Zurich Black Book

I’ve always loved Zurich, even though I never get to spend enough time there. Between visiting our dear friends who live in Voralberg, Austria, or the Buchinger Wilhelmi clinic an hour and a half away on Lake Constance, we always try to bookend these trips with a couple of days in this beautiful Swiss city. It’s home to one of my absolute favorite restaurants in the world (also the favorite of all of our contributors), as well as a beloved perfume store, great shopping, and the most scenic lakeside runs. Somehow, it manages to feel equal parts old world and new, elegant and relaxed… qualities that our local friend, Frank Herrmann—who listed his go-tos here in our Black Book—summed up so beautifully that we had to share it with you here. He writes:

“Zurich has a reputation for being buttoned-up—the banks, the clean streets, the punctual trams gliding along Limmatquai. But the Zurich I fell in love with is softer, more eccentric, and sometimes even a little wild. It’s the smell of roasted chestnuts curling through Bahnhofstrasse in winter, and the first swim of the season in the lake when the water is still glacial, but you feel alive down to your bones. In summer, Zurich’s badi culture—the floating wooden baths that dot the river and lake—is absolutely unique: everyone sheds their serious faces and spends afternoons stretched out in the sun, diving in and climbing out, reading newspapers with wet hair. Here in Zurich, elegance lives next to eccentricity. A cocktail at the Kronenhalle, where the walls are lined with Chagall and Miró, is followed by a late-night sausage from a street stand and partying away at the famous Langstrasse. That contrast is the heartbeat of this city.”

I’m so thrilled to have this list from our favorite locals so I can go deeper—and stay longer—on our next visit. —Yolanda

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Adam Graham is an American journalist and travel writer based in Zurich. He writes for various publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Condé Nast Traveler, reporting on travel, food, architecture and design. 

Andreas Leeman is a Zurich-based photographer and airline pilot, who finds inspiration both in his travels around the world and in the city he calls home, which he describes as “open to the world and like a small village, close to nature.”

Frank Herrmann is a Zurich- and Paris-based strategy consultant and one half of #f2ontour, who never travels without his pocket calendar, meticulously plotting a three-month rolling itinerary of architecture, art, history and food.

Leonard Wilhelmi is the Lake Constance-based CEO of Buchinger Wilhelmi, a fourth-generation family-owned fasting clinic with locations in Germany, Spain, and soon France. 

Marcela Palek is style director of Monocle’s Konfekt magazine. Born in Prague and raised in Zurich, she’s lived there ever since.

Marguita Kracht took the reins as the seventh generation to run Baur au Lac in 2022, alongside her father, Andrea Kracht, with whom she works to guide the hotel into its next chapter. Since 1844, the hotel has been in the hands of the Baur-Kracht family, who continue to run it with a keen sense of innovation and unique understanding of heritage. 

Mats Klingberg is the Swedish-born founder of Trunk Clothiers, a menswear brand and multi-brand retailer with a store on Chiltern Street in London and Dufourstrasse in Zurich. 

Ralph Schelling is a Zurich-based chef who has worked in Spain, England and Tokyo. The most recent winner of the Culinary Cup, his cookbook, Simple is Best, was just published by AT Verlag. When he’s not cooking, he takes culinary journeys between Asia, Europe and the USA, peeking into the pots of inspiring restaurant chefs.