Anton Mosimann

Anton Mosimann (born 23 February 1947) is a Swiss chef and restaurateur who was Maitre Chef des Cuisines at the Dorchester Hotel for thirteen years, during which time its restaurant achieved a rating of two stars in the Michelin Guide. After leaving The Dorchester Mosimann took over a private dining club called The Belfrey and created Mosimann's, a cookery school, and other enterprises in the hospitality industry. He has also presented television programmes in the UK and Switzerland. In 2016 a museum dedicated to his life and culinary arts was opened in the campus of Culinary Arts Academy Switzerland, located on the shores of Lake Geneva (lac Léman), in the town of Le Bouveret.

Mosimann terms his culinary style cuisine naturelle as it emphasises healthy and natural ingredients, avoiding additions of fat and alcohol.

Early life and career Mosimann was born on 23 February 1947 in Solothurn, in the foothills of the Swiss Jura, to Otto and Helga Mosimann. From his childhood he assisted in a restaurant that his parents ran in Nidau. He was an only child.

When he was 15 he began an apprenticeship at a local hotel, and he received his diploma as a chef de cuisine at the age of 25.

During his twenties he worked at hotels in Rome, Montreal, Japan and Belgium. His predecessor, Eugène Käufeler, had asked for advice on the appointment from Adelrich Furrer, a Swiss expert on gastronomy. Mosimann had come to Furrer's attention when he won a gold medal for his cooking, at a competition in Lucerne.

His English television work includes the Food and Drink special Anton Goes to Sheffield in 1985, which won a Glenfiddich Award in 1986, Cooking with Mosimann in 1990, and Anton Mosimann – Naturally from 1991 to 1992. In 2016 The Culinary Arts Academy of Switzerland opened a three-storey wing in Le Bouveret, on the shores of Lake Geneva, with a permanent display of The Mosimann Collection of Culinary Heritage. His extensive library of cookery books is displayed alongside over fifty gold medals he won at various international competitions and an array of memorabilia reflecting his long and illustrious career. As he quipped at the launch: "What a privilege to be alive when a museum dedicated to you is opened!" It was fitting that it should open the same year that he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award Hotelympia.

Mosimann visited the V. M. Salgaocar Institute of International Hospitality Education in Goa, India, on 7 January 2023 as a special guest and demonstrated some dishes to the students.

Honours

In 2004 Mosimann was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), "For services to the Tourist and Food Industries". and the Catering Industry's Lifetime Achievement Award. ITV's This Morning included Mosimann as one of the UK's six iconic chefs in 2007. He is also a chevalier of the French Ordre National du Mérite Agricole. In 2011 he received the Carl-Freidrich von Rumohr Lifetime achievement award from the Gastronomic Academy Deutschlands eV and was awarded Médaille du Mérite, Société Suisses des Cuisiniers 2012 and the Gastronomische Akademie Deutschlands Rumohr Ring, 2013.

Selected publications Cuisine à la Carte, 1981 A New Style of Cooking, 1983 Cuisine Naturelle, 1985 Anton Mosimann's Fish Cuisine, 1988 The Art of Mosimann, 1989 Cooking with Mosimann, 1989 Anton Mosimann – Naturally, 1991 The Essential Mosimann, 1993 Mosimann's World, 1996 Natürlich, leichtes Kochen mit Anton Mosimann, 1996 Mosimann's Kulinarische Schweiz, 1998 Mosimann's Vegetarische Küche, 1999 Mosimann's Natürliche Küche, 2001 Mosimann's Fresh, 2006 25 Years Mosimann, 2013 Life is a circus, autobiography 2017, Anton Mosimann/Willi Näf