22 Best Restaurants in Kreis 1, Zürich

The most ambitious of the city's many Zunfthaus dining places, this fine restaurant is also the most spectacular, with a wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling and 30-foot beams, beneath which you can enjoy such innovative entrées as home-smoked char with beetroot carpaccio, or roasted forest mushrooms with truffle cream. Slick modern improvements—including a glassed-in elevator—manage to blend intelligently with the ancient decor and old-world chandeliers. The river views are especially impressive at night; ask for a window table. The ground-floor bar also offers light lunch refreshments.

This beloved landmark has always drawn a stellar crowd, and every panel of gleaming wood wainscoting frames artworks by Braque, Chagall, Bonnard, and Rodin, collected by Gustav Zumsteg, whose mother, Hulda, owned the restaurant from 1921 until she died in 1985. The tradition is carried on by the family trust, and robust old-school cooking is still served in hefty portions: veal steak in morel sauce, duck à l'orange with red cabbage, and Spätzle, all delivered from a silver trolley. Unless you're a recognizable celebrity, make sure to insist on a table in the main dining room; ordinary mortals are otherwise seated in a less exciting room upstairs.

Cavernous ceilings and broadly spaced tables illuminated by floor-to-ceiling windows characterize this restaurant, a few blocks from the lake. Executive chef Tarik Lange’s innovative take on regional flavors includes dishes like the secret cut of beef with whisper-thin sweet potato fries, or shellfish bisque with ginger and pineapple, followed by the house cheesecake with sea buckthorn. Pair your meal with a wine from the 3,000-strong cellar. The lamplit and leafy outdoor seating is charming on balmy evenings, when you’ll mingle with businesspeople enjoying after-work drinks.

Under painted vaults and wood-paneled walls that climb to restored century-old murals depicting gallivanting cherubs, businesspeople, workers, and shoppers share crowded tables around a stucco marble pillar to feast on generous hot dishes and a great selection of sausages. The Leberknödl (liver dumplings) are tasty, and the perch, a local specialty, is breaded and baked and comes with tartar sauce and steamed potatoes. The Öpfelküchli (fried apple slices rolled in cinnamon and sugar) are tender and sweet. The bustle and clatter provide a lively, sociable experience, and you'll more than likely get to know your neighbor.

Meat is the name of the game at this deli-inspired restaurant with private booths and terrazzo floors, where grass-fed game is sourced directly from Swiss butchers and farmers. Classics include leberkäese (meat loaf), homemade pâtés, gelatinous terrines, aspics, air-cured mountain meat, and steak pies. Vegans can always expect one or two dishes on the rotating menu to keep the whole table happy.

The coats of arms of old Spanish provinces and garlands of onions and garlic line the dark-paneled interior of this upstairs Niederdorf restaurant, specializing in big steaks, seafood, omelets, and paella. Be sure to sample the excellent house Rioja (Zurich's oldest Spanish wine specialty shop adjoins, so the choice is extensive). The lively downstairs bar serves amazing tapas, great for lunch. Many of the waiters come from the old country, so they know what they're talking about.

This historic café–restaurant was a popular haunt of 20th-century politicians, writers, artists, and musicians with names such as James Joyce, Einstein, and Lenin. These days, Odéon retains its Viennese coffee house style, making for a grand setting in which to nurse a coffee (served with a pastry), or choose from a menu of burgers, sandwiches, and pasta. The truffle aioli side is excellent. In the evening the place becomes a champagne bar that is great for people-watching. 

This city center restaurant, steps from Bahnhofstrasse, has a ritzy bar vibe, with padded leather banquettes, warm-hued wood floors, gray-painted pillars, and glossy red accents, all bathed in gentle lighting. The menu ranges from rustic-leaning schnitzel with potatoes to healthier sea bass with edamame and citrus fruits, and creative avocado jelly and marinated cauliflower. The space heaves with a business crowd during the week. For warmer weather, there’s an outdoor lounge with fresh flowers and plenty of shade.

Crimson velvet wall hangings, a baronial fireplace, and 19th-century brocade banquettes add up to one of Zürich's most sumptuous interiors. Happily, the food is even more impressive, and the quality of what may be Zürich's best homemade pasta keeps regulars coming back. This family-run establishment, in business for over a century, offers excellent traditional Italian dishes such as ricotta pancakes and veal fillet in lemon sauce. For dessert, the chocolate mousse is deliciously creamy. The lunch crowd is mostly financial bigwigs, while evenings attract local families.

Zürich's iconic confectionery, this landmark chocolatier and café for wealthy Bahnhofstrasse habitués concocts excellent seasonal truffles and pastries, though it's most famed for its Luxemburgerli, small cream-filled macaroon-style cookies. Good, plain hot lunches, sandwiches, and salads are also served, as are hot chocolates and coffees. There are also branches at the Hauptbahnhof, on Löwenplatz, and at Zürich airport.

This outpost of Zürich's world-famous Confiserie Teuscher features interiors that lean towards the gaudy. They're as elaborate as the ice-cream sundaes and cakes the café is famed for, but might appear tacky: there's a wrought iron central staircase, dangling chandeliers, and bouquet after bouquet of roses. It's worth it for the fare: as well as Teuscher truffles, you can buy handmade pastries and an excellent Gugelhupf, to eat in or take out. The outdoor seating on Bellevueplatz is great for people-watching.

