Masters of precision, the Swiss have created a country more efficient than the inner workings of an atomic clock. From the soft gliding of the country’s SBB train tracks, which crisscross central Europe like engineered spirit levels, to the angular lines of the iconic Matterhorn, the clichés are all true: the entire country runs like clockwork. In the west, Geneva’s watch salons chime in unison every hour, while in Basel and Bern the city’s archaic trams click-clack in synchronisation. Overseeing this empire from the east is Zürich: it is the country’s financial heartbeat and regulatory valve.
One of the richest cities in the world, and regarded as the best place to live in central Europe – with high standards of living and education to match – it is a picture postcard of chocolate-box churches, cuckoo clocks and commerce.
Money keeps rolling in
As a business city, Zürich is a tectonic powerhouse of liquid capital. While the global banking industry crumbled across the rest of Europe, Zürich simply got on with business. “Several European countries, including some of the larger economies, have their finances anything but under control,” says Dr Lukas Briner, director of the Zürich Chamber of Commerce. “On the other hand, we Swiss got off very lightly and came through the financial crisis. We are even in the unusual position where we have the luxury to criticise our Swiss National Bank (SNB) if they make a minor mistake.”
With a sustainably evolving economy, a stimulating regulatory framework and favourable taxation, Zürich has developed into a strong base as one of the world’s largest financial centres. A platform for several multinational company headquarters, the city has become the lynchpin of one of Europe’s strongest economic regions, nurturing a rapidly diversifying workforce. Home to every iconic Swiss brand, including UBS, Credit Suisse, Zuerich Insurance and Lindt chocolate, Zürich is the cosmopolitan address of FIFA, the world’s football authority, IBM and Microsoft. Times have changed since former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson described Zürich’s predominant financiers as “little gnomes”.
Model of success
“The city is famous for its banks and insurance companies but there are also other important business areas,” explains Angelica Schempp from Zürich Tourism. “The Technical Federal University (ETH) is famous for science research and has produced 21 Nobel Prize winners over the last century. There are also many companies working in the IT sector, including Google, which opened its European headquarters in Zürich.”
Encouraged by this success, other blue-chip companies fostering a base in the Greater Zürich Area include Disney, which operates Disney Research Zürich, the multinational’s only foothold in Europe. With strong ties to the Computer Graphics Lab at ETH, today the Zürich lab is influencing video of the future and is at the cutting edge of devising new technologies for tomorrow’s entertainment industry.
What makes Zürich particularly competitive – in contrast to its European rivals Frankfurt, Paris or Milan – is a clearly defined business culture, a very Swiss trait. While punctuality is essential to the city’s sophisticated character, the Swiss themselves build commercial relationships through humility and consensus. It is also worth remembering that – despite Zürich’s centralised role as a financial hub – business etiquette is fundamental and the Swiss rarely, if ever, openly talk about money. Switzerland may be a landlocked country, where citizens converse freely in French, German, Italian, English and Romansch, but in Zürich everyone speaks the language of business.
Traffic jams in the city are practically unheard of – scores of business people choose a bicycle instead of a car to get to their office – and after 6pm city workers congregate in numerous fashionable bars and cafés for the city’s celebrated “apero” (happy hour). “It’s true that the people in Zürich are hard workers,” admits Schempp. “Most of them are in the office already at eight o’clock or earlier and do not finish before six. But we do know how to relax and enjoy the benefits of living here. During summer, business people can often be seen taking a short swim in the Limmat River or in Lake Zürich before heading back to the office.”
Work-life balance
However, what visitors frequently forget is that Zürich is not only a burgeoning business capital, but also a home to some of the country’s best culture, events, shopping and gastronomy. In a city where more than 17,000 people are employed in the tourism sector, and almost 13,000 hotel beds are available, it is a sign that Zürich manages its short-stay visitors with as much comfort as its Swiss bank vaults offer security.
In the heart of the Lindenhof quarter, Zürich’s picturesque old town, St Peterskirche towers above the city. First built in the ninth century on the site of a former Roman castle, it boasts the largest clock face in Europe and is typical of Zürich’s medieval heritage. Nearby, on the banks of the River Limmat, a trilogy of other famous churches, the Grossmünster, Fraumünster and Predigerkirche, complete the city’s iconic skyline of steeples and spires. Every Sunday lunchtime, as the church bells peal out to a handful of tourists, it all adds up to a veritable Alpine symphony.
