New flavours in old Zurich

Walking the old town in Zurich, one passes a great range of small cafes and restaurants, as well as the usual assortment of homogeneous multinational chains that present a uniform blandness in the disguise of food and drink. Fortunately, a healthy contempt for the latter enables me (and you!) to find something more authentic, and far more enjoyable.

We’d had a great afternoon walking the narrow lanes and alleys of old Zurich, and spotted Pulcino Restaurante mid-afternoon, noting in particular the fabulous little balcony that overlooked a small market square off the main pedestrian street (and so away from the tourist throng). We made a mental note, and thanks to my uncanny knack of eidetic geospatial memory, we were able to return to it late in the afternoon for a fantastic early dinner. The view from the balcony was bucolic, to say the least.

The menu is contemporary Italian, drawing from the rich fish stocks of the nearby lakes and rivers, as well as the seafood from the Mediterranean. Having said that, we opted for completely different dishes. We started with some fantastic proscuitto and mozzarella, with baby rocket leaves. Then to follow, Lindsay had decided that nothing would do other than a game hen chicken, which arrived beautifully done with a fantastic thyme and garlic stuffing (literally, a loosely tied bunch of time, and several cloves of garlic). I should have been jealous, but was too busy enjoying a wonderfully authentic lasagna al forno. I hadn’t had lasagna like this for years - just superb!

We washed this down with Regaleali Sicilian rose … and then the house-made tiramisu … and then grappa. You can tell we were enjoying it. Pulcino highlights that they source as much of their produce as they can locally, importing several things from other places where the ingredients were without peer - Brazilian beef, New Zealand lamb.

Pulcino Restaurante
Niederdorfstrasse 7
8001 Zürich

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