Chalet Suisse

We have been going to Chalet since we started going to Aruba. 1995! We just love it. The food is delish, they have the best rib eye steak in the world, we love the rack of lamb too.
Service is incrdeible, Deserts, such as the fondue are decadent.
Great salads, and appetizers. A must when staying in Aruba.

Sept. 20, 2012

As this is our favorite restaurant in Aruba, we try to have our last dinner of our trip here. I had the escargot for appetizer & convinced DW to try one. For entrees, DW had the Shrimp Provencal over linguini & loved it. While
I had Prime Filet Mignon Madagascar with sides for sautéed spinach & french fries. Great stuff - looking forward to next year. Total amount for food, 2 sides, 2 drinks, 1 bottle of wine, 15% service charge, plus extra tip came to $163.75.

Sept. 18, 2012

This is our favorite restaurant in Aruba. The food is excellent & the service is even better. DW had the lobster tail and I had the Prime NY Strip steak. I ordered a side of sautéed mushrooms to go with the steak. Total for the food, 2 drinks, a bottle of Pinot Noir, 15% service
charge, plus extra tip came to $155.70.

There is nothing nicer than hearing, "Welcome home," by Benny each year when we visit Chalet Suisse. The warm welcome, in addition to the outstanding food served in the charming Swiss chalet, combine to make this my favorite restaurant on the island. Every year we know that we will be served a fine meal by a professional staff who go out of their way to make the dining experience memorable. My dinner of weiner schnitzel completely filled my plate and I was determined to save half for the next day's lunch, but one bite and those plans were dashed as I practically licked the plate clean! It was positively scrumptious! My dining partner's almond-crusted snapper disappeared almost as quickly. We shared the truly sinful dessert the Grand Marquise, dense chocolate cake with hazelnut ice cream, which was pure heaven. We were both happily stuffed and looked forward to our next visit to this magical restaurant. We adore it.

My wife and I ate here for our last night in Aruba, and it was a significant step down from the other restaurants we ate at. We choose Chalet Suisse because of the menu online and were excited about the toblerone fondue. Also, we love Swiss and French food.

Well, we had the fondue and it was delicious. Unfortunately, they must have changed the menu that is on their website because both the entrees we wanted were now gone. My wife is a vegetarian and they eliminated the only vegetarian entree and the chicken dish I wanted (milanaise). We aren't red meat eaters, and this clearly seems like a place were you need to eat red meat to be happy. We were sitting by the kitchen and 90% of what was being served that night was beef. The family next to us got fish, and they were complaining loudly about it being overcooked. The steak folks looked happy, so if you like steak, this is the place to go. There was very little on the menu that we could eat, so we had four appetizers instead of entrees: salad, soup, ravioli and chicken vol-au-vent. The soup was thin, was flavorful. The goat cheese salad was enormous and underseasoned (the dressing seemed to be mostly oil, with no acid). The ravioli and chicken were all very mediocre, and tasted pre-made and frozen. The chicken, for example, was dry and the sauce tasted like canned gravy.

The servers were so nice and attentive, it's really a shame about the food. I don't understand how this place can claim to be fine dining? Everything we ate and saw looked more like slightly fancy cafeteria food. Go for dessert, but skip dinner.

We recently visited this restaurant -july 2012. The wait staff was excellent, very friendly and attentive. Unfortunately, the food did not hold up its end of the bargain. I ordered the Caribbean seafood platter which consisted of an over-cooked, flavorless lobster tail (required a steak knife to cut), some slimy "fresh grouper" and three very over-cooked shrimp. The food arrived quickly and we were warned by several staff members that the plates were very hot and to take care to not burn ourselves on them... Not a good sign. We found this to be a very expensive meal that was obviously not cooked to order and had been sitting under a heat lamp all night. Don't waste your money.

Chalet Suisse is definitely one of the best restaurants in Aruba ! Everytime I go I have the chicken stuffed with spinach and cream cheese so good! Also the chocolate fondue is to die for. Everyone there is so nice and friendly especially the host Benny, he always knows how to put a smile on everyone's faces!!

Avocado Del Mar: Skip it, the crab didn't taste fresh and had too much dressing.
Surf and Turf: The filet was excellent- good flavor, perfectly cooked. The lobster tail was very small and over cooked.
Chilean Sea Bass: The fish was breaded and greasy, the white wine sauce, potatoes and vegetables were excellent.
Chocolate Marquis: This dessert and the filet were top notch!

Hmm, how am I going to say this diplomatically. CHALET SUISSE as the survivor of three very distinguished restaurants, including Chez Mathilde and Le Dome, may be on the verge of being unable to carry forth the great traditions that these three established and maintained. CHALET SUISSE is still very good, but our experience this year was less than what we have come to expect of the establishment. The food simply was not prepared to the standards that they are and have been capable of doing. Their rack of lamb cannot be beat, but other dishes are not rising to the same standards. For this reason we did not retunr a second time this year as we usually do and we do have some quality concerns moving forward. There are far too many up and coming restaurants for any established one to become complacent and we hope that is not what is happening to CHALET SUISSE. In the past, it has been an incredibly good restaurant and we will continue to dine here until that is no longer the case.

In our last night in Aruba, the 7 of us went to Chalet Suisse, located in front of Eagle Beach. We had not been to in years. EVERYTHING was just great, from the food to the service, from the steak to the fish and the desserts were yummy. All enjoyed the meal and we all left very happy. A nice clean environment. A must see.