There’s nothing like walking up 157 narrow steps to whet your appetite. Walking through the Old Town of Geneva, Switzerland, the Masked Diner accepted a challenge to go up to the spire of the ancient St. Peter’s Cathedral (where John Calvin preached). So he climbed the steep winding stairs to the spire to have a spectacular view of Geneva and environs.

Aside from a great view of the city, MD had an ulterior motive: the challenging climb would be a perfect excuse to treat himself to a great dinner afterwards.

Even before you get to negotiate the stairs INSIDE the church, you get to negotiate the many stairways leading TO the church. After an unseasonably wintry week, Geneva’s streets were icy and slippery. By the way, The restaurant to the left of the stairs is one of the few in Geneva that deliberately does NOT serve alcohol. Perhaps it’s because inebriated people could never hope to make it up these stairs to the church.

Visiting a friend in Geneva, Switzerland, the Masked Diner decided that he just had to have some iconic Swiss food. As time and funds did not permit him to try every possible Swiss specialty, he opted for something familiar, yet hoped that there would be something novel about the experience. He decided to have raclette, that meal consisting of melted raclette cheese poured over boiled potatoes.

MD has had raclette many, many times — almost always at home, where the meal was a simple matter of buying some raclette cheese from Chris’ Cheesemongers, boiling some potatoes, then firing up his ancient Tefal raclette maker. But he wanted to see how it was done in the country where the dish originated.

MD’s friend, who has taken countless out-of-town guests on try-something-Swiss dinners, was probably glad that MD didn’t want that other Swiss cheese specialty, fondue. He took MD to Auberge de Saviese on the popular rue des Paquis in downtown Geneva, where they had one the house raclette special, offering three servings of raclette cheese, boiled fingerling potatoes, and an order of the assiette Valaisanne, a traditional platter of ham, bacon, dried meat, sausage, and cheese. (Cost: CHF 31, or about C$34).

The main part of the meal, the star of the show, doesn’t look like much, admittedly — its really just a puddle of sticky, melted cheese (shown sprinkled with some paprika). But it’s one of those foods that tastes way better than it looks.

There’s no elaborate ceremony with raclette: you take a potato, pour or spread the cheese over it, and enjoy. Raclette cheese has a stronger smell than, say, cheddar, but is by no means one of those stinky cheeses that may be an acquired taste. If you like gruyere, you will probably like raclette.

In between bites of cheese-coated potato, you can enjoy the various meats that are part of the assiette Valaisanne, or have some of the cornichon (crisp, tart pickles made from tiny gherkin cucumbers) and pickled pearl onions.