Walking into George feels like stepping into a Don Draper–hosted cocktail party—the swanky penthouse space is decorated in vivid geometric patterns and warm wood, with pops of tangerine and turquoise, and the chic crowd is buzzing. The meat-centric menu is a mix of grilled fare and comfort dishes. Bartenders shake up both classic and new, creative cocktails, and there is often live music.

Swiss chef Andreas Caminada has long lured Zurchers to Schloss Schauenstein in Canton Graubünden, and now they need not travel for his food thanks to a new branch of IGNIV (one of two in Switzerland) located in a cobblestoned corner of the Altstadt. A svelte dining room with velvet couches and long silver curtains hints at chef Daniel Zeindlhofer’s theatrical cuisine, which includes such dishes as oeufs à la royale with gold flake, venison with cranberries and prunes in cream, and fluffy duck mousse served with fluffier slabs of homemade brioche.

One of Zürich's oldest inns, Kindli was visited by royalty in the Middle Ages, and in the centuries that followed, notable personalities were drawn by what many described as the building's "special aura." These days, the space is warm and inviting, serving seasonal variations of Swiss classics like simmered Swiss beef with horseradish and vegetables followed by caramelized apple tart. Rich, colorful paintings, dark-wood paneling, elegant bistro furnishings, and linen table settings add to the upscale, welcoming comfort of the restaurant.

Dating from 1801, and once the haunt of Zürich's beloved writer Gottfried Keller, this lively restaurant serves traditional meat dishes—Geschnetzeltes Kalbfleisch—lightened up with fresh seasonal vegetables and a champagne sauce. One section is a dark and heavily graffitied wine bar, with sagging timbers and slanting floors; there are also two welcoming little dining rooms with coffered ceilings and plenty of carved oak and damask—choose the cozy, charming Gaststube (not the more staid Stübli). It's always packed, and service can be slow, so stake out a table and plan to spend the evening. Guests who succeed in swinging around the room's famous wooden rafters three times win free wine for their table. You'd be amazed at the number of diners who make the attempt.

This European-inclined restaurant in a quiet corner of the Niederdorf is part of the trend towards portions that don't overflow your plate, with lighter, seasonal takes on traditional Swiss fare. You might try bacon dumpling salad with balsamic onions, or pork breast with honey and chanterelles, then finish with apple fritters and vanilla ice cream. Wainscoting and dark parquet floors paired with a monochrome palette make for a comfortable dining room; an outside courtyard is open in summer.

At lunchtime the line for its legendary takeout bratwurst sausages snakes out along a neighboring street, but it moves quickly because the choices are relatively limited and most choose the freshly grilled veal sausage (bratwurst) or pork-based Cervelat. Once handed your order, grab a traditional large Bürli bread roll and some in-house spicy mustard from the front counter, then sit at the Sternen Grill’s tables or wander across to the Sechseläutenplatz, with its wide-open space in front of the Opernhaus, before strolling to the lakefront. Upstairs the Sternen Grill offers sit-down service and a wider menu. A long table winding around the outside balcony provides the perfect chance for people-watching as you gaze down onto a bustling tram hub.

Right on the Niederdorf's main square, Hirschenplatz, this squeaky-clean Swiss-kitsch restaurant has an airy, modern decor, with Alpine-rustic chairs. It serves good home-cooked national specialties: Zürcher Geschnetzeltes, Rösti, Leberli, bratwurst, schnitzel, and battered fish with French fries and tartar sauce—the gang's all here. An added attraction if you're visiting in summer: fondue and raclette (melted cheese served with small potatoes in their skins, pickled pearl onions, and gherkins), usually winter dishes, are served year-round, and are available to eat indoors too. Excellent lunch menus are rock-bottom cheap and served double quick. There's outdoor seating on the cobblestone pedestrian square in warm weather.

Though its rich, carved-wood decor borrows from Graubündner Alpine culture, this dining spot is no tourist trap. There is a definite emphasis on the heavy and the meaty, but the kitchen is flexible and reasonably deft with more modern favorites as well: fillet of sole in lemon butter, chopped veal with mixed mushrooms, and delicious fruit sorbets. The house, built in 1325 and functioning as a restaurant since 1551, has always stored Italian-Swiss Valtellina wines, which were carried over the Alps to Zürich.

Built as an arsenal in 1487, this enormous stone-and-beam hall offers hearty meat platters and a variety of beers and wines in comfortable Germanic chaos. The waitstaff is harried and brisk, especially at lunchtime, when crowds are thick. Unlike the shabbier beer halls in Niederdorf, this one is clean and bourgeois, reflecting its Paradeplatz location. They're not unaccustomed to tourists—menus are posted in English, Japanese, and at least 10 other languages—but locals consider this their home away from home.

With its magnificent Renaissance-inspired facade, this airy guildhall, with whitewashed woodwork and leaded-glass windows looking out to the Fraumünster, remains an elegant place to dine on such seasonal dishes as baked pumpkin with Waldorf salad, or refined iterations of meaty Swiss classics, such as sliced veal and Rösti. The Zunft-Saal (guildhall) is a pinewood showpiece, which greatly outshines the main restaurant—a rather dull Biedermeier room. To drink in the impressive architecture, opt for outside tables on the edge of the cobblestone square in warm weather.

Dating from 1708, the buidling contains elements that go back 850 years; after a fire destroyed its top two floors in 2007, the building was painstakingly restored by specialists, who uncovered a rare fresco dating back to the 14th century in one of the small dining halls. Its main restaurant is again drawing locals and tourists alike to its fabulous dark-wood halls, now polished to an amazingly high gloss, where the focus is on traditional dishes prepared for lighter tastes, such as fried calf liver with shallots and sage.