Schiffbau, meaning “ship building”, is an entertainment complex of bars, restaurants and performance venues which has achieved Europe-wide acclaim since opening in 2000. This is home to Moods Jazz Club and trendy Restaurant LaSalle. As you should have guessed from the name, the structure was once a shipbuilding facility.
Style and the city
In contrast, during the working week the city’s resident bankers and portfolio managers pack the same streets, filling out the city’s in-vogue restaurants and the world-famous Bahnhofstrasse shopping mile. “‘Lädele’ is what Zürich residents love to call window shopping,” says Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ Katalin Thomann, whilst browsing for jewellery and Swiss watches on a lunch break. “There isn’t any better place to do it.”
For many visitors, Zürich’s showpiece boulevard is a beauty pageant of boutiques, rivalling New York’s Fifth Avenue and Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées for style and spectacle. While further afield the trendy districts of Zürich-West and Aussersihl cater to more independent shoppers, Bahnhofstrasse is a kaleidoscope of prestigious luxury brands, renowned as one of the world’s most elite strips of real estate. With Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès, Armani, Dior, Cartier and a host of other billboard names competing for sought-after display space, it’s the kind of place where it’s handy to have more than one credit card – especially one tied to an offshore Swiss bank account.
In terms of fashion, Zürich’s business character is also distinct from the rest of Switzerland. While Geneva is a hub of hurried diplomats and French migrant workers, Zürich sells overt luxury and fawns over highly stylised multiculturalism. “Geneva is quite business-like, chic and close to the French style,” declares up-and-coming Zürich-based fashion designer Aleksandra Wisniewska. “Lucerne, St Gallen and Basel are more conservative, but Zürich is the most fashionable city in Switzerland. It has a nice mix of styles.”
As Zürich’s signature boutiques close and the clock face on St Peterskirche signals evening, Kaufleuten (www.kaufleuten.com), a short walk from Bahnhofstrasse, becomes a beacon for the in-crowd. Once patronised by both Madonna and Prince, it is undoubtedly one of the coolest lounge bars in Zürich – a place where businessmen revel the Swiss way, ordering a bottle of Prosecco and letting the night take care of itself.
Artistically Swiss
While the city’s financial sector has surged forward to lead Europe in the global markets, Zürich’s more bohemian quarters and artistic neighbourhoods have not been left behind. Comparable to the fluctuating changes of the financial world, the streets of the Lindenhof and Neiderdorf are undergoing an artistic and cultural renaissance through both art and fashion.
As one of the world’s leading art centres, the city is home to more than 50 museums and more than 100 art galleries. Zürich’s cultural institutions seduce visitors with high culture, and the city’s prized opera house annually presents the greatest number of opera premieres in the whole of Europe. Zürich’s most famous gift to the world, however, has been the Dadaist art movement. Primarily involving visual arts, theatre and graphic design, Dadaism emerged as a cultural movement during World War I, focusing on anti-war politics and an anti-bourgeois ethic. Cabaret Voltaire (www.cabaretvoltaire.ch), the original home of the movement, regularly exhibits new artists and has turned into one of Switzerland’s most vibrant contemporary art spaces.
Ultimately, Zürich’s current crop of artists, businessmen and restaurateurs couldn’t have asked for better inspiration. Beneath the city’s forest-clad Üetliberg mountain and down by the city’s translucent blue lakefront, the winter and summer seasons seem to swing back and forth like a well-polished pendulum, ensuring that no matter what the time, it is always the perfect day to work and play.
Where to eat
ACQUA
The city’s premier lakeside haute cuisine dining experience should not be missed. It offers a front row view of the city’s medieval spires and the inimitable Grossmünster church – and the locally sourced fish, meat grills and Italian pastas aren’t bad either.
Acqua, Seerestaurant, Mythenquai 61, 8002 Zürich; tel +41 44 201 51 61, www.acqua.ch
BLINDEKUH
The world’s first restaurant in the dark, Blindekuh (Blind Cow) has often been copied but never bettered. Much more than a restaurant, it’s as much an assault on the senses as the palate: diners eat in the dark and are served by the city’s blind waiters.
