth checking which are running before you plan an evening, since the bars follow the seasons.

Between the village, the mountain and the hotel itself, a week in Arosa rarely needs the same table twice. If you are still deciding when to come, have a look at a room above the village and build the rest of the trip around where you want to eat.