Conscious dining, the Zurich way

Zurich is a gourmet paradise that reflects the cultural influences of its surroundings by encouraging relativity at its tables while continuing to nurture the city’s long-standing commitment to sustainable produce, writes Sonia Nazareth

Switzerland has entered the collective unconscious as a land of chocolate and cheese, but that’s just the icing on the culinary cake. Strategically located between France, Italy and Germany, each Swiss region draws influence from the ingredients, recipes, and cooking techniques of its neighbours, while maintaining its distinct Alpine traditions. The climate and diversity of landscapes allow for the production of a wide range of produce — from simple cereals to refined cheese. Capital city Zurich is resultantly a gourmet paradise, reflecting the cultural influences of its surroundings, encouraging relativity at its tables while continuing to nurture the city’s long-standing commitment to sustainable produce.

Fresh food markets like the Gemüsebrücke near the Town Hall are as much a bedrock of Swiss living, as the agricultural communities that have long defined the land. With the zeal of evangelists is an army of city chefs who source ingredients directly from urban gardens, weekly markets, and local farms. Stadtkaserei, a dairy and restaurant, is one illustration of this fact. The place produces its own hard cheese, fresh cheese and yoghurt using organic milk from Bugers Hof, a farm with sustainable grass feeding. The by-products of the cheese-making process like whey and ricotta, are used in its restaurant, in food items like bread and milk serum lemonade.

While eating free-range meats, fresh-caught fish, farm-fresh vegetables, and handmade cheese are being championed all over Switzerland, there are other triumphs. Dining on traditional food in old-world settings is a trend that stands firm in the face of globalisation. Peppering Zurich is the city’s traditional trade guilds, many of which ruled the roost between the 14th and the 18th century. Some like Zunfthaus Zur Waag have gone from being a weavers’ tavern to a place where people can dine and drink together. At places like this, you can try Zurich-styled sliced veal in gravy, rösti a fried potato cake, bürli — crusty bread rolls. Other dishes that qualify as welcome mats for any time spent in Zurich include fondue. Think hard cheese melted with white wine and consumed with bread cubes. Raclette, another standard offering, uses aromatic cheese that is produced from cows feasted on fresh grass in summer and meadow hay in winter. The melted cheese is aromatic and served with boiled potatoes, pickled gherkins, and cold meats. Muesli, a cereal comprising oat flakes, chopped fruit and milk was created by Swiss nutritionist Max-Bircher Benner. The cereal, best had with honey, yoghurt and nuts, and now a staple at most breakfast buffets, was once served to patients as a meal that was both nutritious and easy to digest.

Repurposing old buildings is part of the city’s sustainability mandate. In Zurich’s former industrial districts, designers make use of empty factory spaces to house innovative restaurants. Piu Europaallee, an Italian diner that whips up superlative pizza and the freshest of fish — in the converted 23-foot-high hall of the former Sihlpost office, next to Zurich main station, is another example of re-appropriation of old structures.

Innovation is accompanied by the diversity of the city’s food offerings. Haus Hitl is a case in point. You don’t have to be vegetarian to appreciate the fare at this Guinness-certified world’s oldest vegetarian restaurant. Established in 1898, food pilgrims make the journey here for the sheer sumptuousness of its offerings. From Indian and Thai curries to grilled vegetables that honour an ingredient — for example, a dish dedicated to cauliflower, or aubergine, there’s every combination of world vegetarian fare available a la carte and on the buffet. Fill your plate, weigh it, and pay for what you select. In this socially inclusive city, there’s the often-imitated restaurant in the dark, “Blinde Kuh”, where blind and visually impaired people serve up a meal in a setting of complete darkness. You digest empathy and awaken your other senses: smell, touch, taste, and sound, along with surprise seasonal fare.

But to travel to Zurich and bypass the culinary cliché of chocolate creation and consumption would be sacrilege. The Lindt Home of Chocolate is an institution that sprawls across 1,500 square metres. Upon entry, one is greeted by an over nine-metre-high chocolate waterfall.

Topics explored in the museum include cocoa cultivation, the history of Swiss chocolate, chocolate pioneers and production trends.

Adding rapture for your euro, are the very generous chocolate sampling and tasting areas, the Lindt café and the Chocolateria, for chocolate-making courses. If you can’t get enough of handmade pralines and truffles and also want the conviviality and conversation that a good café engenders, visit Café Sprungli. On the banks of the river Limmat, this gem, founded in 1836, exerts a sweet siren call.

What fuses life into all that unfolds on this culinary odyssey, is the pride with which each producer handles his product. For instance, I visit Wabe3, an apiary and bee-keeping company that stations bee colonies on unused flat roofs in the city. Anna Hochreutener, who founded this company with her husband, does more than care for bees and manufacture honey. They hold fascinating workshops that explain the politics of the hive and illustrate how cities, with green spaces and an abundance of diverse flowering plants, are in fact stellar habitats for bees.

At the end of my time here, I’ve tasted a range of foods — but more than that, I’ve tasted the way life is lived here. Consciously and sustainably by solid people who continue to love the land.