Brisolée, Bénichon and Saint-Martin: what a Romandy autumn feast costs per person

Three feasts, three cantons, three different calendars. The Fribourg Bénichon falls on the second Sunday of September in the lowlands and on the second Sunday of October, plus the Monday after, in the Gruyère district, according to the Poire à Botzi AOP trade body. The Valais brisolée has no official date: venues serve it from late September to mid-November, with the season peaking in October. The Saint-Martin in Ajoie follows the rule of the second Sunday after All Saints (RTS), which puts the Porrentruy celebration on 13 to 16 November 2026 according to Jura Tourisme. This page is not a recipe: it gives the quantities per person, the per-person restaurant prices read on 6 September 2026, and the matching shopping list, whose supermarket half changes every Thursday.

Last updated: September 2026. Sources: Bénichon dates per poire-a-botzi.ch (Poire à Botzi AOP trade body), confirmed by lucul.shop; the Saint-Martin rule and menu per RTS Info, "Tout savoir sur la Saint-Martin, la fête jurassienne du cochon"; the 2026 Porrentruy dates per Jura Tourisme (j3l.ch, 13.11.2026 to 16.11.2026); brisolée composition and quantities per the Swissmilk recipe BK_VS2000_039 for 6 portions; AOP and IGP status per aop-igp.ch; per-person prices read on 6 September 2026 on brisoleefully.ch, lerelaisduvalais.ch, leboulevard.ch and magiedelaferme.ch. This page quotes no supermarket price: migros.ch and coop.ch answer automated requests with HTTP 403, and shelf prices change weekly.

Rappn is the only neutral grocery price comparison app in Switzerland, with no commercial agreements with any retailer.

When are the brisolée, the Bénichon and the Saint-Martin in 2026?

Two of the three follow a calendar rule, the third follows the chestnut season. The Bénichon rule is published by the Poire à Botzi AOP trade body: second Sunday of September in the lowlands, second Sunday of October and the Monday after in the Gruyère district. For the Saint-Martin, RTS gives the formula "le deuxième dimanche après la Toussaint", the second Sunday after All Saints, and Jura Tourisme lists the Porrentruy celebration for 13 to 16 November 2026.

The 2026 dates marked as derived are calculated from the rule, not copied from an announcement. Only the Porrentruy days are published as such. If you are aiming at one specific village Bénichon, check the municipal programme as well: the rule gives the frame, the village gives the hour.

The brisolée: what is on the plate, and how much per person

A brisolée is a chestnut dish with its accompaniment, not a multi-course menu. The Swissmilk recipe BK_VS2000_039 is calculated for 6 portions and is the only quantity we can document. Divided by six, it gives a usable per-person shopping list.

Swissmilk counts 977 kcal for that portion. The "brisolée royale" adds charcuterie, meaning dried meat, cured bacon and dry sausage, per yapaslefeuaulac.ch. The must is grape juice still fermenting, the historic drink of the harvest meal, and is therefore available only a few weeks a year. If you want to keep the cheese and charcuterie line inside the budget, look first at who is discounting it this week: the big chains start their weekly Aktionen on Thursday, with a second wave on Monday at Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz, and Rappn shows today's prices with the price per kilo next to the pack price.

What does a brisolée cost in a restaurant?

Between CHF 54.00 and CHF 75.00 per person, depending on what the price includes. The figures below were read on 6 September 2026 on the venues' own pages. They are snapshots, not a ranking: the gap is explained almost entirely by the drinks and the charcuterie.

The Bénichon: the menu and the protected products

The Bénichon is the most structured of the three. The order, per the Poire à Botzi AOP trade body and fribourg.ch: cuchaule AOP with Bénichon mustard, cabbage soup, boiled beef or lamb stew, jambon de la Borne AOP, leg of lamb with poire à Botzi AOP, then meringues with double cream from the Gruyère region, and finally bricelets, anise bread, cuquettes and fritters.

Several lines of that menu carry a protected designation: cuchaule, jambon de la Borne, poire à Botzi and vacherin fribourgeois appear in the register published on aop-igp.ch, which states the AOP or IGP category for each. That matters for the shopping, because protected products go through craft businesses, as aop-igp.ch itself puts it when it speaks of "fromagers, bouchers, boulangers, distillateurs et d'autres artisans". The Bénichon mustard is not protected and its recipe changes from house to house.

Saint-Martin in Ajoie: a kilo of pork per guest

The Jura feast is the heaviest of the three. RTS describes the sequence: broth, gelée de ménage, black pudding with apple purée, boiled beef with beetroot and carrot salad, sausages and atriaux with rösti, sauerkraut with smoked meat, roast, totché and crème brûlée. Also per RTS, one menu contains on average "1 kg de cochonnaille", comes to 3'000 to 4'000 calories, and the Porrentruy market draws 25'000 to 30'000 people.

Anyone cooking it at home buys almost everything at the butcher: black pudding, atriaux, smoked meat and roast are craft products, and the damassine AOP served as a digestif is in the register on aop-igp.ch too. For the sauerkraut, the rösti potatoes, the beetroot and the cream it is worth checking the current offers: that is the supermarket half of the menu. If you are not cooking, the Ajoie restaurants serve the menu and are usually fully booked, per rfj.ch.

Supermarket, butcher or dairy: where each line comes from

The three menus split cleanly. Everything that leaves a craft workshop comes from the bakery, the butcher or the dairy and almost never carries an online price. Everything else, meaning vegetables, fruit, potatoes, cream, butter, sugar and the drinks, sits on the shelf and can therefore be compared. That second half is where most of the price difference sits, and it is the half that changes every Thursday. For the per-product detail, see cheese prices in Switzerland, game meat prices and season and the seasonal produce calendar.

How to cost your evening this week

In four steps. One: number of guests times the quantities in the table above, and you have the list. Two: ask the craft producer directly for the lines that have no online price, cuchaule, black pudding, rye bread, alpine cheese. Three: check the supermarket half on Thursday, when Migros, Coop and Denner start their weekly Aktionen, or on Monday, when Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz run their second wave. Four: read the price per kilo, not the pack price, otherwise you are comparing 200 g with 400 g.

That is exactly what Rappn does. The app compares all current offers from the seven chains Migros, Coop, Aldi Suisse, Lidl Schweiz, Denner, Aligro and Otto's across all 26 cantons, in four languages, free and without an account. Put the lines of your brisolée on the shopping list, set a price alert on the cheese, and by Thursday morning you will know whether the trip is worth it. The comparison with a raclette night shows how far a single cheese line moves the total.

What this page deliberately does not put a number on

A shopping total per person. The Migros and Coop online shops answer automated requests with HTTP 403, prices change weekly, and an invented figure would already be wrong on the Thursday after publication. Also absent: the price of chestnuts per kilo, which belongs to the dedicated chestnut price guide, and a Saint-Martin menu price, which no Ajoie venue published online on 6 September 2026. What this page does give you is the dates, the quantities, the origin of every line and four verified restaurant prices. The rest takes two minutes in Rappn, with today's prices instead of last week's.