Sunday Roast Brunch at Beau-Rivage

A Roast for the Lake

3.5 of 5

Geneva does its Sunday brunch the way it does most things, with a hotel, a lake view and a reservation. The Beau-Rivage version, served in the Rivage Café on the Quai du Mont-Blanc, skips the buffet circus. It borrows the Sunday roast instead: one seasonal centerpiece comes to the table to share, and the brunch classics orbit around it. I like that. A buffet asks you to graze. A roast asks you to sit down and pass things.

The kitchen runs under chef Mathieu Croze, with Kevin Ollivier on pastry. The hotel's own page describes a convivial, generous meal, and that is the right ask for a Sunday. One example on a booking site is a crispy spring chicken with seasonal vegetables, which tells you the centerpiece moves with the calendar. Children under six eat free, so this is a room where a family can show up without the staff doing the math on you.

The seating is short and precise: Sunday only, noon to half past one. That window is why my notes say to book seven to ten days ahead, and why the hotel takes reservations by email as well as phone. Come hungry, skip breakfast, and treat it as the main meal of the day, because at hotel prices it should be. Dress like someone who expects the room to be nicer than the street outside. It is. The lake is two steps away, and the roast is the reason to sit down.

Order this: The seasonal centerpiece the table shares, The brunch classics around it, Whatever the pastry chef has sent out
The damage: $$$$
Go: Sunday, 12:00 to 1:30 pm, booked a week or more ahead
Find it: Quai du Mont-Blanc 13, 1201 Genève
Website: beau-rivage.com