Zürich’s Best Restaurants & Bars 2024.

Collection Bakery We're in Zürich, a foodie icon of Europe. We've asked the city's best chefs and hospitality dons where they love to eat and drink, here in the city. You should not do this after a pint of champagne. So join us over the next 48 hours, we're going to meet them and discover where they truly love. Hey, I'm Jesse. Behind the camera is Will and Benji. And together we are TOPJAW. Where'd you start your first morning in Zürich. It's Zürich's best bakery, that's where. We're about to meet Nino. Have a little pour over with him. What's the story of Collective? I'm a chef by trade, and I was working all over the place as well, in London for many years. And I came back to Zurich and I was working as a chef again. And then I was like, you know, reaching a point in my life where it's like, okay, what am I going to do now? I'm going to stay a chef till I get retired or what's the plan? I was always under the impression there's not enough good bread or pastries in Zurich. That, yeah. I decided to open a bakery, sourdough bakery. What should we have? I think you should have the pain au chocolat. These are beautiful. 64% dark chocolate in there. They also have a coffee glaze on top of the croissant that they make using the old batch brew they reduce down. That may be big, but, boy, is it light. Do you do a pain suisse? Yes, but we have a savoury version at the moment. Oh, still, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The real TOPJAW heads amongst you will know that I really like a pain suisse. In here we have feta cheese and some vegetables. So gonna go ahead and assume this is a healthy croissant. Yeah. F*ck yeah, bro. That is so crisp and slightly salty on the outside, but then really gooey. Can I just say that Will and Benji have both bitten that pain suisse and both gone. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Go. This morning bun here, they call Cardi B. This is... This morning bun here. This, they call it a Cardi B is her vegan morning bun. But I'm about to dive right into this stuffed croissant right here, stuffed with cream and a fruit jam of some sort. That's well nice. Thank you very much, guys. You're welcome. Feeding us five baked goods. Start the day. COFFEE How much coffee do you reckon you drink on a daily basis? It varies. On the low, around 10-15 espressos a day. When we've asked the chefs of Zürich where to get the best coffee, they point us in one direction. It's got a very generic name. It's called COFFEE. They do amazing filter coffee, espresso based drinks coffee. COFFEE, they're our neighbours and I love them. This place is a home for the coffee heads of Zurich. How'd you come up with a name, by the way? That was a really long meeting. Shem has spent the last eleven years working in a roastery. He had this beautiful, fruity specialty coffee and no one was selling it, no one wanted to buy it. So he was like, right, I'll open up my own coffee shop so I could sell these beautiful beans. Switzerland's so close to Italy. Sort of the classic dark roast style coffee is of course the average. That's what everyone's used to. Serving these fruity, more acidic coffees is pretty edgy. Or it was at the time. Does this go at 07:00 a. m. It goes at 07:00 a. m. this long. Is this a police state? Ah, it's crazy. Called the police once and said, hey, guys, this, this is shit for business. Oh, my God. Feeling pretty sexy and free. Feeling pretty jacked up from all the coffees we had today. We're not quite at Shem's sort of degenerative level just yet. Exactly. Deranged and confused. Old Inn What are you doing, bro? Oh, well, we're in Zürich, right? We should do a pint, but we should do a pint of champagne, I guess. Feels like it's only fitting. Cheers. Cheers. We have it on good authority from the chefs we've spoken to that Dan Shu and head chef Tristan at the Old Inn are professors of flavour and Will, this is one of few occasions where on TOPJAW I'm really mega hungry. So can I ask you a question? Yeah. How do you decide which way to wear your hat? Do you ever wear it that way? Yeah. That's cool. Hold in. Yeah. You haven't been here that long, right? 15 months now. I think we still can count a month. Kind of like a small baby. Yeah. But the place has been around since 1907. Quite a few of us have worked in fine dining, two star, three star restaurants. And we just wanted a place that we can bring our friends on our day off and we wanted a place that is casual but the food is still good. We changed the menu quite a bit. Both restaurants, we do tasting menus as well. You want people to be able to try a lot of the food but at the same time they be. You can curate the journey for them. A little bit. One of the things that we've had on since the very beginning is this bluefin tuna that we kind of do tataki style at the table. There's two different cuts of the tuna on here. It comes from the jowl or the collar of the tuna. And we're the only ones in Switzerland that's getting this. That's our last bit of flame. Brings so much flavour out. This is rosti. We're in rosti county right now. With steak tartare on it. The umaminess right? And with their beef, they use the leaner