Zurich

Altstadt · Augustinergasse 25

The Antinori family is one of Italy’s great wine dynasties, a Florentine family that has been making wine since 1385 and is now in its 26th generation, behind labels like Tignanello and Solaia. Their Zürich Cantinetta was the first they opened outside Italy, and it sits right in the old town on Augustinergasse, with a terrace on the cobblestones and, inside, dark wood, white tablecloths, paintings and that slightly formal, very comfortable Italian look. It feels properly Italian in the best way, whether you go for lunch or dinner.

The food deserves the name above the door. The carpaccio was superb: cut almost translucent, clearly excellent beef, delicate but still really tasty. The pastas are very good too, and if there is tartufo on the menu, go there. The wine choice is the easy part: drink Antinori wines. You are in their restaurant.

Bellevue · Rämistrasse 4

Kronenhalle is one of the places that defines Zurich. It is properly grand: dark wood, white tablecloths, lamps, original Picassos, Chagalls, Mirós and Matisses on the walls, and hospitality done in a way you barely see anymore. There are service carts, silver platters and a slightly ridiculous amount of cutlery for very specific jobs; waiters carve, fillet and flambé at the table, portion things onto warm plates and know exactly what they are doing. It is formal, but never stiff.

Hulda and Gottlieb Zumsteg took over Kronenhalle in 1924, and their son Gustav later moved between the restaurant, textiles and the Paris fashion world, becoming close to many of the artists who passed through the place and building much of the collection that is still there today. Painters sometimes settled bills with paintings, writers and musicians became regulars, and Gustav later stipulated that the pictures should stay where he had hung them. So the collection around you is not some later attempt to make the restaurant interesting. It is the actual history of the place still on the walls.

Zurich still uses Kronenhalle properly too: family celebrations, important dinners, business lunches, regulars coming back to the same tables they have used for years. And the food matters. The menu is full of the sort of dishes that belong in a restaurant like this: sliced veal fillet Kronenhalle with rösti, entrecôte Café de Paris, veal with morels and spätzli, sole meunière. Most people still order the classics. Get the Chateaubriand for two with béarnaise, rösti and vegetables.

Banking district · Augustinergasse 3

TAO’S is where you go when you want dinner to actually feel like going out. The room is dark, glamorous and usually booming: bankers coming straight from work for drinks, dressed-up dates, big tables getting louder as dinner goes on, different ages all mixed together. The service is warm, the place has swagger, and even at full tilt it never feels stiff.

The menu moves around Asia, and it is very easy to order well. Truffle beef tataki, spring rolls, crispy duck salad, dim sum, marinated black cod; get a lot and share everything. It is rich, sharp, crispy, saucy food, exactly what you want in a room like this.

In summer, take the garden terrace. And if nobody wants the night to end, even better: there is a bar, a cigar lounge, and ICON upstairs, a properly glitzy nightclub with DJs, tables and weekend nights that go until 4am.

Niederdorf · Römergasse 7/9

Le Dézaley is cozy to the point of almost feeling medieval. A bubbling pot of fondue feels completely at home in there. Their fondue is Vaudoise in style, made according to an old family recipe, rich, molten and really, really good. Have a cold Chasselas from Vaud with it. One thing worth knowing: ask for the French bread. The crustier baguette gives every bite more chew and crunch against all that soft, hot cheese, and it makes the fondue noticeably better. If you’ve reached your limit with melted cheese, the veal Wiener schnitzel is excellent too, crisp and served with lingonberries and cucumber-potato salad.

City / Paradeplatz edge · Bleicherweg 5

Aura is the kind of place where you should lean into the excess. The open kitchen has an original South Bend grill running at around 800°C, so order a serious piece of beef and let it do its thing. The 500g Chateaubriand for two is flambéed at the table, there’s a full kilo tomahawk, and the steaks come off that grill with a fantastic dark, hard crust. The room is dark and glossy, with the grill in full view and plenty of theatre happening around the tables.

And definitely do not leave when you’re done eating. Go upstairs. The bar feels almost like a private club: deep sofas, shelves of bottles and books, a proper fumoir and humidor, and music that gives the room some real pulse without turning every conversation into shouting. Later on it fills up properly, but it still feels like a bar rather than a nightclub pretending to serve drinks. The cocktails and spirits list is serious, and it is very easy to end up spending the rest of the night up there.

Niederdorf · Hotel Adler, Rosengasse 10

Swiss Chuchi is exactly what you pictured fondue in Switzerland would be like. Sit outside on Hirschenplatz if you can; the square is lovely, and a pot of bubbling cheese in the middle of the table feels completely right there. Yes, it is touristy, but this is the kind of touristy place that works because the fondue is genuinely great. There is also, for reasons that need no explanation, a full-size cow watching over the dining room from a balcony.

Baur au Lac · Talstrasse 1

Baur’s is the fun one inside Baur au Lac. It is still completely deluxe, just less serious about it. The room is very Wes Andersony: glossy green woodwork, coral chairs, patterned ceilings and huge Murano-glass chandeliers, all a bit overdone in the best way. And the food keeps up with the room: proper upscale brasserie cooking, polished and very good, with all the Baur au Lac precision but a lot more color.

Storchen Zürich · Weinplatz 2, 8001 Zürich

Upstairs at the Storchen, right in the middle of Zurich, there’s a tiny cigar bar that is perfect for stopping for an hour in the middle of the day. It’s all curved wood, leather chairs, an old bar and stained-glass windows with Zurich guild crests, and the whole thing feels cozy, slightly clubby and very Zurich. A lot of the people in there are regulars and already know the staff, which gives the room that private-club feeling without actually being one. The staff are friendly, they really know cigars and drinks, they’ll help you choose both, and they’ll actually talk to you instead of just serving you. It’s a great bar for a cigar, a serious drink and being properly looked after for a while.