lunchmenu.ch

Swiss Lunch Price Index

• Lunch
• Coffee
• Drinks
• Wine
• Dishes
• What Switzerland eats
• Statistics

A lunch menu typically costs CHF 22.90 in Switzerland (median). The index is based on 96'971 menus from 1'370 restaurants across 41 cities over the last 30 days. A tax-free Lunch-Check of CHF 180.00 a month is worth about CHF 8.29 per working day - 36% of the median lunch menu.

Prices by city (last 30 days)

Ranked only from 10 restaurants; cities with 5 or more are listed below, unranked. "Restaurants only": the median without hotels, cafés, bakeries and fast food (at least 5 restaurants).

Röstigraben: the language regions

German-speaking: CHF 22.90 (95% CI CHF 22.50-CHF 23.00) · French-speaking: CHF 23.00 (95% CI CHF 22.00-CHF 24.00) · Ticino: CHF 22.00 (95% CI CHF 18.50-CHF 26.00). The confidence intervals overlap: on the menu price, the regions cannot be told apart reliably.

The Röstigraben shows on the plate: what the language regions serve

Hotel, restaurant, café: the type of venue

The type of venue matters more than the region: Hotel CHF 25.50 (54) · Restaurant CHF 23.50 (1'017) · Café and bakery CHF 19.40 (195) · Fast food and takeaway CHF 18.90 (43).

Table

Type of venue	Median	Restaurants
Hotel	CHF 25.50	54
Restaurant	CHF 23.50	1'017
Café and bakery	CHF 19.40	195
Fast food and takeaway	CHF 18.90	43

What drives the price: the main ingredient

Game is the priciest main ingredient (CHF 27.00); "Vegetables & pasta" menus are the cheapest (CHF 20.00). At the same restaurant, the vegetarian menu costs a median CHF 2.75 less than the meat menu (1'005 restaurants serving both); at 22% of them it costs the same or more.

• Meat & fish
• Vegetarian

Table

Main ingredient	Median	Restaurants
Game	CHF 27.00	403
Lamb	CHF 27.00	125
Veal	CHF 25.50	487
Beef	CHF 24.50	914
Fish & seafood	CHF 24.00	868
Pork	CHF 23.00	819
Poultry	CHF 23.00	867
Cheese & egg	CHF 20.50	736
Tofu & legumes	CHF 20.00	438
Vegetables & pasta	CHF 20.00	820

The lunch discount: menu versus à la carte

At the same restaurant and for the same dish type, the à-la-carte menu costs a median CHF 5.00 more than the lunch menu (369 restaurants with both); at 75% of them the card is dearer.

• Lunch menu
• À la carte

Table

Dish type	Lunch	Card	Difference	Restaurants	Card dearer
Steak and grill	CHF 32.00	CHF 46.00	+CHF 13.00	156	83%
Fish fillet	CHF 27.75	CHF 39.25	+CHF 11.05	152	88%
Pasta	CHF 22.50	CHF 24.13	+CHF 2.00	140	60%
Geschnetzeltes	CHF 25.50	CHF 39.25	+CHF 11.00	78	81%
Schnitzel	CHF 25.00	CHF 30.00	+CHF 3.50	73	70%
Filled pasta	CHF 23.00	CHF 27.00	+CHF 3.25	55	73%
Risotto	CHF 23.00	CHF 27.50	+CHF 4.50	53	83%
Cordon bleu	CHF 29.50	CHF 36.80	+CHF 6.25	51	71%
Pizza	CHF 21.65	CHF 22.90	+CHF 0.50	51	53%
Stew	CHF 25.00	CHF 37.50	+CHF 10.00	47	81%
Fried fish	CHF 24.70	CHF 32.38	+CHF 5.50	44	80%
Curry	CHF 22.50	CHF 29.75	+CHF 5.75	42	81%
Burger	CHF 23.50	CHF 28.00	+CHF 4.00	41	71%
Vegetable dish	CHF 23.75	CHF 26.50	+CHF 1.70	34	62%
Sausage	CHF 21.50	CHF 24.00	CHF 0.00	28	46%
Seafood	CHF 25.00	CHF 36.40	+CHF 10.00	27	93%
Cutlet	CHF 31.50	CHF 36.50	CHF 0.00	27	41%
Gnocchi	CHF 21.00	CHF 24.50	+CHF 4.00	25	84%
Main-course salad	CHF 23.00	CHF 23.90	CHF 0.00	25	48%
Poultry dish	CHF 24.95	CHF 36.20	+CHF 10.00	24	79%

What does the price include?

A menu with just a main course typically costs CHF 22.50; with a starter CHF 23.00, with starter and dessert CHF 26.00. At 48% of restaurants, at least half of the menus include a soup or salad.

Table

Included	Median	Restaurants
Main course only	CHF 22.50	953
With a starter	CHF 23.00	822
With starter and dessert	CHF 26.00	300

Soup or salad included, by language region

Table

Region	Restaurants with soup or salad	Restaurants
German-speaking	52.1%	1'138
French-speaking	28.4%	211
Ticino (small sample)	23.8%	21

Vegetarian and vegan options

50% of restaurants offer a vegetarian option on every published day, 18% never do. A daily vegan option is still rare: 10%.

Vegetarian

Vegan

Table

	Vegetarian	Vegan
every day	49.8%	9.6%
some days	31.7%	33.5%
never	18.5%	56.8%

Monthly trend (fixed-panel index)

Chain-linked index on a fixed panel (August 2026 = 100): October 2026 (ongoing month): 100.0, based on 1'010 restaurants present in both months. The level of all medians is in the table as context: it also moves when restaurants join or leave.

Panel: restaurants with at least 3 menus in the month itself and the month before.

• Dish price index

  What a Cordon bleu, Geschnetzeltes, curry and other dishes cost at lunch.

• What does Switzerland eat?

  Lunch dishes by language region: the Röstigraben on the plate.

Methodology

The index is computed automatically from the daily lunch menus Swiss restaurants publish, collected every day by Lunchmenu.ch. Each restaurant counts once: its price is the median of its menus over the last 30 days, and a city's value is the median of those per-restaurant prices. The range shows the middle half of restaurants (p25 to p75). Items below CHF 10 (apéro plates, snacks) and above CHF 100 are excluded, as are restaurants with fewer than 3 published menus. Cities with fewer than 5 restaurants are not listed individually. The 95% confidence interval of the median is computed distribution-free from order statistics.

Main ingredient and diet: every main course is classified by our proprietary classification system by dish type, main ingredient, diet and cuisine, reading the dish name together with the menu heading; only unambiguous classifications enter the statistics. Dishes without a real name ("Menu 1", "dish of the day") are left out of prices but kept for the vegetarian offer. The vegetarian/meat gap compares both at the same restaurant. Language regions: by the restaurant's postcode first (with the German-speaking parts of Fribourg and the Biel area decided explicitly), otherwise by its town. Soup or salad: menus whose included starter is a soup or a salad. Trend: a chain-linked index on a fixed panel - each month only restaurants with at least 3 menus in that month and the month before count, and the link is the median of their price ratios, so restaurants joining or leaving the index do not move it.

These figures may be quoted freely with attribution to Lunchmenu.ch and a link to this page.