Kreis 5 Industrie Zurich – All our local tips

I like Acapulco and I’m there regularly, mostly during the week. If the weather is nice enough it’s best to catch a seat outside so you can watch the passers-by. There is a lot going on at that corner. Inside, the sofa seats are so comfortable that you’re likely to stay much longer than you intended to.

Despite its name and logo, the bar has no Mexican or Hawaiian features inside. With mirrors and lots of red it’s a modern and relaxed bar throughout.

This aside, the venue has some special features. Downstairs, a room wallpapered with Panini-soccer-pictures sets the mood for table soccer, where you can compete against rather competitive locals. Once a month, Acapulco hosts the Musikschau night, where you can watch the best music videos of the last 30 years for free.

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Acapulco | Bars | Beer CHF 5.20
Neugasse 56 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41442726688
Mon – Tue 17:00 – 01:00, Wed – Thu & Sun 17:00 – 02:00, Fri 16:00 – 03:00, Sat 17:00 – 03:00

Big Ben Pub. When you hear the name, what do you think of? Does it wake associations, does there… ring a bell? (Sorry for the lousy pun). Well, it’s exactly that: A real British pub. You have the TV’s with sport-channels on, you have pints, you have English, Guinness-drinking guys, the darts and a lot of indie and britpop music.

So wether you’re a homesick englishwoman or englishman or if you’re just into the above mentionned things, you should give the Big Ben Pub a visit, the atmosphere is always great. Sometimes they even have live Bands playing, not regularly though.

I should mention that there are actually two Big Ben Pubs in Zurich, but I’m writing about the one in the old industrial quarter, because I like it a bit better. If you plan on going out in the Niederdorf, the old town, there’s one too, the address is Niederdorfstrasse 52. Cheers mate!

And another thing: Every Thursday Chris Black plays there. Who’s Chris Black? He’s a rocking one man band with a guitar and a Laptop which provides full band support: drums, bass and sometimes a second guitar. He’s slightly punkish and plays all kinds of rock classics, from Nirvana over Beatles, Doors, Oasis, the K

illers and of course the Clash and Sex Pistols. He does a great job sounding like these bands (exept for the cure, he doesn’t sound anything like the cure at all)!

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Big Ben Pub | Bars | Beer CHF 4.50
Hardstrasse 234 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41442710266
Sun – Thu 17:00 – 00:00, Fri – Sat 17:00 – 03:00. Live music every thursday

A crazy place full of crazy art and crazy people. It is not a usual white-walled gallery decorated with a few precisely placed pictures. It isn’t a place where you sip white wine, wear huge nerd glasses and hold pompous conversations in an overly civilized atmosphere with super stylish people that call themselves artists.

This gallery has a bar with a couch integrated, you drink beer, it is loud and smokey and the crowd manages to admire the exhibited art without constantly discussing the deeper meaning that might be underlying it. Sometimes, the walls are white, sometimes covered in colorful street art by leading Swiss and international artists of the urban scene.

On Wednesdays the „Artsy Fartsy Nights” are on, where you can hang, socialize and exchange ideas with other creative people. One night someone will show a film, another there will be some live painting. You can always count on mad little appetizers served on old skateboards though.

BlamBalmBlam is a gallery that isn’t elitist but refreshingly „real life” (and probably a little “blamblam”). Check it out and enjoy!

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BlamBlamBlam | Art & culture, Bars | Free
Hönggerstrasse 45 | Kreis 5 Industrie
Wed – Sun 16:00 – 20:00

Exil is the club to go crazy at these days. Being from Zurich, you can’t truly call yourself hip if you haven’t had a minimum of one wild night at the Exil or at least pretend to have had one. Being in there, feels like being underground. Kind of like being in one of those party rooms in your teenage years, but very much more wicked.

I suggest the EXILENCE nights, where only the best of black music is played or performed live. Those nights, the club is overfilled, sweaty, loud and sexy. If you want to fit in perfectly, wear red lipstick or, male version, a gangster hat à la Léon the Professional from Luc Besson. For all those, who are sick of hopping around to the great (great!) music, or too cool to hop at all (quite common at parties like these!), there’s a smaller room, all in red that makes everyone look ten times better than during the day.

You can be sure that you won’t be leaving before 6 am and at 6 you’ll be just in time for the first trams to run, but probably so exhausted, that you’ll just throw yourself into the next completely overpriced taxi.

There are also other great parties and concerts at the Exil. No matter what music you like, they’ll have something in store for you. Check the program on the website.

