Lounge ambience and music, high ceilings and windows, activity as in an ant colony ... as well as a fresh, tasty and completely meatless kitchen. This awaits you during lunch time at the HILTL in Zurich, a culinary institution for over a hundred years.

It is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe, founded in 1898 as a “Vegetarian Home and Abstinence Café”. A not really inviting name ... Perhaps for this reason but mainly because of the bad image of the vegetarians in the 19^th century and the difficulty of finding imaginative cooks, the restaurant actually soon had financial difficulties. Vegetarian were at that time shrieked as “grass eaters” and one called the new restaurant also “the root bunker”. Ambrosius HILTL took over the vegetarian home in 1904, gave it his name and made a lasting success from it. Soon the restaurant moved to a place outside the city, into the Sihlstrasse, where you will still find it… but located in the middle of the city center of Zurich.

Today, the fourth HILTL generation manages the “temple of healthy food”. During the day, the huge buffet is a big success: various salads, all sorts of bratlings, pasta dishes, fruits, desserts and pastries, all vegetarian or vegan. Purchased is locally, ecologically aware and mostly (but not exclusively) organic. All products are processed in the kitchen of the HILTL into tasty, delicious dishes. Inspiration for the recipes is found in the culinary culture of no less than 60 different countries, which leads to a range of dishes that is just as varied and cosmopolitan crowd, which fills the restaurant and terrace of the HILTL during lunch: Tofu salad, soup of the day or HILTL tapas plattern, but also tagliatelle with asparagus and saffron, Thai curry and “Riz colonial” and even vegetarian hamburgers and Cordon Bleu! And just next to the restaurant you will find the HILTLs delicatessen shop and the vegetarian butcher’s shop.

On the menu you may find some wines - vegan, organic or “normal” - Swiss and partly local beers, a variety of juices and fruit cocktails and still water is available in self-service from a fountain. In the HILTL all the prerequisites are created for a rich, tasty and surprising lunch menu, which your body will absorb with pleasure!