My dear friend hosted me for a wee birthday brunch at The Living Room restaurant in The Ritz Carlton in central Geneva. Waiting for her in the lobby was an absolute delight as I was taken with both the modernly elegant chandelier and shabby-chic, yet ever so cool Christmas tree.

The Living Room was also primed with a coat of modern elegance- all traditional furnishing with chic, sleek touches. Just gorgeous.

For brunch, you select one, two, or three courses of anything on the menu- quite a tall task as it all sounded quite good. I started with a white fish ceviche that was out of this world. Pair that with a Perrier-Jouet, freshly-squeezed orange juice mimosa and I was in heaven.

For the main, I opted to keep it Swiss and went with this skillet of friend eggs. Just below was a layer of spinach, caramelized onion, potato and cheese. This is so outside of something I would normally order. While it was good, I realized I felt awful afterward and why I don’t normally order things in skillets.

My friend is a huge dessert fan so we opted for a ‘brief walk’ to stretch our legs and landed at the Four Seasons down the road. I’d never been in and she wanted to show me around, so who was I to say no. I’m so glad I had the experience with her, as it was the opposite of the Ritz- beautiful, old school, but relaly, really stuffy, from the service, to the other patrons, to the hushed ambiance. Box ticked.

Anyhow, we had these absolutely gorgeous millefeuilles, a favorite of mine. They were a feast for the eyes, but not nearly as incredible as the cream didn’t hold the wood-like layers together. We both kind of just gave up on it, paid the bill and left for some window shopping.

An absolutely gorgeous day that I cannot thank my lovely friend for enough. What a fun way to experience some of the high end Geneva hotels as a birthday brunch crawl. I look forward to returning to the The Living Room very soon and am glad to know that I’ll stick to the Four Seasons for the needs of Laduree.