meat for the tartare and their fatty meat for that big burger, only about 20% of it is the really dry aged stuff, but it still has nice little injection of funk and a really perfect fat content. Oh, here we go. Oh, yeah. There. There's more, there's more. There's two more things coming. Two more. Yeah. So yakitori chicken skewers, but in a greek style. So it's preserved lemon. Their own, like, housemate tzatziki on the bottom. Oh, boy. So this dish probably wouldn't guess, but it's brussel sprouts. That's stupid. Right? We've got some cocktails here. Cause why not? This is a strawberry and coconut lagroni. And with the strawberries, he dehydrates them, uses them in the cocktail, and makes the little fruit leather there. That's great. It's like super, super strawberry on the nose and then way more coconuty on the tongue. So, as a British guy, I never thought that the best brussel sprout dish I'd ever had in my life would be in Zürich. What the hell. What the hell. Only Fans. No, I don't want. ROSI So what's Nello doing? Is he letting them know we're here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, there we go. Hell, yeah. Marcus, we are really excited about your place. Heard a lot about it. Heard a lot about you, crazy cat. What? Tell me about ROSI. ROSI is a neo bavarian restaurant where we celebrate my heritage and everything around it. So a bit quirky, a bit fun. Yeah. Looking into the past to discover the future a bit or just taking notes? Looking into that. Okay. That's the first time I've ever gone to a restaurant and someone said, looking into the past and to discover the future. That is very poetic. And what should we eat? When you come? The first bite is always a little homage to, like, an artist from back home from the 1920s, for example, which we celebrate at the moment, which is a little apple cloud made from the apple juice from the farm from my mum. In there. Didn't know what to expect and I f*cked myself. I do eat it now. Oh, my God, that's so cold. I put it in my mouth. Yeah. Wow. You know, cold. Oh, my God. Thank you very much. Zürich are big champagne drinkers, aren't they? Mmm. Apparently so. Everyone we talked to is just talking about champagne. This one is real nice. Right, what's going on here then, mate? Okay. A little fortune cookie situation. This is a tribute to Freddie. Freddie is their potato farmer. Little beautiful, mountainous, tiny potatoes packed full of flavour. And they made a little potato crisp out of them that apparently is going to taste a little bit like a. Markus, what's up next? Another classic, also from here. I couldn't take it off since day one. Our cordon bleu. Cordon Bleu is like a very classical Swiss dish and I always thought it's super Bavarian. I had to put another classic in there. When you cut it open later, there's gonna ooze a fondue out. A fondue made with sherry, traditionally served with lingonberries and some horseradish. Cheers, dude. Oh, it's stringy. How lucky are we, man? This is. I know. Benji, what is going on here, lads? Here we have a little palate cleanser. What is the spray? That's schnapps with ambergris. With whalefish puke. Cheers. Cheers. It's so nice you guys been here. Thank you so much for having us. King Ludwig. Oh, my God. You guys hopefully have a great time tonight. I think we will. Should we kiss? Oh, gosh. I think we should move on now to Micas. Should we get going to Micas Garten? God, it's actually horrible hearing you speak like that. I feel the same with you. I was like, who? Where's my mate Jesse gone? Oh, right. That was British. What's the dog's name? Name is Nelly. Oh, sweet Benji's on the f*cking prowl again. You know, you walk up the tram track. What, are you with someone you shouldn't be? Micas Garten Go on, Nello. That's Nello, our wonderful driver. What an evening. Big blue sky, sunset. We're at Micas Garten. This is like a big, street food, bars all within this hanging garden space on a sunny evening like this. All reused steel structure off of an old office. So cool. Sure. I'm not hungry, but we should try some food at one of these stands. Yeah, bro. What a spread. Right. Different choice of all sorts of street food. This is a duck dish. You're eating some proper swiss garten grill. That is a good banger. That is actually very good. Very good. Can I have a little nibble of your banger? Oh, no, mate, I think it's. Yeah, keep that tongue back. Thank you very much. Good intake. Jesse, what's your favourites? I'm in for some Thai food. You really. I really like this Thai one. In Bern, this city of Switzerland that may or may not exist, partly because I've never really heard of it, but it's the capital of Switzerland. There is. Sorry, mate, we're gonna. We're having a few sound issues here. Guys, can you shut the f*ck up? Never have kids. Quite a lot of middle aged women here. There are. But Will, I don't think that's Micas garden problem. I think that's the time that we've come. We've come. on a Wednesday afternoon. That's what's brought the middle aged women here. BIERlab Do you drink Beer? Zurich isn't a wash for craft beer, but what it does have is a brew pub called BIERlab. BIERlab. And it's quite literally a lab for beer. Pierre, his