A recent Financial Times article discussed why the so-called "Best Places to Live" are boring.
Zürich is often associated with that claim. While Zürich may lack a Broadway theater district, a SoHo, a bustling Chinatown or a Montmartre, it does have a vibrant food scene - though under the surface and in need of some uncovering.
Zürich isst! and the Slow Food Planet App
Through Oct 17, Zürich is hosting a month of activities around one of the key ingredients that keeps us alive: Food. The festival is called Zürich Isst, and there are events happening daily.
In case you are too busy to check out Zürich isst!, or just want to discover some of the other flavors of Zürich, you will probably appreciate that the Limmat City is now in the Slow Food Planet app.
This app is perfect for discovering Slow Food around the world. Once installed, add the free Zürich guide and start discovering the "slow" side of the local food scene.
The app is split into three sections: Time for Eating, Time for Me, and Time for Buying to help you easily navigate and discover new places. The Slow Food movement is about increasing people’s awareness of food, its quality, cultural history, and the livelihood of those who produce it.
I'm going "Slow Food" in Zürich...
Taking a short guided your of three locations on the app, I was surprised at how many small businesses have actually made the source of their products a key business competent. Take the small neighborhood Café Le Mur (Engel-Strasse 59, 8004 Zürich), which has fresh baked goods and soups daily.
The owner of Café Le Mur is there Mondays to Saturdays serving fresh, heavenly goodies in small batches:
Here's one of the guests looking at the fresh baked goods at Café Le Mur. The spinach pastries are inspired by one of the co-owner's Turkish background:
The Chornlade (Zurlindenstrasse 211, 8003 Zürich) acts as a vendor for local producers of artisanal food at and around Idaplatz:
Even Miki Ramen (Sihlfeldstrasse 63, 8003 Zürich) and its sister restaurant IKOO work on using different cuts of meat to lower their consumption and waste. They source the edamame beans from nearby Winterthur and will soon produce their own ramen noodles in Switzerland in order to further lower their carbon footprint.
As you can tell, the Slow Food Planet app is a great way of discovering new restaurants, bars, cafés, and shops in Zürich.