English Summar y
Number 09 /118/ September 2019
TOP FLIGHT
Food and drink
Do you think it was the 21st
century hipsters who came
up with the idea of vege-
tarianism? Not in Switzer-
land – the world’s first vege-
tarian restaurant, Hiltl, was
opened in Zurich in 1898. It
is said that its founder, Am-
brosius Hiltl, fell ill with ar-
thritis and decided to change
his diet by giving up meat
and dairy food, which led to
an improvement in his symp-
toms. Today, the fourth-gen-
eration family-run Hiltl has
grown into a chain of eight
restaurants and even in-
cludes a culinary school. The
restaurants offer an all-you-
can-eat buffet with more
than a hundred dishes, and
we bet that even the most
dyed in the wool meat-eater
will not leave hungry.
One of the relatively new
establishments in Zurich is
the instantly fashionable
Razzia restaurant on Seefeld-
strasse 82. The elegant Art
Nouveau building was erected
in 1922 and served as the first
movie theater in the city, and
in 2014 it was converted in-
to a restaurant with a highly
original interior – the main
hall, for example, is adorned
by a giant checkered giraffe,
and the restrooms are paint-
ed floor-to-ceiling with im-
ages of exotic animals play-
ing musical instruments and
smoking a hookah. The cine-
ma screen has survived to the
present day and an arthouse
film is shown once a month.
Don’t miss the classic Kro-
nenhalle restaurant and bar,
which was also founded at the
beginning of the last century,
in 1924, and perfectly encap-
sulates the spirit of that el-
egant era. It quickly became
a cult among famous people
in fashion, literature and art,
hosting Coco Chanel, Yves
Saint Laurent, Pablo Picas-
so, Alberto Giacometti, James
Joyce, Richard Strass, and
Max Frisch. You can enjoy the
house roast beef or lobster
in garlic sauce while contem-
plating the paintings by Marc
Chagall, Juan Miro, Georg-
es Braque and Henri Matisse –
all originals, of course.
Shopping
Bags created from recycled
truck tarp have become pop-
ular among Zurich fashioni-
stas. While life has taken its
toll on the material, the bags
are sewn by hand and each
one has an individual design.
Also, the material is so du-
rable that you can safely be-
queath your purchase to your
great-grandchildren. Don’t
miss the flagship Freitag
store on Geroldstrasse 17. It is
made up of shipping contain-
ers stacked into a tower over-
looking over a pretty park
with numerous hipster-farm-
er cafes and a wave pool
where you can learn to surf.
Ac c o m m o d a t i o n
The Hotel Baur au Lac, built
in 1844, is considered the ar-
chetype of Zurich hotel chic –
an elegant villa from the Belle
Époque made popular by Si-
si, Austria’s Empress Elisa-
beth, who spent a whole sum-
mer here with two princes
and an entourage of 60 people.
Since then, Arthur Rubinstein,
Zubin Meta, Placido Domingo
and Elton John have stayed in
the hotel. It boasts a park with
200-year-old pine trees, views
of Lake Zurich, a fine collec-
tion of modern art, and a two-
star Michelin restaurant
manned by a sommelier who
won the title of best in the
world in 2019. These are just
some of the reasons to stay
here. Also of interest is the ho-
tel garden which contains an
apiary in the form of a min-
iature model of the hotel and
which is home to 80,000 bees.
If you want to have quick
and easy access to the center
of town, but also be surround-
ed by nature, Atlantis by Giar-
dino is for you. Located in
a national park at the foot of
Utliberg Mountain, it boasts a
two-star Michelin restaurant,
a spa center with premium
Swiss brand dipiù treatments,
and an outdoor pool, on a
backdrop of countless chirp-
ing birds and cows grazing
on the nearby pastures. This
idyllic hotel is further comple-
mented by a panoramic view
of the town center, but wheth-
er you actually make it out of
the hotel, is another matter.