Fundaziun Uccelin—
Nurturing Talent with Taste
Working in the world’s finest restaurants, harvesting oysters straight from the sea, producing delicate cheeses by hand, and learning the refined techniques of haute cuisine: with their Fundaziun Uccelin, Sarah and Andreas Caminada open up new horizons for young talents in the kitchen and in service. Their scholarships, funded by donations, provide insights that go far beyond most.
A Visit to
Uccelin Foundation
(Young Talents) In the beginning was the desire to give something back, to leave a social footprint. “It was clear to us: we had to do something.” Success, it seems, makes some people humble. Andreas Caminada—the Swiss chef who has held three Michelin stars for years with his restaurant at Schloss Schauenstein—and his wife Sarah began to ask themselves how they might express gratitude for all the positive experiences they had been fortunate enough to have. “Sarah immediately said it didn’t make sense to just send money somewhere without having any influence over what happens with it,” the chef recalls. “It had to be something for our own industry.”
At the same time, the couple were receiving more and more inquiries from young chefs who wanted to complete an internship at their three-star restaurant in the tiny Swiss town of Fürstenau. “In Switzerland it’s a bit more complicated than elsewhere,” Sarah explains. “According to labor law, we would also have had to pay the interns. But at the time, we didn’t have the money for additional staff.”
In 2015, the couple came up with the idea for a program that would offer young talents gastronomy horizon-expanding experiences and guidance—worldwide—in both kitchen and service. In 2026, their foundation (Fundaziun) Uccelin will celebrate its tenth anniversary. “Uccelin” means “little bird” in Romansh, the native language of Andreas, and symbolizes the desire to give wings to the next generation in gastronomy.
Here at Schauenstein Castle, Swiss chef Andreas Caminada runs a restaurant that has held three Michelin stars for years.
Out into the World
For five months, the scholarship holders are able to work in pioneering international top establishments, ranging from restaurants to producers. Organization, accommodation, and travel expenses are covered by Uccelin, as well as a stipend. More than 70 Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide now cooperate with Sarah and Andreas Caminada in support of their vision. Chefs such as Massimo Bottura in Italy, Rasmus Munk in Denmark, Dominique Crenn in the United States, or Heinz Reitbauer in Austria provide insights into their ways of working, styles, techniques, and processes. Participants choose three restaurants, and become part of each team for four weeks.
In addition, numerous producers are available: from Swiss cheese legend Willi Schmid and the exceptional Belgian chocolatiers Dominique and Julius Persoone to the Dutch oyster farm Oesterij. Newly on board is the gourmet food company Bianchi, which takes Uccelin scholars along in its delivery vans and into its logistics facilities so they can develop an understanding of what happens on the other side of gastronomy: with the suppliers.
How enriching it can be to experience different perspectives is something Andreas discovered himself as a very young chef in Vancouver. A friend had arranged for him to spend a day in each of the city’s best restaurants and to help with deliveries as well. “They were three completely different places. One was a classic French café, another had an oriental influence, and the last was a Relais-Gourmand restaurant.” It was also there that his love of pastry was sparked—through a book from which he noted down everything he could. “All of it was eye-opening.”
Sarah and Andreas developed this formative awakening into a program “that allows young talents to get a taste of as many establishments as possible without being pushed to the financial limit at the same time,” as Sarah puts it. “At the beginning, we didn’t even know whether we should found an association or a foundation—let alone how to handle it organizationally.”
The idea spread quickly among their international contacts in gastronomy. Swiss chef Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York was involved from the very start. The couple also held talks with the canton of Graubünden to ensure the project would be as sustainable as possible. “We created something that, unlike in other industries, simply didn’t exist in gastronomy before,” says Andreas. “If you’re a singer or an actress, you can just apply somewhere to the government or the state and receive funding. In our industry, none of that existed.”
Uccelin scholarship holders can gain experience
at restaurants such as Eleven Madison Park in
New York as well as Steirereck in Vienna.
Of Visions and Challenges
Their vision confronted them with numerous challenges, especially in the early days, Sarah says. “First, we had to generate money so that we could finance Uccelin. It wasn’t a wealthy foundation—we founded it with our idea and our network behind it.”
A second pillar was the program itself and its infrastructure. In the beginning, alongside her other responsibilities in the company and caring for the couple’s two children, Sarah also handled small details such as taxi rides for the scholars, as well as all the legal hurdles, including work visas for the United States and many other matters. And what today—thanks to the foundation’s strong reputation in the industry—largely runs itself even internationally, was much more difficult at the outset: finding the right scholarship holders. “We had some applicants—to put it bluntly—where you had to be glad they didn’t write their application on toilet paper.”
The Uccelin Foundation started in 2016 with around 40 restaurants “and five or six producers.” Today, it can point to more than 100 graduates, not a few of whom now successfully run their own gastronomy businesses. The initially very low proportion of women rose quickly, and the share of participants working in service also increased significantly. All Uccelin participants first spend two weeks at Schloss Schauenstein “so that we can get to know them and pass on our values,” as Andreas Caminada says. “It’s also about manners and courtesy—after all, our name is attached to it. We’ve always been very strict about that.” Everyone is equipped with knives, chef’s jackets, and other necessities. “And then they set off into the world.”
All of this is extremely costly. The funds come partly from donations and partly from fundraising events, such as a recent dinner at Schloss Schauenstein, which Caminada and his head chef Marcel Skibba hosted together with culinary superstars Albert Adrià from Spain and José Avillez from Portugal. “Over the past few years, we’ve raised 1.6 million Swiss francs in donations,” Sarah reports. “Today, the program is well established—both in content and organization—and we have truly excellent applicants. But now, as we approach the 10-year anniversary, we are at a turning point where we have to ask ourselves: do we continue as before, or do we want to grow significantly and make our program available to many more young talents in kitchen and service?” Sarah and Andreas Caminada’s goal is clear—Uccelin is meant to grow.