Hotel Albris stories

The new restaurant Kochendörfer

Hotel Albris restaurant

"Larch wood has a beautiful reddish color"

The new Kochendörfer restaurant attracts attention with its generous seating niches and lots of wood. Guido Manzoni, project manager at the Rominger joinery, explains why he likes to work with local wood.

In June 2021 the time had come: After a short but intensive construction period, guests were catered for in the new Kochendörfer restaurant for the first time. The spacious room concept has proven itself. The comfortable seating niches ensure cosiness, while the service staff has more space between the tables. The wall paneling and Acoustic ceiling made of larch wood on . Most of this woodwork was carried out by the Rominger joinery from Pontresina. The project manager Guido Manzoni talks about the challenges during the renovation.

Guido Manzoni, how do you like it in the new Kochendörfer restaurant?
I used to like to come to Kochendörfer's. regularly and with pleasure. Now I will probably eat here more often (laughs), because I am immensely happy to sit here and look at the woodwork. I am very satisfied with the result.

What are you particularly happy about?
When I look at the surfaces of the cabinets and shelves, they fit perfectly into the wood structure of the wall cladding; the various elements form a uniform course. The pieces of furniture are made with cover slats, while the wall cladding consists largely of solid wood. But the difference is hardly noticeable. I think we solved that very nicely.

Why is the furniture not made with solid wood?
Solid wood lives and changes, which is irrelevant in a large regular table. But a piece of furniture with drawers and doors must not be deformed. That is why the technology with cover lamellas means that the furniture stays straight and does not tear. With a thickness of 7mm, we have very high-quality cover lamellas processed. The sawmill sawed it for us from the same boards as for the wall cladding.

What other challenges?
The short implementation time. We started work in April, and the opening was already in June. In some cases, all of our 15 carpenters were working at the Hotel Albris.
Procuring the wood was not easy either. If possible, we use wood from the region. But in spring hardly anyone had any wood, either it had not been sawn or it had already been sold. Finally I was able to buy just enough larch wood from a sawmill in Ramosch. The wood was in the Lower Engadine beaten and is of very good quality .

The acoustic ceiling is also noticeable
Yes, it consists of 3000 running meters of visible slats. In addition, there is the substructure and sound insulation made of rock wool. How we can dismantle the ceiling again so that we can access the pipes for the revision of the ventilation system. So I planned everything in modules that were individually ab- and can reassemble .

The Rominger joinery is known for Swiss stone pine furniture. Almost all rooms in the Hotel Albris are also equipped with Swiss pine beds. What makes the Swiss stone pine so special?
Swiss stone pine is very soft, supple and smells intensely. Because it contains essential oils that have a positive effect on the sleeping environment. This is how the sleep heart rate is reduced by up to 10 percent in a Swiss stone pine bed. When my children were small, I could see how much better they were Sleeping pine bed.
But I also like larch wood. It has a beautiful reddish color, is hard-wearing and the knots are less prominent than with the Arve. Larch looks more modern and is therefore well suited for interior construction like here in Kochendörfer's.

What did you eat the last time you were here?
Fish. I don't know which one, but it tasted excellent. I usually choose something from the table with the recommendations. I would like to compliment the Kochendörfer family and the hotel-Albris- team. Not only for the good food and the courteous service, but also for the courage, to have dared such a large investment in these troubled times.

Master carpenter and mountaineer

Guido Manzoni, grew up in Samedan, already knew at 13 that he wanted to become a carpenter, although he cut his fingers the first time he “sniffed it ”. After his apprenticeship and after earning his spurs as a carpenter, he went on a world tour with his girlfriend. Back in Switzerland they married and he enrolled at the well-known wood school in Biel, where he trained as a master craftsman and master carpenter.

He has been working at Rominger since 2007. As a project manager, he mainly sits in the office, calculates offers, draws plans, organizes wood, instructs carpenters, coordinates construction sites. During the work in Kochendörfer's, he was often on site to see that everything runs smoothly. "The collaboration with the Kochendörfer family and the architect was very good. I had a lot of freedom and was able to plan details myself. That was a lot of fun," says Manzoni.

He no longer does carpentry himself. But in his free time he likes to turn or devote himself to model flying. His favorite hobby is mountaineering, so he knows the famous Engadine mountains from above. Guido Manzoni lives in Samedan, has been married for 31 years and has two adult sons.

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