Hiltl (restaurant)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hiltl restaurant on Sihlstrasse in Zurich

The Hiltl in Zurich is according to Guinness World Records , the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world. It is family-owned and is now run by the founder's great-grandson, Rolf Hiltl, together with his wife Marielle Hiltl. The people of Zurich often just called it vegi .

history

"Root bunker"

In 1897 some German immigrants founded the “Vegetaria AG”, which opened the “Vegetarian Home and Abstinence Café” a year later at its current location on Sihlstrasse in Zurich. The place was not going well, vegetarians were then known as "grass-eaters". For this reason, some guests are said to have only entered the restaurant, derisively known as the “root bunker”, through the back door.

Also in 1897 the German tailor Ambrosius Hiltl came to Zurich. In 1901 he became seriously ill with rheumatism and was no longer able to practice his profession. He took a cure in the newly opened clinic of Max Bircher-Benner , who cured his patients with a vegetarian raw food diet. Hiltl studied the teachings of Bircher-Benner, became a vegetarian and regular guest in the “vegetarian home” and was cured of his illness through the diet.

In 1903 the “vegetarian home” was in economic difficulties and Ambrosius Hiltl took over the position of managing director.

The menu at the time offered, for example:

The daily turnover of the restaurant rose to 35 francs, in 1904 Ambrosius Hiltl married the «Vegetaria» cook Martha Gneupel and took over Vegetaria AG. In 1907 he bought the property and became a citizen of Zurich with his family. He ran his restaurant socially and technically up to date. As early as 1907, his staff had one free afternoon a week.

In 1931 the Hiltl was rebuilt and expanded to become the first restaurant in Zurich with a fully electric restaurant kitchen; the restoration room was decorated with originals by the Swiss artists Ferdinand Hodler , Cuno Amiet , E. Buchmann and Ignaz Epper .

Indian food

When Ambrosius Hiltl resigned for reasons of age, there was a conflict between his sons Walter and Leonhard, in which the latter was victorious. Leonhard's wife Margrith Hiltl had a major influence on the development of the restaurant. In 1951 she took part as a Swiss delegate at a vegetarian congress in New Delhi and took the opportunity to study Indian cuisine . This was then so successfully introduced in the restaurant that the then Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai dined at Hiltl on a visit to Switzerland and Swissair ordered Indian dishes from Hiltl. The Indian buffet is a Hiltl trademark to this day. And even today at Swiss, the vegetarian menus on intercontinental flights from Switzerland are from Hiltl.

Bistro and restaurant

In 1959, grandson Heinz Hiltl (1937–2001) joined the company in order to relieve his mother after his father's early death. In 1967 he celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Hiltl with his 90-year-old grandfather. Modernization continued under the direction of Heinz Hiltl. In 1973 there was a renovation: a bistro with smaller dishes and take-out was built on the lower floor . The restaurant, which was now called Hiltl Vegi , continued to run on the first floor . Meanwhile, the Hiltl had become an established part of the Zurich gastronomy scene; Heinz Hiltl was President of the Zurich Wirteverband for many years.

present

In 1993, great-grandson Rolf Hiltl (* 1965) entered the business. Hiltl deleted the word "Vegi" from the business name, extended the opening times and also offered a wine list . The online reservation via the website was discussed in the trade press.

At the 100th anniversary in 1998, Heinz Hiltl handed the restaurant over to his son Rolf. With 1200 visitors a day, the restaurant's sales exceeded CHF 10 million for the first time in 1998. In the same year, the first book by Rolf Hiltl was published: Vegetarian as you wish with recipes from the restaurant, which was translated into French and English and had its 14th edition in 2013. The second book by Rolf Hiltl, Hiltl , was published for the 111th anniversary . Vegetarian. The world as a guest . The third cookbook, Globi kocht vegi , from 2011 is especially intended for children.

Another renovation in 2006 in cooperation with Jelmoli Immobilien , with whom the block perimeter development is shared, brought another expansion. During the more than a year of renovation, the Hiltl set up in the "Alte Börse" on Bleicherweg. In March 2007, the parent company on Sihlstrasse was reopened - with a snack stand, a bar and a vegetarian cooking studio. The conversion with a steel and glass construction in a partially listed building was also an issue because of its architectural features.

Today the Hiltl house offers a large buffet , full service restaurant, self-service, take away, bar-lounge , club, cooking studio and seminar rooms . Outside the restaurant, the meals are offered as catering in event locations or at several take-away locations. Hiltl employs around 250 people from more than 50 nations at its headquarters and at various other locations in Zurich. On straws plastic is aware since 2018 waived. In November 2013, Hiltl opened a shop with vegetarian and vegan products near the parent company, making it the first “vegetarian butcher” in Switzerland.

Tibits

tibits, derived from the English tidbits = tidbit , is a family-owned vegetarian restaurant with locations in Zurich , Winterthur , Bern , Basel , Lausanne , London , Lucerne , St. Gallen and on the Alnatura Campus in Darmstadt .

In 1998 the three brothers Reto, Christian and Daniel Frei took part in the business plan competition Venture of the ETH Zurich and the management consultancy McKinsey with the idea of setting up vegetarian fast food restaurants . Your plan convinced the jury and the concept received two awards. Rolf and Marille Hiltl were engaged for the implementation. The two family companies Hiltl and tibits operate independently. All bread and patisserie as well as all animal products such as dairy products, cheese and free-range eggs are organic .

Surplus food is offered at the end of the day via the Too Good To Go app (since 2019 in all Tibits restaurants in Switzerland).

literature

  • Rolf Hiltl: Vegetarian as you please. Werd, Zurich 2013 (14th edition). ISBN 978-3-85932-705-4 - together with Hädecke, Weil der Stadt 1998 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-7750-0314-8 .
  • Armin Bernet, Danielle Lerch Süess (eds.): For golden moments in the kitchen: Realized in the Hiltl cooking studio. With celebrities, wheat germ and vegetarian recipes. Werd, Zurich 2008, ISBN 3-8593-2593-0 .
  • Rolf Hiltl: Vegetarian. The world as a guest. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2011 (3rd edition), ISBN 3-280-05342-0 . (1st edition 2009)
  • Rolf Hiltl in collaboration with Globi Verlag: Globi kocht vegi. Globi Verlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-85703-010-9 .
  • Rolf Hiltl in collaboration with tibits: Vegan Love Story . AT Verlag, Zurich 2014 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-03800-815-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Vegetarian home" Zurich, conversion and enlargement by Hermann Schürch, architect BSA Zurich , in: Das Werk , 23, 1936, (5), pp. 148–149.
  2. Hiltl Vegi in Zurich is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Switzerland. ( Memento of April 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) EVU-News , issue 2/1998.
  3. State-of-the-art metal construction for Europe's oldest vegetarian restaurant.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Metall , 04/2007. Quoted on the Hiltl website.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.hiltl.ch  
  4. https://www.hiltl.ch/de/ueber-uns/hiltl-ag/team
  5. Caroline Freilang: Hiltl throws out plastic tubes, Migros packs the asparagus. In: tagesanzeiger.ch . June 6, 2018, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  6. tibits.ch: Our tibits restaurants
  7. food-service.de: Tibits is coming to Darmstadt
  8. Cooperation with Too good to go. In: food-service.de. March 28, 2019, accessed April 17, 2019 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '23.4 "  N , 8 ° 32' 11.6"  E ; CH1903:  682922  /  247504