Trattoria Sempre Zürich — Restaurant in Zurich

This restaurant is one of the reasons why the food scene in Zürich is so bad.

In short: high prices, bad service, ridiculous portions, no tap water, but somehow still solid reviews here on Google Maps. It doesn’t make any sense.

I highly don’t recommend coming here. Please, let’s stop collectively handing out tons of money to people who don’t deserve it.

For people who want to know more, here are the reasons.

High prices and ridiculous portions: when you look at the menu and you read that a plate of pasta is around CHF 15 you expect a full plate of pasta. Right? Nope, think again. You are served a ridiculous size in what resembles more a dessert plate than a pasta one. I am a girl and I am small, I can’t imagine a full grownup man getting full on that. Water? Forget about tap water “we don’t give out tap water here, but you can buy 1 l for CHF 5”. Next time I will just go to the restroom and drink it form there, as tap water in Zürich is renown to be of extremely high quality. You cannot not give out tap water on a CHF 25 bill. Think of the environment, too! If you order one of the appetizers, like bruschetta, you are served a bruschetta for CHF 4.5 which looks more like a coin than a piece of bread (I have attached a photo for verification). Mind you: that is exactly what I was served. One mini bruschetta.

Service: you have to chase waiters around to get their attention. And no, the restaurant was not full, rather half empty.

I complained in the end, saying that the quantity is just ridiculous. I was told “but this is tapas style”. Meaning that you are supposed to order 3-4 dishes to feel full. But the problem is that each of those dish is priced LIKE A BIG ONE. And that is what you expect to eat! A big dish. Instead nope, they leave you half-hungry so you will order more. Alright, fine, but then you should lower the prices!

No, this is not what an Italian trattoria is supposed to be like. As an Italian like myself, you should know what it means. For non Italian folks: trattoria are supposed to be like restaurants, but much less fancy where the focus is on both quantity (abundant) and quality (local, homemade) for a modest price. Both were quite poor.

This is just not fair, and they know it. I wish people in Zürich...

After reading all the 5 star reviews, we really expected a lot more from this place. The manager/host was very unfriendly, but helpful with a seating issue. The waiter was very friendly, but too busy to really notice our table. From 19:00 it was very busy and everything took very long, even though there was a lot of staff. The food was below average. Some dishes nice, some quite bland, definitely not good enough for the high price. I don’t understand the “sharing principle” because neither the presentation nor the portion size allow for it, unless you want to dissect your food first. The house wine had mixed reactions. Personally I liked it, but some found it watery/weak. The wine we actually wanted was unavailable or only the big bottle for 99chf. The 5chf charge PER PERSON for TAP water is absolutely criminal, even if “you can then have as much as you want”. There was a high stair for our daughter, but no changing table. For that my husband was sent to the neighboring restaurant (same owner) but he was refused because the changing table was in the women’s room. After a discussion he was led through the kitchen to a bench in the back. All in all a pretty disappointing experience, unfortunately. Especially since we were celebrating my mom’s birthday. We won’t...

Great place in zurich to eat Italian food tavolata-style (sharing dishes for the whole party). Especially recommended if you are a bigger group (4+).

Food: They offer good and fresh Italian food with a great variety (everyone in the group will find a couple of dishes) for a fair price in the middle of Zurich. Also the white house wine was delicious! And that for a reasonable 49.- per bottle. They suggest around 3-4 dishes per person. As we were not that hungry, we ordered 2 dishes per person and then with a shared dessert (+0.5 per person) it was just the perfect amount. The great thing is you can always order more when you feel like it. I can recommend especially the fritto misto, rigatoni gricia and the pizzette. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a couple of dishes we wanted to order because they ran out.

Service: Unfortunately, at the time we where there, they couldn’t handle the amount of dishes for the also high number of customers (imagine all the separate dishes per table they had to service) and we therefore had to wait a couple of times to get the wine, order desserts or get the bill/check. Otherwise everything was fine!

Atmosphere: Very nice outdoor area as well as cute...