Saturday, June 10, 2006
For lunch...
Switzerland has a very prestigious newspaper called Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ. I like its English pages and recommend everybody. They also have a nice theme-based magazine called Folio. (I consider it a very serious looking version of Benetton’s Colors Magazine.) The last edition of NZZ Folio is about lunch and it reminded me to write about it.
There are quite a few restaurants catering all tastes. (So much so that as it was recently reported, in Canton Zurich there are 2600 more “food delivery enterprises” -i.e restaurants, imbisses etc- than it should.) Restaurant business has one of the highest bankruptcy rates here. I think it is understandable. Because there are only two segments. For the full fledged restaurants, the choice is abundant, and the quality is good, however a two course simple lunch with a drink may easily fetch 50 CHF. So if you seek a more affordable option, (beside Döner ladens and other junk food) Migros, Coop and Manor Restaurants come handy. Among them Migros restaurants’ daily menu (at 10 CHF) gives you the best price/performance ratio. (Especially after 1 pm when the beverages are free). However my personal choice is Manor. The problem is they all are always very crowded during the lunch time. I tend to think there is a tendency towards creating a middle segment where seating is causal and there is no waiter to serve but you can eat for instance, a decent sushi lunch for around 20.- CHF. (you may consider it an entrepreneurial tip)
You think people here are obsessed with “gesundheit”. But it seems to be paying off as they have the second longest life-expectancy rate in the world. So you easily find all sorts of “healthy” foods, salads etc. Also I am told that the oldest vegetarian restaurant is in Zurich. I ate there once and it was packed.
There are quite a few restaurants catering all tastes. (So much so that as it was recently reported, in Canton Zurich there are 2600 more “food delivery enterprises” -i.e restaurants, imbisses etc- than it should.) Restaurant business has one of the highest bankruptcy rates here. I think it is understandable. Because there are only two segments. For the full fledged restaurants, the choice is abundant, and the quality is good, however a two course simple lunch with a drink may easily fetch 50 CHF. So if you seek a more affordable option, (beside Döner ladens and other junk food) Migros, Coop and Manor Restaurants come handy. Among them Migros restaurants’ daily menu (at 10 CHF) gives you the best price/performance ratio. (Especially after 1 pm when the beverages are free). However my personal choice is Manor. The problem is they all are always very crowded during the lunch time. I tend to think there is a tendency towards creating a middle segment where seating is causal and there is no waiter to serve but you can eat for instance, a decent sushi lunch for around 20.- CHF. (you may consider it an entrepreneurial tip)
You think people here are obsessed with “gesundheit”. But it seems to be paying off as they have the second longest life-expectancy rate in the world. So you easily find all sorts of “healthy” foods, salads etc. Also I am told that the oldest vegetarian restaurant is in Zurich. I ate there once and it was packed.
