Eating gluten free in Zurich
A few weeks ago I've been challenged with finding meal options that are gluten-free in Zurich. My brother's family came to visit me over a weekend, including my 10-year old nephew who is celiac. I imagine that living as a celiac can be hard independently on where you live: it limits your flexibility in eating out of home, consequently your social life can be affected. Apparently, some countries make your life a bit easier than others.
My family comes from a town in northern Italy, where the disease is quite well known and almost every restaurant is prepared to answer a celiac person asking: "can I eat anything that is on your menu"? But while my brother's family was travelling in northern Europe, they discovered that in some places this type of request sounds unusual and they seemed unprepared on the subject.
I've been looking for suitable restaurants in Zurich, and happily I discovered that there seems to be a good level of awareness and offering for celiac customers. I started my research looking at Google reviews, but it was hard to narrow down the list to places that really take extra care in cooking gluten-free food separately and avoid contamination.
Then I found a couple of sources that seem to be more accountable in suggesting places that satisfy the requirement:
I reviewed almost every restaurant in Zurich that is listed on Guideceliac. I excluded the ones closed on Sundays (unfortunately, the majority) as that was exactly the day I wanted to take my family out for dinner, I narrowed down my options and even contacted a couple of places to double-check that their approach to gluten-free preparations was as scrupulous as I was hoping.
Here's the list of places that mostly convinced me or I would have liked to try:
Linden Oberstrass
Typical Swiss cuisine, good variety, local crafted beers. In their evening menu they clearly indicate the presence of allergenics including the symbol for Gluten-free, which surprisingly appears next to a considerable amount of dishes.
The personal is very kind and replied to my email saying that as a celiac you can just remind the personnel about your special request, and they will make sure everything is made properly.
Hiltl
This vegetarian restaurant is pretty famous in Zurich, has multiple locations throughout the city including a formula with a very tasty buffet where you pay for your dish by the weight. They do offer gluten-free options and clearly identify them with labels spreaded around the buffet. There is even a gluten-free bread. Their customer success team was very nice answering to my inquiry. As I was expecting, although they seem to care a lot about the matter, they can't give 100% guarantee of uncontamination.
Stripped Pizza
This is where we ended up going with my brother and his family, because in the end...pizza makes everyone happy 😆 Stripped pizzas are a bit peculiar, for sure far from the "traditional" pizza like they mean it in Napoli, but I personally find them tasty and I appreciate the concept. The menu is not huge, but you can customise your pizza with the ingredients you prefer, there are also different types of dough you can chose from. A lot of their ingredients are veggies-based, and that might be a challenge when you have kids... At least, my nephew is not exactly a veggies lover, but he was happy with his gluten-free margherita.
We asked extra-care when we ordered, they very kindly made sure that the whole kitchen personnel was informed about our request, and they cooked the gluten-free pizza on a separate baking tray.
Grand Cafe Lochergut
If I had to pick a place for brunch this would have been my choice. I was here a couple of times in the past for brunch or just coffee and cakes, and I was always delighted. I love sitting at their outdoor tables directly exposed to the sun (when there is some 😉). They offer a Mediterranean-Oriental cuisine, the brunch menu has several gluten-free options , or that are also available in a gluten-free version, the dinner menu has even more.
Moudi Bar
Home
I always enjoy going to this Lebanese restaurant, especially in the summer as they have tables outside directly at the waterfront of the Schanzengraben canal. Looking at the website, it seems that some of their main dishes can be offered as gluten-free upon the payment of an extra 3 CHF.
Bridge
This is one of my favourite places to go for food shopping in Zurich. It combines a Migros supermarket, a rich fresh food market and a food court where you can try different cuisines, to eat there or take away. The concept and architecture is quite unusual and interesting, it's located in the modern neighbourhood of Europaallee, at the edge of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof railway. I also like the fact that you can navigate all restaurants' menus online and order from there, however from a quick glance I didn't find it easy to spot specific gluten-free options. A message at the footer of the website invites you to speak with a staff member if you have any allergies. At the Bridge market you can also find a good selection of gluten-free groceries, like breakfast cereal brands that you wouldn't find in other Swiss supermarkets. We tried two varieties of the https://turtlecereals.com/: delicious!
Miyuko
dominik genzler
I passed by this small Japan-inspired tearoom many times, and I still never tried it, but I definitely want to at some point. Their offer of cakes and french patisserie looks really inviting, they even create personalised cakes that look like artworks! And, according to Guideceliac, Gluten-free guests will find a large selection of salty and sweet delicacies.
I hope this list will help some other celiac visiting Zurich to feel reassured that the city has something to offer for them. I'm sure that many other good restaurants or cafes not listed in any of the websites I researched are equally prepared to welcome a celiac guest with choices.
Unfortunately, going spontaneously can sometimes bring disappointments. It happened to us when, after a Sunday afternoon spent strolling around Zurich center, we decided to sit somewhere for a break and maybe a snack. We randomly picked a cafe on our way, the Café Bar Motta on the Limmatquai. As soon as we asked for gluten-free options, the answer was "no, we don't have anything".
Not even a packet of chips. My nephew had to sadly abandon the idea of enjoying an ice-cream and make do with a Bacio Perugina chocolate.
I now perfectly understand that being celiac means making compromises, at the same time I am grateful that many culinary offers exist for them too in Zurich, and I hope it will get easier and easier to find gluten-free options almost everywhere.