Restaurant review, Bodo's Schloss, London.

Alpine cuisine is not a concept to make you high-five strangers in the street. Combining the gastronomic traditions of Austria, Germany, France and Italy, it has few home-grown dishes to brag about. One is raclette, which translates literally as 'Holding a lump of mature cheese in the fire until it melts, then scraping the result on to a plate with potatoes, cucumbers and vinegar-pickled onions'. How yummy.

Another is fondue, which means 'Dipping small hunks of bread on elongated forks into a melted-cheese soup and eating them with extreme reluctance'. Oh yes, and roesti – a hash-brown pancake whose only interest is that it's pronounced like the surname of the author of Midnight's Children.

So when I heard, from the bearded groovers and finger-clicking hepcats of the features department, that the most happening thing in town this autumn is Alpine-themed bars and restaurants, I didn't spring from my seat. "But you must check them out," they urged. "There's Piste in Archer Street, Mayfair, where they serve vodka shots on skis, too priceless, and everyone who matters, my dear, is going to San Moritz in Soho…"

The new one, Bodo's Schloss, is co-owned by Piers Adam and David Phelps, who opened Mahiki, where the royal princelings could regularly be found, 10 years ago, crawling from the backdoor into taxis with mystery blondes. Adam and Phelps also run Whisky Mist, a disco establishment at the Hilton Hotel, and The Punch Bowl, a lovely 18th-century pub near Berkeley Square.

Neither place is renowned for sophistication in the kitchen, but the Schloss sounded a treat. I pictured a chalet atmosphere, foaming steins of beer, knackwurst, lederhosen, schnapps, après-ski and busty pigletted Rheinmaidens bursting out of their gingham tops.

Read more at http://www.independent.co.uk