Ambrosius Hiltl
Ambrosius Hiltl (* July 12, 1877 in Kastl , Umelsdorf district, Germany ; † November 27, 1969 in Zurich ) founded the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records , Haus Hiltl in Zurich, Switzerland.
Life
Ambrosius Hiltl grew up as the son of a small farmer in Neumarkt in Bavaria and learned the trade of a tailor . Ambrosius' various wanderings took him to Switzerland several times . He earned his living with a needle, thread, scissors and thimble in Basel , in the Jura , in Geneva , Liestal , Herisau and Interlaken until he settled in Zurich in autumn 1897, at the age of 20 .
In 1898 the “Vegetarian Home and Abstinence Café” was opened in Zurich . Due to the economically unfavorable location, people soon moved from Stockerstrasse to Sihlstrasse 28. In 1901, the tailor Ambrosius Hiltl fell ill with rheumatism . His doctor and good friend Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner predicted an early death for him if he did not change his diet immediately and give up meat altogether.
Meals without meat were not easy to organize for a single tailor, and so Hiltl came to the “vegetarian home” through a friend's recommendation. Vegetarians were ridiculed as "grass-eaters". The vernacular even gave the “vegetarian home” the nickname “root bunker”.
The change in diet led to a remarkably quick healing at Hiltl. That is why he accepted the challenge when a manager was sought in 1903. Thanks to increasing sales, Ambrosius Hiltl was finally able to take over the business in 1904. Shortly afterwards he married Martha Gneupel, the then cook from the “Vegetarian Home”, and they had two sons (Leonhard and Walter) and a daughter (Nelly).
In 1907 Ambrosius Hiltl bought the property at Sihlstrasse 28. In 1909 the Hiltl family received citizenship of Zurich. In 1925 the restaurant was redesigned for the first time.
Plans to enlarge and modernize the company followed from the 1930s. In 1931, for example, the Hiltl Vegi had the first fully electric restaurant kitchen in Zurich . The 1950s were also extremely important, when Margrith Hiltl (Mrs. von Leonhard) took part in the World Vegetarian Congress in Delhi in 1951 as a Swiss delegate . She got to know Indian-vegetarian cuisine on site and friends brought her more and more exotic spices and ingredients in her private luggage to Zurich in the years that followed. An Indian buffet was set up together with Ambrosius , which is still an important part of Haus Hiltl today. After the Indian-vegetarian cuisine was established, the Indian Prime Minister Moraji Desai even came to Hiltl as a guest one day and Hiltl supplied Swissair (Swiss airline) with Indian dishes.
Ambrosius Hiltl ran the business until 1955, with the active support of his sons in the last few decades: Leonhard, who trained as a pastry chef , and Walter, who was Hiltl's head chef for four decades. Ambrosius Hiltl was in vital condition well into old age. As a ninety-year-old he traveled half the world, and when he was at home he worked daily in his allotment garden on the Zürichberg.
In 1969 Ambrosius Hiltl died in Zurich. Since then the restaurant has always been passed from father to son (Ambrosius, Leonhard, Heinz, Rolf). The Hiltl has been run by Ambrosius' great-grandson Rolf Hiltl in the fourth generation since 1998.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hiltl, Ambrosius |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Swiss company founder |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 12, 1877 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Umelsdorf , Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 27, 1969 |
| Place of death | Zurich |