Blindekuh, Mühlebachstrasse 148, 8008 Zürich; tel +41 44 421 50 50, www.blindekuh.ch
BRASSERIE LIPP/JULES VERNE PANORAMA BAR
High above the rooftops and spires, the Jules Verne Panorama Bar is the best place bar none in Zürich to celebrate the day’s shopping and sunset over a trademark Swiss Prosecco. The downstairs brasserie is more refined affair, famed for its cold seafood platters, shucked oysters and white-gloved waiters.
n Jules Verne Panorama Bar (Brasserie Lipp), Urania Strasse 9, 8001 Zürich; tel +41 43 888 66 66, www.brasserie-lipp.ch
SPRÜNGLI
No visit to Zürich would be complete without an indulgent breather at Sprüngli, the city’s premier chocolate-themed cafe. Visitors tend to stock up on Swiss chocolate truffles, but the local secret is the delicate Luxemburgerli macaroon and the adjoining restaurant.
Sprüngli, Bahnhofstrasse 21, 8022 Zürich; tel +41 (0) 44 224 46 46, www.spruengli.ch
KAUFLEUTEN
Undoubtedly one of the coolest international restaurant-cum-bars in Zürich, Kaufleuten is a short walk from the central shopping boulevard Bahnhofstrasse. If you want to do it the Swiss banker way, order a bottle of Prosecco before heading to the onsite nightclub.
Kaufleuten, Pelikanstrasse 18, 8001 Zürich; tel +41 44 225 3300, www.kaufleuten.com/home.php
Where to stay
THE DOLDER GRAND
With breathtaking views across Lake Zürich, the Dolder Grand is Zürich’s premier luxury hotel. Part fairy tale German Schloss, part exclusive city resort, the Dolder dates from 1899 but makes up for it with modern excess: it has more than 170 rooms and suites, a 4,000sqm spa and a two-Michelin starred restaurant.
The Dolder Grand, Kurhausstrasse 65, 8032 Zürich; tel +41 44 456 60 00, www.thedoldergrand.com
BAUR AU LAC
Set in its own park in the centre of the city – Bahnhofstrasse and the financial district Paradeplatz are moments away – the five-star Baur Au Lac is a family affair and has been owned by the same family for six generations. Rooms are individually decorated in different styles such as Art Deco, French Louis XVI, and English Regency.
Baur Au Lac, Talstrasse 1, 8001 Zürich; tel +41 44 220 50 20, www.bauraulac.ch
HOTEL SCHWEIZERHOF
Directly opposite the train station, the Schweizerhof couldn’t be closer to the commercial beat of inner city Zürich if it tried. Renovated at the beginning of the 2000s to the tune of more than 15 million Swiss francs, its rooms have flat-screen TVs and wifi and the restaurant La Soupière is a bona fide award-winner.
Hotel Schweizerhof Zürich, Station Square 7, 8021 Zürich; tel +41 44 218 88 88, www.hotelschweizerhof.com
STORCHEN
With perhaps more stories to tell than any other hotel in the city, the Storchen has been in operation for more than 650 years – legend has it that the name was adopted after a pair of rare black storks nested on its roof. Overlooking the Limmat River in the heart of the Lindenhof, the Storchen’s proximity to Zürich’s attractions also can’t be bettered: the city’s Fraumünster and Grossmünster churches loom over it from either side of the bank and the Opera House is a short stroll away.
Storchen, Weinplatz 2, 8001 Zürich; tel +41 44 227 27 27, www.storchen.ch
WIDDER HOTEL
Zürich’s premier boutique hotel, the Widder is in the Augustiner quarter of the city and prides itself on a number of interior design quirks. Its 42 guestrooms are individually styled, with unique furniture pieces by Le Corbusier, Ray Eames and Frank Lloyd Wright, the lobby and staircases are adorned with a wealth of sculptures and paintings and it has the best selection of top-shelf whiskies in the entire city.
n Widder Hotel, Rennweg 7, 8001 Zürich; tel +41 44 224 25 26, www.widder.ch 
