Püente — Restaurant in Zurich

Our first visit at Püente, and we knew after a few minutes it won’t be the last. It’s a fusion restaurant with a sharing plates concept. We were greeted by a very kind and lovely staff. The restaurant decor is colorful, joyful yet simple and modern. The open kitchen gives you the chance to see the work behind your dish. We ordered a pisco Spritz as an aperitif, was so huge it lasted almost until the end of our dinner. But let’s talk about food! We ordered a basket of home made bread, composed by fluffy olive bread, a slice of lemony white bread and a soft focaccia-brioche style bread, which came along with a buttery spread. Very good start! Follows a delicious ceviche clasico, with white fish (sea bass if I’m right) marinated in “leche de tigre” (which was so good I spooned the remains out) served with dots of mashed sweet potatoes on a toasted corn grid, giving the right portion of crunchiness to the plate. Together came the tiradito verde, another variation of ceviche. Here the thin sliced layers of king fish were dipped in a fresh lime juice, parsley and rocoto-chilli beads (which we expect to be fiercely spicy but nope, was very gentle in the mouth). Another highlight were the sanguchitos peruano, small mouth watering Chinese buns filled with crispy pork belly (real crisp as it has to be!), topped with criollo sauce and a typical Peruvian sauce (Huancaina sauce, made with cheese, heavy cream and ají amarillo chiles). We could have eat 10 of them 👌🏻 Next came the lomo al wok, stir fried prime beef tenderloin with vegetables accompanied by a roasted potato. Juicy and tender beef, with a powerful and tasty sauce. We did enjoyed the dish, but compared to the others, it was perhaps the less spectacular. We also got the slow cooked beef cheek, so tender, you easily pull it with a spoon, in massaman curry with baby vegetables. We didn’t ordered the rice as we started to be full. Grand finale with the pai de lucuma, a fruit which isn’t very common on our latitude. Lucuma taste reminds of pear, maple syrup, or butterscotch. The dessert was topped by a cloud of Italian merengue....

Going to Davos this January 2025, a great friend who lives in the beautiful city of Zurich in Switzerland invited me to dinner at a great restaurant that left me very surprised.

Lately I don't usually frequent restaurants that are called "fine dining" since at this stage of my life I am much more inclined to places with their own authenticity and not under the rules of any exclusive road manual or the like…, its in the ones out of the radar where I always find my happy place.

But pleasantly this was not the case at Puente, a restaurant at the right level of being casual and offering without exaggerated pomp an excellent menu in presentation, flavor and history.

We started our journey with a classic Ceviche that took me to the docks of El Callao in Peru on my trip through the 80s, with the perfect cut of the onion, something that other Peruvian restaurants usually miss today and in very good harmony of textures between the soft scallops and the chunky shrimps.

We continued with a brioche bread accompanied by butter with olives ( I think the very common Botijas olives in Peru ), and an excellent spicy sauce, like something straight from grandma's kitchen.

We continued with oysters number 3 with aji amarillo sauce, perfect for a lover of the others like me.

Next, they brought us the picaña glazed with a demi glace, like lomito saltado and a potato foam of excellent creaminess with their homemade potato chips as well.

All this washed down with some unusual Peruvian wines from the Ica region, which are made with grapes traditionally used for pisco that are fermented in amphorae, which gives them a delicious mineral touch.

We finished with a perfect cheesecake and a mistela as a digestive.

I also had the pleasure of speaking with chef Paulo and the rest of the staff, who entertained the entire evening in an excellent way.

Definitely a Tip-Top!

Score:...

The restaurant has a very cozy atmosphere, the staff is very friendly, the value for money is not there, all the dishes are to-share, which is nice, some dishes are hit and miss, some are very good, unique. We got the 5 courses surpize menu and the fish & sea food dishes were the stars, otherwise the meat dishes were very fatty (belly pork is a more acquired taste, they should check-in first if you would like it to avoid waste; the beef slices had a lot of fat strings, the chicken tacos - we could not tell we're eating chicken, all the other elements in the dish "took over"). The Pisco Sour is worth it, but still quite pricey. What we did not appreciate was that they brought 2-3 corses at the same time, we did not have the chance to appreciate them individually, minor details like the other tables got 3 pieces of home made bread, we had only 2, I asked for a glass of wine and they forgot, and then it only arrived with my last dish. Normally the visit is planned for 2h, but because they rushed it (for us) we were out the door in a bit over 1h. Overall, despite them being friendly, it felt rushed and for a menu between 88 - 100+chf/ person, the experience was not what...