Gourmets around the globe smack their lips at the mere mention of the name «Balik». Since 1978, the premium brand from the hamlet of Ebersol has stood for top-class smoked salmon, uncompromising quality and craftsmanship. Stefan Heilemann, Switzerland’s 2021 Gault-Millau Chef of the Year, swears by the delicacy too: «Balik salmon has an incredible melt, as fine as it is balanced and clean. This product needs no spices», says the chef of the two-star Widder restaurant in Zurich.
Balik processes only carefully selected, whole Salmo Salar salmon from Norway — for it is the head, above all the eyes, that reveals whether a fish is utterly fresh. Barely out of the water, the salmon are flash-frozen; in Ebersol, after thorough quality control, they thaw very slowly in iced water. After salting, they perfect their aroma for ten to twelve hours at 32 degrees in the smoking oven. In theory the temperature could be raised — but that would come at the expense of the famed harmony and texture.
After smoking, it comes down to skilled hands: not machines but people fillet and trim the salmon. No bone escapes them, and the flesh stays flawless. New staff need around two years before they may shape the back fillets themselves. Apart from scales and vacuum-packers, the manufactory has no machines — a welcome contrast to industrial operations where quantity trumps quality.
The name «Balik» means «the best piece of the fish» in Russian and bows to the great tradition of fish-smoking in the tsarist empire. From there — more precisely from the Romanovs’ last smoking master — comes the closely guarded recipe too: in 1977 founder Hans Gerd Kübel met the master’s grandson Kaplan in Berlin and lured him to Switzerland. Even the smoking oven follows historic Russian models, always built so the fine smoke permeates every salmon evenly. In 1993 Balik passed to Peter G. Rebeiz of Caviar House & Prunier — the start of an international success story.
Today Balik salmon graces the finest addresses in Europe and as far as Hong Kong, where three-star chef Guillaume Gaillot serves it as an amuse-bouche at Caprice. The Toggenburg manufactory is open all year by appointment — yet one thing even the most curious visitors won’t learn: which wood the smoking masters use. All that is known is that it comes from the neighbouring forests and must dry for four to six years; for the «Balik Fillet Tsar Nikolaj No. 1», the logs are seasoned for ten.
Besides classic smoked salmon — back fillet, whole side or tartare — the range includes a gravlax variant: for the Balik Smjoga, belly fillets are marinated, sometimes with dill, sometimes with orange, ginger and blossom honey. Balik sushi, the only product that never sees the smoking oven, has even made it onto the menu of Thurgau’s top chef Christian Kuchler at the Taverne zum Schäfli, who serves it purist-style with a wasabi marinade. Sometimes a product is so good that even a great chef shows restraint.
This article appeared in MEN issue 1/21 (November 2021).
