Newsletter restauration – november 2021

At EPFL, we’re taking concrete steps to provide you with high-quality food choices that are sustainable, seasonal and locally sourced at all our restaurants and eateries. Have you noticed? We’ve already stopped serving products containing palm oil, glutamate and monosodium. And we now source all meat along with half our fruits and vegetables (all of which are seasonal and certified) in Switzerland. Maybe the biggest change, which took effect in September, is that half of the dishes offered at our eateries are vegetarian, while one eatery is strictly vegetarian/vegan.

The changes you’ll see at EPFL’s restaurants are just the most visible aspect of RESCO’s ambitious strategy, which aims to provide healthier eating options for the EPFL community. This strategy was outlined in 2020 and approved by EPFL for the coming decade.

Implementing this strategy involved updating our restaurants, which we did through a competitive bidding process that ended this past spring. Our restaurants have been busy getting things ready for you – and you now have a wide range of foods to choose from.

Asian restaurant Ginko (formerly Atlantide) and the cafeteria Niki (formerly ELA) opened this past fall. Zaha (formerly INM) is now a bowl bar, and Piano (formerly Corbusier) serves Italian food. After a five-year break, the Hodler (at the RLC) will soon reopen and feature healthy street-food.

At Native, you can enjoy ovo-lacto-vegetarian and vegan meals, which you can get already prepared or assemble yourself at the hot and cold buffet. Also in the RLC is La Table de Vallotton, whose menu consists mostly of seasonal products from Switzerland – if not from our very own region; the same is true for Alpine (formerly Parmentier).

You can also count on Le Klee, which has revamped its menu with dishes and prices sure to please students.

Bruno Rossignol