girlfriend and a friend have joined together. He's been brewing for, like, 15 years. But he wanted a place where he could share his beer, make his passion, his actual career. Yeah. You want to come. Bro? So, downstairs, beers are brewed in here. These 500 litres, they get transported just to those little storage tanks there. Straight to the taps. Unpasteurized, not bottled, not canned. They only serve the beer once, and that's it. When they've done their 500 litres, f*ck off, it's done. Gone. See you later. Three beers in front of you. Serbian massive. That was really good. What I did do is that hit the tooth that the old liquid nitrogen exposed earlier, which is quite a painful zone for me. Filling spesh coming up. Oh, man, I need to go to the dentist. And this is a sour boy. Cheers. Called Groot. Oh, it's good. It's nice, isn't it? Oh, what a day. Gasthaus Zum Guten Glück Oh, morning, Rick. Morning, dude. How you feeling? Yeah, good, man. Start our day. Gasthaus Zum Guten Glück. Which translates to guest house for good luck, because this place is actually a guest house. Bedrooms upstairs. But we ain't staying here. We're just eating here. Breakfast. This place is a Dutch Swiss marriage. The owner is Dutch, but of course he's doing some inherently native, old school Swiss traditional foods. Feel a bit jittery, mouth feels a bit fluffy, but I think I'm a okay. This will definitely sort me out. This is a burter. You have ham, fried eggs, dill, mustard. Yeah, there's a yolk right there. That looks so good, man. That is well lovely. That's good. This is a meaty pancake with chorizo, sambal, some avocado, some crispy onions, really great flavours, nice bit of spice. And these are the little puffilies. Beautiful little name, so fun to say. And we've just got the classic with butter, icing sugar, a couple of blueberries in there for good measure. Just sweet little puffy pancakes. It's just really very f*cking good. That's proper in it. I'm gonna watch you. I'm gonna watch your face. Action Burger Where are we going? Come to the big main train station of Zurich, knowing that Action Burgers is in here somewhere. But the address is what takes us to the building, so we need to have a look. That big fat clock is telling us that it is half eleven right now, which is too early, perhaps, for a burger. But when talking to chefs, even though Action Burgers have been around for such a short period of time, they all pretty much unanimously saying Action Burger is the best burger in Europe. Action Burger. They just opened. The beef is fantastic. It will be Action Burgers. Action Burger. Action Burger. What makes it different? Why is it unique compared to other burgers? I mean, in the end, we just wanted to have a great McDonald's cheeseburger and I guess we really focused on having, like, meat that stands out from all the others. I'm interested in this beef blend. They use 30% brisket, 30% dry aged beef and 30% beef neck. But each bite can then sort of be different. Right. One might be really funky when you get a lot of dry aged, one might be briskety. On the funky scale of burgers, with this being real, true funky town, where are we? And this being no funk whatsoever. I think we're at an eight of ten. So we're sort of there. Yeah. And it's a one item menu. Yes. It's one cheeseburger, fries. Yeah, that's it, that's it, that's it. Keep it simple. He wanted to model it on, like, the McDonald's cheeseburger and they do smell like that. In here they want the meat to be the real star of the show. So they have a controlled mould formula that gives it a real nice funk. Is that a child or someone getting murdered? I think that's gonna give you a little tingle in your shorts, boys. That's good. I love one product concepts. You know, when you got open somewhere, you have a menu. This is all we do. It's just a holiday and you're gonna have three kids. I'm gonna have five. Lake Zürich Nello is our wonderful driver for this trip. He's been driving us around and we asked him for a really good spot in which we could swim. Zurich has this wonderful asset, is crystal, crystal clear waters in a river and a big lake. Little big city. Little big city, exactly. And I think one of the main reasons to live here is that lake. They have these beautiful waters that are cool and drinking water worthy. They're that good. We had a good little dip, had a little. Little sun bathe. People jumping off the bridge. It's wicked. Oh man. Roter Delfin When I was a teenager, I thought I was going to open a restaurant called The Toast Office. It's going to be centred all around toast and we do cocktails and stuff and it's going to be super fun. Never did it, never will happen. But these guys have done exactly that. Roter Delfin, aka red dolphin. What is it and why did you start it? Three years ago, Meredith and I started off with grilled cheese sandwiches from Olé-Olé-Bar, which is like an iconic bar on Langstrasse, like on the party street. Our own toast bread. Like, we developed like a bread recipe and then, like grilled cheese sandwiches with some chutney inside. Like all homemade. And the toast has been following us ever since. What's your favourite cocktail on the menu? It's called