Food is a basic human need. Over time there have been many changes in it. When the pockets of the people started getting heavy, then according to the choice, they started going out and eating. Many types of restaurants have come out in the market. There are some restaurants that became history as Best Restaurant in Zürich and Oldest Vegetarian Restaurant.
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1. Haus Hiltl Establishment:
One of such restaurants is the Haus Hiltl of Zurich, Switzerland. Which has been inhabited for the last hundred years and it changed the food style of the whole of Europe. This is a pure vegetarian restaurant. Haus Hiltl is the most famous and favorite foodie restaurant in Zurich. It has the title of being the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was started in 1898 by the Hiltl family of Zürich.
Since then, no one knows how many generations of this family are progressing successfully keeping the legacy of their ancestors. In the early stages, only local Zurich dishes were available here. These included potatoes and root vegetables. But as new generations took over the reins, this restaurant broke the walls of the borders. Today, many vegetarian dishes of India, Asia, the Mediterranean, and Switzerland are available here.
2. Haus Hiltl Builtup:
Haus Hiltl is a two-story building restaurant. It has an a-la-carte restaurant on its first floor. Along with the arrangement of food here, many books on cooking are also available. In the past decade, Hiltl Restaurants has opened around eight franchisees across Zurich. The people of Zurich are mainly fond of meat. In such a situation, the coinage of a vegetarian restaurant on such a large scale is a big thing in itself.
Paul Cimhoff, the author of the Culinary Heritage of Switzerland and a journalist by profession, says that when the restaurant was established in the nineteenth century, the vegetable enthusiasts were considered to be of the lowest level among the money class. He was teased as a weed eater. Pig and calf meat were mainly consumed throughout Europe. Its link was also related to the economic and social levels. In the name of vegetables, only cheese, potatoes, and root vegetables were eaten.
3. Haus Hiltl Story:
The story of the completion of the Hiltl restaurant is also very interesting. It is said that a tailor named Ambrosuis Hiltl had arthritis. Doctors said that if he had to live longer, he would have to give up meat. This is from the 1890s. In those days, there was hardly any meat available in Zurich without meat. There was only one restaurant named Absintense, where some of the vegetable dishes were mixed. After eating food here, Ambrosuis Hiltl’s interest in vegetarian food started growing.
This restaurant was very decadent. Ambroseis Hiltl bought it in 1904 and married the cook of this restaurant, Martha. And then the name of the restaurant was changed to Haus Hiltl. The year that Ambroseis Hiltl bought this restaurant, the same year there was a campaign in Switzerland to get close to nature, eat nutritious and balanced food. Doctor Maximilian Birsher Bener launched a campaign to eat meat-free. After this, the trend of people started leaning towards nutritious food and people started gathering in Hiltl restaurant.
4. Haus Hiltl Challenges:
Although there was a lot of difficulty in running this restaurant in the initial phase. Then things started changing. In 1951, the present form of the restaurant emerged. In fact, in 1951, the daughter-in-law of Ambroseus came to Delhi as the government representative of Switzerland for the World Vegetarian Congress. Here he liked the taste of Hindustani Khans so much that he went back to his country and started making Indian dishes for his own dinner.
She had taken a large amount of coriander, turmeric, cumin, and cardamom from Delhi. Not only this, but she also learned how to cook many dishes from here and taught the cooks of her restaurant to make them too. And soon, a crowd of Indians started gathering in his restaurant. Even when Morarji Desai, the former Prime Minister of India went to Switzerland, he also enjoyed the best Indian mines here. And when Swiss Airlines started serving vegetarian food to its passengers with the help of Haus Hiltl, this restaurant became famous worldwide.
There were a lot of wooded areas around the time when Haus Hiltl was established. But as the population grew, development continued, the Haus Hiltl expanded further. By the 1960s, there had been a lot of change in the way people eat and taste. In the vegetarian mines, people started doing different types of experiences. In such a situation, the challenge was to attract and retain the young generation. So in 1973, Heinz Hiltl launched a new concept in the restaurant. Its name was Hiltl Veggie. Under which several types of salad bars, take-away counters, and juice counters were opened in the restaurant. This was a new change for Zurich.
5. Haus Hiltl Future Plans:
The specialty of Haus Hiltl is that there are new experiences here. Rolf says that the most interesting thing is that all the people who come to the restaurant are both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, but in this restaurant, they get the flavor of vegetables which is in non-vegetarian dishes. In 2015, The Hiltl Academy opened on the fifth floor of Haus Hiltl itself. Here vegetarian chefs and professional chefs learn how to cook vegetarian dishes. A course here is based on the Indian recipe of Margherita. Rolf himself has written a lot of cooking books. Now in places like New York and Los Angeles, there are also plans to open flagship restaurants.
