LAST WEEK, the anti-man-about-town soared across the Atlantic to experience the cultural delights of Zug, Switzerland. Pronounced “tsoogk,” the city sits less than one hour south of Zürich and cherries are traditionally Zug’s signature product.
A tiny street in Zug’s Old Town is home to a celebrated restaurant: the Rathauskeller. Chef Stefan Meier has been serving up exclusive dishes for nearly three decades, including a whole lot of cherries. More on him in a second.
Up front, I must tell you that Zürich is officially a sister city of San Francisco. Although I have no idea how that particular relationship started, I can say that Zürich is more than well suited for such an affiliation. In fact, everywhere I ambled in the cosmopolitan city, I discovered places that would make at least a few San Franciscans proud to be sibling cities with Zürich.
For example, in Zürich, one finds Restaurant Hiltl, the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe. Ambrosium Hiltl opened the place in 1898, and Rolf Hiltl, the fourth generation in the family, currently operates the multistory establishment, which includes a bar, a quick-eats cafe and a nightclub upstairs.
The restaurant proper boasts Zürich’s largest salad bar, with at least 40 items, plus an entire Indian buffet. Hundreds of items grace the main menu. For the buffet, one just walks up, grabs whatever one wants and then proceeds to the counter, where the plate gets weighed. Customers are charged based on how much food they pile up. Utensils are provided after one pays.
The eatery rocks morning, noon and night—suits occupy tables right next to locals reading the newspapers. More than 30 chefs, along with more than 100 employees, serve more than 1,000 people per day. Cooking classes are offered in English on a regular basis, and anyone can request a tour of the kitchen in advance. If it’s possible to be fashionable, modish and vegetarian, Hiltl proves it.
Next, just a five-minute amble across the river brought me to Spiegelgasse 1, the Cabaret Voltaire, the very same building where Hugo Ball, et al., launched the Dada art movement in 1916. I arrived the day after Ball would have been 125 years old. A paradoxical nihilistic anarcho-political-cabaret fusion of antiwar propaganda, sound-poetry, noise, art-demolition philosophy, culture-jamming, social critique and intentional nonsense, Dada’s influence reverberated throughout the 20th century. Any California metropolis would be proud of a sister-city connection with Zürich.
But why stop there? Going even further, one can toss in that Switzerland, in general, is also where absinthe, LSD and the World Wide Web were all originally launched. The country is where the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi established his global headquarters and set up a university for Transcendental Meditation. Who wouldn’t want to be sister cities with one of these places?
From Zürich, just a 30-minute trip on an ultra-timely Swiss train brings one to Zug. Chef Stefan Meier is about to become the next three-month-featured chef in the “SWISS Taste of Switzerland Program” of that country’s airline, which goes by the name SWISS, in all capitals. SWISS teams up with a leading chef from a different region of Switzerland every three months to present that region’s gastronomy aboard its flights. Restaurant Hiltl continuously supplies vegetarian dishes onboard. I was lucky enough to be invited to the press event in Zug.
On a side note, Zug is also the richest place in Switzerland, due to extremely low tax rates. Without exaggeration, thousands of transnational corporations have set up shop in Zug, even if it means just running a postal address above someone’s restaurant. As a result, there is now a movement to return Zug back to its agricultural roots in cherries. A common-interest group launched the project “1,000 cherry trees for Zug” The group is part of the local organization WE ARE ZUG, and is committed to turning the town of Zug back into an agricultural town.
Which reminded me of San Jose—a former agricultural town now gone modern. So just like here in San Jose, Zug began with agriculture, and some people wish it could have stayed that way. I think I see another sister city on the horizon. If San Francisco can twin itself with Zürich, I think San Jose can at least be a sister of Zug.
All Things Zug
