Lotti — Restaurant in Zurich

A great “local” find among the throngs of tourist bars and restaurants in Old Town Zürich! Several locals recommended the place, so we stopped by in the afternoon for a brief respite from walking and a cocktail, and we made a reservation for dinner. Both visits were memorable.

The afternoon cocktails were spritzes, the fruit of the day and Campari. Both delicious. We looked over the menus and decided to return for dinner. The restaurant is Bavarian-owned, and the family maintains its own beef (and butchers). Meat is the main card here. Great choice for dinner!

Service was good… attentive but not intrusive. The local crowd swelled during the dinner hour, but the staff kept up just fine! We had salads and roasted bone marrow to start things off. Salad was cold, fresh and crisp, light dressing. The bone marrow was piping hot, lightly salted, served with toasted bread. By all measures, the best bone marrow we’ve ever had!

Entrees brought one of the special cuts of the evening, 8-year old cow (female) and the veal loin chop. Both were amazing! We weren’t sure about cow, but the waitress insisted, glad she did. Both cuts expertly prepared, and we shared the roasted artichoke as a side (half the restaurant was eating artichokes, so we knew we’d chosen well).

We shared a bottle of Champagne for dinner. We were worried about the temp, but it was served cold and an ice bucket did the rest. Delicious! Dessert included rhubarb crumble with sour cream ice cream (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, it’s great!), and a plate of fresh strawberries.

Absolutely fabulous dinner all the way around. A definite 5-star experience on a busy weekend night. Highly recommend Lotti in Old...

I received a pizza (Züriflade) that was pitch black at the bottom. When I asked the waitress for a version less burned, she told me that the pizza was fine, but as I insisted, she replaced it. Meanwhile I had a big salad, so at the end of our meal, I had a few bites of my replacement pizza left.

By the time we wanted to order tea and dessert, the manager came to our table and told me in a passive aggressive way that I should have finished my plate. Yes. He told me that I. should. have. finished. my. plate. That I am contributing to food waste. That, because of me, they had to throw away 1.5 pizza, which was a lot of food waste on my record. In a state of shock, we decided to have our dessert somewhere else.

If you want to eat at a place where you decide what and how much you eat, and they are not analyzing your plate afterwards, go somewhere else.

On the note of food waste: I care for food, I care for waste. I made vegetarian choices that evening. If the environment is such a hot topic for this place, and they hire a food activist to run it, I would suggest they reconsider their meat-options on the menu. But if I am not comfortable with eating black fried food, or I simply had enough, that is my right. This restaurant made that...

We arrived at 6:40 PM and were completely ignored for the first 20 minutes—no greeting, no menu, no water, nothing. As tourists excited to try the $85 per person tasting menu, we expected at least basic hospitality. We finally placed our order at 7:15 PM and received just one course (the beef tartare) fairly quickly.

Then… nothing. For 45 minutes, not a single update, not even a glance from the waitress. It felt like we didn’t exist. By the time she finally returned, we were so frustrated and hungry we asked to cancel the rest of the meal.

The most insulting part? We watched other tables—locals, from what we could tell—receive warm, attentive service and prompt food, even though they arrived after us.

This place made it clear: if you're a tourist, you're not a priority. Hugely disappointing and not worth your...