An Chay — Restaurant in Zurich

We came here as a recommendation from a friend. I have to say the restaurant was full, which on the positive side, it seems (mostly young under 30s) love to come and dine here; on the negative side, it meant we couldn’t have a conversation without having to speaking loudly.

I must also add the staff were really nice and portions were generous.

We were welcomed with a complimentary cup of house-mixed tea, which was really nice. My partner had the no.13 (BUN CHA GIO CHAY) and I had the no.12 (COM BI CHA – THE LOADED PLATE). This review is therefore mostly about the no. 12. It was generally very very very dry. The kimchi and the seitan skewer were really nice, but everything else was extremely dry. It for sure would be much nicer with more of the Vietnamese green sauce. About the no. 13, I got to try the spring rolls from my partner’s plate (main actor in the dish) and it was also really really dry and a bit bland… shame though, as it is nice to have a vegetarian/vegan place to go to! I am looking forward to trying different dishes that can hopefully change my mind.

P.S: the house tea was...

Update: came back 2 years later and I think the food is even better! Amazing Vietnamese food! #99, #3 and #13 -- delicious!

The food here is basically VEGAN and absolutely delicious! There's some weird thing about fish sauce, but other than that as far as I can tell it was vegan. It's almost like you need to special order the fish sauce (who would do that? 😉).

The papaya salad in this picture was fantastic -- quite authentically Vietnamese tasting. The atmosphere was a bit crazy, cozy and chaotic on a Friday night, but definitely worth it.

There was some "imitation chicken" in the soup which honestly was too "authentic" tasting for my wife to handle... I also had my doubts for a moment about whether it was actually vegan. But I trusted them and it didn't have the texture of actual chicken.

I...

Fantastic dishes (although definitively on the salty side), beautiful restaurant... 4 stars instead of 5 solely because they still serve fish sauce, while everything else is ENTIRELY vegan. It weirds me out and leaves a bad taste (literally, bc last time they mixed up our order and we did have the dish smothered in fish sauce). I say this with love: Please ditch it, you would be so much more creative, progressive, environmentally-minded and compassionate. In case you have not seen it, please do watch the acclaimed documentary Seaspiracy, and you will easily see the reason why none of us should (ab)use fish anymore. Thank you...