margherita umo y fuego. Yes. This is a smoked cherry spirit topped up with a very Swiss like soda, grapefruit soda. Spice. Whoo. Using their big bouncy bread. This is their grilled cheese. Using two types of alpine cheese and then topped with a bacon apple, onion, like chutney, loads of butter to make it sort of crisp up and go crunchy. Oh, that bacon chutney. Whoa. That's the exact sort of like chewy, crunchy bread that you want. Grilled cheese. Oh, yeah, baby in there. Hey, guys. Sorry to disturb you. Whoa. That's a pool, bro. So this is their vegan one? Well, it would be vegan if it didn't have a fried egg on top of it. But, you know, take the fried egg off. It's now vegan, like a roasted garlic aioli with veggie mince herbs, pickled onion flavours for the ravers. There's a lot going on there. Got a bit of stair on, honey. Yeah. Touch me. I think my head went into the veggie mince. This is better than what it be. It's brilliant. That's my favourite on the pad. Also for Zurich, low cost, we have our ice cream. I love ice cream sandwiches. Reminds me at Disney World with the ones in the shape of the Mickey head. Well, that's amazing. Oh, Jesus. One of those guys needs to fucking learn about Lynx. Bloody Nora. And this is our take on toast. Ice cream that can get in my f*cking grill. I love ice cream with chunky, f*cking chewy, nutty bits in it. Gamper Restaurant What is the best restaurant in Zurich? For me, maybe in Switzerland. Gamper restaurants. I mean, it's Gamper. It's like the one restaurant I can always go back to. It's a chef that respects the ingredients, I think, like no other. We are finally here at Gamper restaurant. It's unassuming, it's simple, it's straightforward. It certainly has the best reputation in Zurich. It's a four course surprise menu. You change the menu sometimes two, three times a week. Sometimes the menu stays the same for two weeks. You just get what you're given. They have a tiny kitchen. Benji's in there right now trying to get with those two blokes. Benji, you're the hardest working man in filmmaking. This is Marius. So you started this place like eight and a half years ago just out of a sheer love of Swiss produce, right? Allowing it to breathe and speak. Not too much intervention. Do it good. Yeah? Nello's got fed. Yes, Nello. It's like we've got a child booster seat there for Benji. Oh, he is cute though, isn't he? Thank you very much. Thank you. It's cauliflower with parmesan cheese. Very smooth, almost like rice pudding, the cauliflower. Rich, creamy cauliflower with almost like very lightly cooked little chunks and bits of cauliflower through it which gives a really unique texture. You know, the cracker or that cauliflower dish, it's made using old Parmesan rind, like this stuff. Parmesan. Waste not. Whatnot, eh? Thank you. Look at that. That's gorgeous. What is it now, bruh? It's been a very wet year. Not a great time for veg. So root vegetables, they've been alright. Just bathing in their muddy mess. Parsnip, deep fried sour cream, a little bay leaf oil and some cucumber, you know, parsnip crisps. Huh? You know parsnip crisps when they just taste really, like, golden, almost caramelly? That's what it tastes like. It's f*cking beautiful. This kind of looks like a little bit of a humble stew dish, but it's not. Course number three, rib eye steak. Angus beef from central Switzerland. Cooked beautifully, like medium rare. Topped with the garlic foam, these little things, carrot balls, like a sauce. The broth it's in, it's made using seaweed, brown butter and mint. He's happy. Cheers. Thank you. What a great trip. What a trip. Seaweed, brown butter and mint broth. And all the veg has just soaked it up like a f*cking. Sorry. Okay, so these are welcome berries, yes. Fourth final course of this meal. This is a little panna cotta with some wild bilberries. Not welcome berries like I thought they were called. It is a really gorgeous pairing. Really, mate? Honestly, I get it. I get what every chef has been saying about how they let the ingredients talk. Palette, vision. Well done, mate. To a great couple of days in Zurich. To Zurich. Old Crow In the very pretty old town part of Zurich, you have this little cocktail bar called Old Crow. They have over 1700 different spirits. It's a really rare and expensive ones. Some whiskeys in there that I'm looking at are like worth thousands and thousands of pounds. But hey, it's Zurich it's safe. It's off on the shelf. No problem. Whatever. Oh, there he is. Oh, yes. Bowl of ice. What Yannick is pointing me right here is a Hellboy ten year old single malt whiskey, which some would argue it's too good for a cocktail. However, I think these guys are pretty serious about their cocktails. It has a little bit of hazelnut liqueur in there. Frangelico, that's great, bro. Where's the spicy from? Chilli honey syrup. Chilli honey syrup, that's where the spice felt. Oh, a spice called a hellboy because it's like fiery whiskey. Fire in a glass. Oh, one of my favourite cocktail bars ever. Nello's currently working the longest working days Zurich's ever seen. We're very grateful, Nello. Nello, you've been an absolute ledge. Thanks for watching. Subscribe to Topjaw and visit Zurich.