White Elephant Restaurant — Restaurant in Zurich

Mediocre food, expensive price, spotty service. I would not come here again.

Food is decent if it had not had MSG added. I am writing this review the morning after, and the aftertaste of food that I have come to hate from MSG or other artificial flavor enhancing sauce is still lingering in my mouth. It is especially ironic since "No MSG added" is explicitly written on the menu.

We ordered two appetizers, a soup, two main courses, and non-alcoholic drinks, and it cost 160 CHF. We could have gone to another Thai restaurant around the area for half the price, or gotten very good fine dining food at the that price.

Service is spotty. They tried hard to provide a good service, but missed on the important things. I had called in advance to make a reservation, mentioning that we are there to celebrate our birthdays, and we are coming with a toddler who needs a child seat. The person on the phone replied with "we will prepare a very nice table for you". When we arrived, not only was there no table prepared - they were asking where we would like to sit, they asked whether we needed a child seat, and there was no single mention about birthday during our entire visit. I didn't expect much, but I was still disappointed. We ordered a dish that was described as tofu in the menu. What came was imitation meat. We generally don't mind imitation meat, but we specifically ordered tofu for our toddler, and we didn't like this imitation meat either. We asked our server about this. He offered to replace it with the 'white tofu', but not before explaining to us their restaurant has four kinds of different tofu and this is tofu. I was almost convinced, before quickly realizing that I grew up in, have lived in, and have visited many countries, both where tofu is and is not a staple, and had never had tofu confused with imitation meat. At the end of the meal, the hostess handed me the bill, and asked us if we wanted to add a tip, specifically mentioning the tip is for the gentleman who attended to our table. I felt very awkward. If I wanted to leave a tip, I would do so myself. Perhaps this line works on the tourists who don't know what Swiss people would do, who err on not being a jerk?

I have a feeling they get a lot of tourist traffic, being located in a hotel. I heard a lot of English being spoken amongst the diners.

Oh, how we miss Thailand, better tasting, authentic food for less than 160 Baht.

If you are looking for a non-authentic Thai food, like heavily artificial flavored food, and don't mind paying double, this is an alright place to come. But otherwise, you could do...

Outstanding service that saved the day.

We arrived at White Elephant and to our surprise they were running a temporary menu « all you can eat seafood », which meant that the à la carte options were greatly reduced - no pad thai for example. This is not acceptable from such a restaurant. We should have been told by the person on the phone when we made the reservation the day before.

Being vegetarians, we went with the crystal noodle soup, vegetarian spring rolls and veg stir fry with tofu, basil & cashew nuts - which were pretty much the only veg. options available. To our surprise, our waiter came back to tell us that sadly the kitchen had run out of spring rolls for the evening. That in itself is a crime, tantamount to a Swiss restaurant running out of cheese. The food was good, fresh, high quality ingredients were used - however the stir-fry was too spicy for us despite having indicated that we wanted a lesser-spiced version. Dessert was excellent - we had the classic thai mango sticky rice, green tea & coconut ice cream.

Yut, our waiter, deserves 100 stars out of 5. He was exceptional throughout. When he saw that the stir-fry was too spicy for us he got vegetables added to it and brought us another portion of jasmine rice. We could see he had a lot of tables to attend and was working very hard. Yet he was very attentive, very kind and handled the spring rolls and stir-fry mishaps very well. You can tell he is a genuinely caring and happy person. He saw that my wife was pregnant and made sure she felt comfortable with the food and even asked if the baby was happy. We wish him all the success and...

A True Taste of Thailand at The White Elephant – A Family Favorite

We finally had the chance to visit The White Elephant at the Marriott Hotel after hearing countless glowing reviews from my parents-in-law, who’ve been loyal regulars for years—and now we understand why they love it so much!

The food absolutely lived up to the hype. Every dish was bursting with authentic Thai flavor—the balance of spices, freshness of ingredients, and richness in taste truly transported us straight to Thailand. It’s rare to find a restaurant that captures the essence of Thai cuisine so faithfully, and The White Elephant does it beautifully.

If you visit, make sure to order the dumplings as a starter—they were incredibly good! Delicately prepared and full of flavor, they set the tone perfectly for the rest of the meal. Our absolute favorites were the crispy duck and the beef salad—both were packed with bold, vibrant flavors and cooked to perfection.

The ambiance is elegant yet warm, making it a great setting for both family dinners and special occasions. While the food was exceptional, the service did fall a little short—we found it to be a bit slow and not as attentive as expected, especially given the restaurant’s high standards. That said, the staff were friendly and the quality of the food more than made up for the minor service delays.

We’ll definitely be back—and now we completely understand why this place is such a beloved spot...