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EXILENCE | Bars, Music | Entrance from CHF 10.00
Hardstrasse 245 | Kreis 5 Industrie
Check the website for opening times

Somehow, and I am unsure why, this is a wonderful place. Apart from the round windows, there is nothing special about it. You feel a little like in a canteen from the 70s (lots of orange!) with better lighting. The couch in the corner, which you should pounce at immediately if it’s free, is quite ugly, but super comfy.

Lovely Gloria goes through a metamorphosis daily. It changes from a café you go to for breakfast in the morning, to a restaurant for lunch, back to a café in the afternoon and ends the day transformed into a bar, nothing being changed about the interior. This way it is everything and nothing really at the same time.

If you are lucky, one of the Indian waiters/waitresses will serve you and you’ll feel very well taken care of. If it is not your day, the infamous lady with the long blond hair will pull your mood down (all the way!). Try to ignore and don’t start asking yourself what you have done wrong that she treats you like someone that killed her cat. Many have wondered. Up to date, nobody knows.

I suggest the spot for breakfast. You get it till 11:30 and it isn’t overly expensive. If you’re too late, take the Gloria Salad with bacon and eggs and croutons and tomatoes and many many more tasty things and an

even tastier sauce, that I could easily live of for a few weeks.

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Gloria | Bars, Coffee & tea, Snacks, Restaurants (Intern.) | Gloria Salad CHF 16.70
Josefstrasse 59 | Kreis 5 Industrie
Mon – Fri 07:30 – 00:00, Sat – Sun 09:00 – 18:00

I became a fan of pizza during my student years in the US. Pizza was the primary choice of students living on a tight budget. Going out during the weekend mostly meant enjoying Chicago style pizza with its thick layers of cheese, tomato and its rich toppings. Pizza, delivered to the dormitory, helped nerds satisfy hunger just take a break.

So pizza was the first thing to try during my first visit to central Europe in the late 80s. Groups of summer students would head for the pizzerias of Geneva, primarily those of the old town.

I was in for a big disappointment: Italian type pizza felt like a thin tasteless construct that cost thrice as much as the rich tasteful dish offered at the other side of the Atlantic.

20 years later, American pizza is no obvious winner of this “clash of civilizations”; thanks to the flagship of Italian type pizza that I have found in Zurich.

Pizzeria “Il Gallo” is not a tourist trap but earns its money from locals thanks to the quality of its food and service (and not with a location next to a medieval building). I recommend the “Diavola” (with spicy salami). In the summer you can eat outside observing a lot of car and human traffic since the venue is located at a going-out district with many cinemas, bars, clubs etc.

Go for a complete experience: start with a “Caprese di Buffala”; achieve closure with a Tiramisu.

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Il Gallo | Restaurants (Italian) | Pizza from CHF 15.50
Hardstrasse 324 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41442710240
11:30 – 15:00 & 17:30 – 00:00 daily

Are you a bit hungry but don’t have the time or money to go to a restaurant? But you don’t want to go to McDonalds, Subway or have a Kebab, because that’s what you had yesterday, and the day before, and last week? Well, then I have a recommendation for you: Lebanese food at the Libanon il Achdar (translated: the green Lebanon).

What you get there will remind you of kebab, but it’s refreshingly different from the stuff you get everywhere. You can chose between diverse meats like lamb, chicken, beef or kafta (small ground beef balls), or Falafel, the vegetarian version. Then they put strange but tasty vegetables in it, a sauce with lebanese spices and in the end stuff the hole thing with french fries. Sounds strange? Nevermind, it’s fantastic, I tell you.

But that’s not everything you can have, there are chicken skewers, fried Kaftas, Maali (pitabread with vegetables and hummus) for us vegetarians and all kinds of other exotix stuff. Give it a try, you won’t regret it.

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Libanon IL-Achdar | Snacks, Restaurants (Lebanese) | Most things CHF 7.00
Hafnerstrasse 13 | Kreis 5 Industrie
08:00 – 21:00 daily

Back when I was younger I used to say a soup is a beverage, not something to eat. When I started cooking myself, I noticed how wrong I was. Soups can actually be good, if they have the right ingredients and if they’re made right. Discovering the Limmatlädeli, the soup take-away, only reinforced that insight.

The Limmatlädeli reminds of a corner-shop of old times and seems like an anachronism in modern Zürich, especially this part of town – and that’s what makes it special. There are all kinds of goods for your daily use in the shelves, like detergents, flour, soups of course, coffees, some bottles of wine, candy and so on. But mostly not-ordinary brands that you don’t find in the supermarkets. There’s also a “take one leave one”-Bookshelf, so if you’ve just finished a book, bring it along.

But let’s get to the point: the soups. You have the choice between five soups, with your choice you get bread, of course, and also an apple for healthy dessert. If that’s not enough, you can buy some unhealthy dessert too, don’t worry. Note: You can’t eat there, it’s only take-away, so now the days are getting warmer look for a nice park to eat (like this one) before you buy your soup. That’s all I have to say, bon appetit!

