News · 19 October 2026
Gault&Millau 2027 Chef of the Year: a vegetarian first
For the first time, Switzerland's Gault&Millau guide has named a chef who cooks only vegetarian food. Here's what the Magdalena story says about building a food business, and what it doesn't.
Switzerland's Gault&Millau Chef of the Year 2027 is Dominik Hartmann of Magdalena in Rickenbach, canton Schwyz. He's the first winner of the title who cooks only vegetarian food.[2] The guide announced it on 5 October 2026; his restaurant holds 18 Gault&Millau points and two Michelin stars.[1][6]
If you want your own food business one day, read this closely. It's a story about a business model as much as about cooking.
Who is Gault&Millau's Chef of the Year 2027?
Hartmann is 34.[3] After years of training and travel, he and two friends came back to the Schwyz valley and opened Magdalena: a restaurant and a bakery under one roof.[1] Its windows look out over the valley, the Mythen peaks and Lake Lucerne.[3] The guide named it Discovery of the Year in 2021, and in 2022 the kitchen went fully vegetarian.[1] Today it's the only vegetarian restaurant in Switzerland with 18 points.[3]
The guide calls the cooking "Vegi 2.0": built on vegetables, but indulgent and full of surprises.[1] Its restaurant entry puts it another way: the strict, missionary side of vegetarian food stays outside the door, and at Magdalena it's about enjoyment.[4]
What else is in the 2027 guide?
The new edition in numbers:[2]
| Gault&Millau Switzerland 2027 | Number |
|---|---|
| Restaurants listed | 870 |
| Restaurants listed for the first time | 84 |
| Chefs who gained a point | 98 |
| Chefs marked down | 31 |
| Chefs at 19 points, the top mark this year | 7 |
| Gourmet hotels listed | 100 |
| Swiss winemakers listed | 150 |
Sourcing got an award of its own, too. This year's Green Chef of the Year cooks at a hotel restaurant in Interlaken, using only produce from the hotel garden or from within 50 kilometres.[2]
How does the Magdalena model work?
Side by side, the two guides read almost like a business plan.
| Magdalena | What the guides say |
|---|---|
| Ratings | 18 Gault&Millau points[1], two Michelin stars[5] |
| Menu | Fully vegetarian seven-course surprise menu, two extra courses optional, vegan on request[5] |
| Price | 195 francs, and the menu can now be extended with extra courses at any time[4] |
| Restaurant closed | Monday to Wednesday[4] |
| Bakery | Own bakery with terrace, open Thursday to Sunday, 7 to 11 am[5] |
| Sourcing | Regional, with a preference for small producers[5] |
| Team | About twenty people[3] |
The bakery brings the village in. Locals meet there in the morning for coffee and bread, which comes out of the ovens from 2 am.[3]
The founders split the work clearly. The chef runs the kitchen. His childhood friend, also a trained cook, is the managing director. He first worked as sommelier, handed that job to someone with better wine training, and now does the accounts so the chef can stay in the kitchen.[3] The third partner looks after the restaurant's look and feel, from the paintings on the walls to the staff uniforms and the handwritten welcome cards on the tables.[3]
It didn't start smoothly. Magdalena was due to open in spring 2020, just as the first Covid lockdown arrived.[3] Hiring hasn't been a problem since: the chef says they get many applications, and most people who intern there want to start straight afterwards.[3]
Is a vegetarian concept a good business decision?
Only half of that question has an answer. On positioning, the case is clear. Magdalena is the only vegetarian 18-point restaurant in the country, and the guide sells its food as pleasure, not principle.[3][4] For a guest deciding whether to drive out to a village, that's an easy promise.
The other half, costs, stays open. Neither guide says what going vegetarian did to Magdalena's food costs, prices or margins, so don't read a cost lesson into the award. Even the guide's editor writes that pulling this off with a fully vegetarian kitchen, far from a big city, isn't a given.[1]
What does this mean if you want your own food business?
First, an honest point: you don't need a master's for this. Magdalena's chef and managing director are trained cooks who decided at vocational school to open a restaurant together.[3]
What the story does show is how many decisions sit around the kitchen. A concept that sets you apart. A location. A second business under the same roof. A set price with optional extras. A team that wants to stay, and a look guests remember. Those are the chapters of a business plan, and writing one is the thesis of the MSc in Culinary Entrepreneurship in Lucerne.
In the second semester you write a Culinary Start-up Business Plan as your research project, alongside an optional six-month industry internship in Switzerland or worldwide.[7] The Business Incubation Studio takes your idea from a prototype through investor feedback to a complete business plan and an investor-ready pitch.[7] The first semester covers much of the work around the kitchen: Strategic Business Management, Marketing and Branding in a Digital Society, Culinary & Wine Imaging & Visual Storytelling, Leadership in Business and International Human Resource Management, with WSET Level 2 inside the wine entrepreneurship module.[7]
You don't need a culinary degree to apply. There are three routes in: BHMS's Postgraduate Diploma in Culinary Arts, a recognised bachelor's in a culinary subject, or a recognised degree in another field together with a passion for food or experience in food and beverage. You'll also need English at IELTS 6.0 or equivalent.[7] The MSc takes 12 months, is awarded jointly with Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and costs CHF 41,700 for the year, all-in.[7] The next intakes are November 2026 and February 2027.[7]
If there's already a food concept in your head, go through the MSc in Culinary Entrepreneurship module by module, then take the two-minute fit check to get a recommendation based on your degree and experience.