The owner and chef closed the restaurant in 2018 and retired.
First Visit to Restaurant Sein in Zurich, Switzerland
I apologize upfront for the German title, but it was just such a good fit (engl.: “To be, or not to be, that is the question”) for this post. The restaurant Sein in Zurich is very centrally located and a gourmet restaurant with one Michelin star and 17 Gault Millau points. My family decided to celebrate my brother’s and my birthday at the restaurant Sein on September 1, 2016. Being just around the Zurich mainstation it was easy reachable for all of us.
The restaurant is nicely decorated and it is in an old building with high ceilings which adds to the atmosphere. We started with an aperitif (Prosecco, tomato juice – the usual) and studied the menu. The restaurant offers a 5 course menu for CHF 175 and also à la carte items. We decided to order starters and main courses and then maybe a dessert afterwards. We were offered bread and olive oil (instead of butter – a trend that many restaurants follow these days). As we all had chosen main courses with fish/seafood, we ordered a bottle of white wine; a very good and crisp Riesling and water (still and sparkling) aside. Unfortunately, they only had half-liter bottles. This is something I will never understand: big bottles are just that much more practical. Of course, two half-liter bottles are usually more expensive than an one-liter bottle. Maybe that explains it. Anyway – quite surprisingly – no amouse bouches were served. Of course, it is not mandatory, but in most “fine dining restaurants” these days it is customary to serve an amouse bouche. For starters, I had ordered Maltagliati with Noir de Bigorre ham, mixed mushrooms and raw duck liver:
Maltagliati is italian for “poorly cut”. And I must say these “poorly cut” noodles were very good. The combination of saltiness from the delicious raw ham (Noir de Bigorre is a French pig breed found in the Pyrenees) with the almost sweet taste from the raw duck liver together with the creamy mushroom sauce was really delicate. The others at the table were also very happy with their starters:
On the left you see roasted South African scampi with Fromage Blanc, green mango avocado and lime confit, on the right Grilled scallops with orange-Taglierini and red mustard salad. As main course I had opted for the Fish of the day which on this day was a halibut with fennel salad and crunchy black rice:
The halibut was cooked to perfection, the fennel salad was a great match to it and the crunchy black rice tasted somewhat almost like popcorn. The different textures made this dish really exceptional. My only complaint is that there was not more of the black crunchy rice (a cup aside with more would have been a great idea and much appreciated).
We all still had some room for dessert, so we ordered Chocolate cake with sour cream ice, Freshly frozen vanilla ice cream with three sorts of fruit sauces and a single scoop of yoghurt-raspberry sorbet. As the restaurant is famous for its vanilla ice cream, I had the ice cream aside the chocolate cake changed to vanilla:
Now unfortunately the first faux pas during this evening of an otherwise impeccable service occured: The desserts were served during the two minutes that I went to the restroom to “powder my nose”. Obviously, it would have been difficult to carry the plates back to the kitchen once they noticed that I was missing, but the waiters should have checked before serving the desserts if everyone was present. Especially during the time between main courses and desserts guests tend to use the restroom or go out for a cigarette break, etc. And since it was still quite hot outside (around 85° Fahrenheit/28° Celsius) the freshly made ice cream started to melt really fast, as you can see on the picture. The desserts fell a bit short of the other courses: The chocolate cake was good, but it was not moist enough inside (ok, this is coming from a huge chocaholic), the vanilla ice cream didn’t live up to its reputation and the yoghurt-raspberry sorbet was – according to my mom – tasting rather bland. Also, I felt that the vanilla ice cream with fruit sauces was overpriced with CHF 22.
All in all, we had a great dinner at a very good restaurant. It was just not exceptional and that is what I had expected from a Michelin star restaurant. Would I go there again? Yes. Would I go there again to celebrate a special occasion? Probably not. I believe there are gourmet restaurants in the greater Zurich area that offer a more outstanding experience (you can read about them shortly on my blog – stay tuned).
Restaurant Sein
Schützengasse 5, 8001 Zurich
The restaurant was closed in 2018.