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Limmatlädeli | Snacks, Restaurants (Soups) | Soups from CHF 9.00
Limmatstrasse 259 | Kreis 5 Industrie
Mon – Thu 11:00 – 18:30, Fri 11:00 – 22:00, Sat 11:00 – 16:00

Great food for great prices! Especially the massive filet (horse or beef) with fries and three different sauces is one of the tastiest things you’ll find around town.

You get it served on a hot stone, so you can roast it exactly as much as you like. Negative effect: In winter you’ll smell like you rolled around in a chip pan when you get out. In summer that’s no problem, there’s tables outside.

The place itself is very down-to-earth and uncomplicated. A real “Chreis 5 Chnelle”, meaning it is old-fashioned, in dark wood, smoky, with a TV showing sports games and of course the obligatory regulars’ table in the corner where strange but funny and loud old men come together to have their daily beer and fight over who is the winner of that card game they just played or didn’t agree on the day before.

Nothing about the Eisenhof is stylish, but everything very authentic, which is rare in Zurich. To make the atmosphere even more familiar, the lady that owns the place wanders around the restaurant once in a while to check if everyone is doing good. And the waitresses are, according to male judgement, extremely hot. According to female judgement, also very friendly.

If you are more of a pearl necklace/necktie kind of person or find it morally wrong to eat horses, I suggest you stay far away, it won’t be your thing. All other people I promise, you’ll want to go back (preferably every day)!

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Restaurant Eisenhof | Restaurants (Very Swiss) | Beef filet on hot stone CHF 33.00
Gasometerstrasse 20 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41442713990
Mon – Fri 09:00 – 00:00, Sat 16:00 – 00:00

This is for the vegetarians and vegans, but not only. Yes, Carnivores, at Samses you won’t find any dishes with meat, but I dare say that you won’t miss it. Because here you’ll find delicious, always fresh food, inspired from cuisines from all over the world.

Besides the bill of fare there is a big, daily changing buffet with salads and all kinds of dishes that you can combine. In this buffet everything looks freakin’ tasty, so prepare yourself for some hard decisions.

The place used to be a travel agency, until a few years ago it was turned into what it is now: My favourite vegetarian restaurant. The only reason I don’t eat there all the time is because it’s not really cheap and I’m kinda poor. Still, the food is absolutely worth the money.

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Samses | Coffee & tea, Restaurants (Vegetarian)
Langstrasse 231 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41444401313
Mon – Fri 11:00 – 23:00, Sat 16:00 – 23:00

I don’t know what it’s like in your city, but here most bigger bookshops have a Café at some floore where you can sit down and rest from the tiring bookshopping. Now I’ve even seen Starbucks built in Bookstore. That’s… well, I won’t go there now. Anyway, the Spheres is kind of like this – except it’s different. Because the Spheres is not a Bookshop with a Café in it, it’s a Café with a Bookshop in it. Or at least both equally.

So if you want to have a coffee in an inspiring atmosphere, go to the spheres, order something to drink and take a book to skim through – if you speak German. Unfortunately, you won’t find English books there. If you do speak German, I’m sure you’ll like the choice of books.

Something I haven’t told you yet: The Café and Bookshop, that’s not all. From time to time, one part of this place turns into a stage for book-readings or discussions where people are invited to take part in. For example there’s a monthly event called “Science Bar” where top-scientists answer burning questions about modern science. No, not a lecture, but an unforced discussion with the guests. I bet your bookstore ’round the corner doesn’t have that.

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Spheres | Art & culture, Bars, Coffee & tea, Snacks | Coffee CHF 4.50
Hardturmstrasse 66 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41444406622
Mon – Fri 08:00 – 00:00, Sat – Sun 09:30 – 19:30

In February 2009, the Wohnzimmerbar opened its doors just next to cinema RiffRaff. As the name suggests (Wohnzimmer means living room), it’s small and pleasant and the atmosphere familiar, filled with comfy chairs, small tables and a chaise longue.

The area in the back normally sports one large table but can also be booked for a party up to 10 people for a customized dinner. For all other empty stomachs there are tapas plates available as well as various spreads with bread.

Since this spring, they’re able to open the front window fully so it’s like sitting outside while being inside. They serve a killer Margarita and now that it’s a bit warmer also punch (which we Swiss love!).

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Wohnzimmerbar | Bars, Coffee & tea, Restaurants (Tapas) | Tapas from CHF 9.00
Neugasse 75 | Kreis 5 Industrie | +41762104880
Mon – Sat 18.00 – 00:00