Golden Dragon

Chinese Cooking in an Alpine Context

Davos Platz is not a city where you expect to encounter Chinese food awarded by Michelin. The town's dining identity runs toward Swiss-German comfort, fondue, and the kind of European fine dining that suits a resort serving conference delegates and ski clientele. Yet within that context, Golden Dragon — located inside the Grischa hotel on Talstrasse 3 — has earned consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition in 2024 and 2025, a distinction that places it in a small cohort of non-European restaurants that Michelin inspectors in Switzerland have found worth singling out for quality-to-price ratio. For our full Davos Platz restaurants guide, this venue represents a genuine outlier in the local dining map.

The Bib Gourmand category is worth pausing on. It sits outside the star system entirely , Michelin awards it to kitchens delivering food of notable quality at moderate prices, which in Switzerland means something different than it might in Berlin or London. Davos operates at a resort premium across most categories. A €€ Chinese restaurant with two consecutive Bib Gourmand years is not filling a gap in the market; it is performing at a level that makes the price-to-quality ratio genuinely competitive. For comparison, the Swiss fine dining ceiling , restaurants like Schloss Schauenstein in Fürstenau or Memories in Bad Ragaz , operates at €€€€ and three Michelin stars. Golden Dragon occupies a structurally different tier, but the Michelin recognition connects it to the same quality conversation.

The Hotel Setting and What It Implies

The physical approach to Golden Dragon is shaped by its hotel context. The Grischa is a mid-market alpine property on Talstrasse, a main artery running through Davos Platz, and the restaurant sits within that building rather than as a standalone street-level address. Hotel dining in ski resorts tends toward the captive-audience model , guests who don't want to venture out in sub-zero temperatures. The fact that Golden Dragon draws a 4.7 Google rating across 452 reviews suggests it has built an audience beyond hotel guests, which in a resort town of this size is a meaningful signal. Walk-in traffic in Davos is seasonal and temperature-dependent; repeat custom and word-of-mouth recommendation are what sustain a restaurant through the shoulder months.

Grischa's position on Talstrasse places it within the central Davos Platz corridor rather than on the quieter Dorf side of the valley. For visitors arriving by rail , the standard approach, given that Davos sits at the end of the Rhaetian Railway line from Landquart , the hotel is accessible without significant travel time from the main station. If you're planning a broader stay, our full Davos Platz hotels guide maps the accommodation options around it.

Chinese Cooking at Altitude: The Craft Behind the Recognition

Across the European alpine arc, Chinese restaurants fall into two distinct categories: the volume-oriented buffet format serving ski resort crowds who want filling, familiar food after a day on the mountain, and the considerably rarer kitchen that treats Chinese technique as a serious culinary discipline. Michelin does not award Bib Gourmands to the former. The back-to-back recognition at Golden Dragon points to a kitchen operating in the second category , one where the sourcing, preparation, and execution meet a threshold that generalist resort dining rarely achieves.

The editorial angle here is dim sum craft and the morning-to-midday ritual it represents across Chinese culinary tradition. Bamboo steamers, the precision of dumpling folds, the balance of filling-to-wrapper ratio , these are techniques that separate competent Chinese kitchens from serious ones. Whether Golden Dragon runs a formal dim sum service or incorporates those preparations into a broader Chinese menu, the Michelin recognition implies that the technical baseline is there. Chef Ernst Hunger Jr leads the kitchen, and the name appears in a Swiss-German culinary context rather than a Chinese-trained lineage, which raises interesting questions about how the kitchen approaches its cuisine , though such biographical speculation falls outside what the public record confirms.

For direct comparisons in the European Chinese dining space, Restaurant Tim Raue in Berlin represents a heavily acclaimed interpretation of pan-Asian technique at the fine dining level, while Mister Jiu's in San Francisco demonstrates how Chinese-American cooking has been reframed through a serious regional-ingredient lens. Golden Dragon's Bib Gourmand positioning is a different register , accessible rather than tasting-menu-tier , but it enters the same conversation about Chinese cooking taken seriously in non-Chinese culinary capitals.

Davos Dining in Broader Swiss Context

Switzerland's Michelin-recognized restaurant scene is dense in Geneva, Zurich, and the arc running through Graubünden. The canton of Graubünden alone contains properties like Da Vittorio in St. Moritz and, further afield, 7132 Silver in Vals. Across the wider Swiss network, Cheval Blanc by Peter Knogl in Basel, Einstein Gourmet in Sankt Gallen, Colonnade in Lucerne, focus ATELIER in Vitznau, and IGNIV Zürich by Andreas Caminada in Zurich represent the higher price tiers where Swiss fine dining concentrates. Against this backdrop, a €€ Chinese restaurant in a ski resort holding consecutive Bib Gourmands is an anomaly worth noting , and visiting.

Within Davos itself, Apollo represents the local modern cuisine option for those wanting a European fine dining register. Golden Dragon and Apollo occupy different positions in the Davos dining structure, serving different needs within the same resort ecosystem. For everything else the town offers, our Davos Platz bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide cover the broader picture. Also, the nearby Hotel de Ville Crissier in Crissier is worth the detour for those traveling more broadly across Switzerland.

Planning a Visit

Golden Dragon sits inside the Grischa hotel at Talstrasse 3, Davos Platz , reachable by rail on the Rhaetian Railway from Landquart, with the main Davos Platz station a short walk away. The €€ price tier makes it accessible relative to most Michelin-recognized dining in Switzerland. Given the Bib Gourmand profile and the relatively small pool of serious restaurants in Davos, booking ahead is advisable, particularly during the winter season when resort occupancy peaks. Phone and online booking details are leading confirmed directly with the Grischa hotel. Hours are not confirmed in our current data, so contact the venue before planning an arrival time.