Out in Zurich: Vertigo

We went out this weekend to celebrate the birthday of one of Jace's workmates. The party was held at a place called Vertigo on Niederdorfstrasse. Vertigo is a club and bar, but it is also a restaurant with a unique dining experience, because instead of just sitting down to eat your dinner, you lounge. And by lounge, I mean you laydown to eat, a la Greek and Roman times, minus the togas. (But word is they host toga parties regularly as well!). I swear this place was on the Samantha Brown Zurich episode, but I can't find it - can someone concur?)

Jace before the party.

Vertigo, restaurant and lounge.

Since we don't get out too often - or at least I don't ;) - we arrived fasionably early (it's all the rage, I tell ya, go ahead and copy us...) and got some great shots of the venue and of eachother all dressed for the occassion. And yes, this is one of the few times you will see me with eyeliner, so soak it up. ;)
Vertigo's interior deco highlights included a spiral ramp or staircase to the upstairs area where white pleather lounge seats with tray tables for drinks await you. The whole place is bathed in pink light in the early evening and once the place turns into a club around 11 pm the white walls are aglow with lasers and computer graphics.

Here are the seats where we lounged before having our dinner served to us. At times it felt a bit weird because we thought we were paying heaps for your basic TV dinners, but after the first course arrived, we knew we were in the land of itty-bitty portion gourmet.

The appetizer was delish. A deviled egg with caviar. I had to put this in my mouth all at one time so as to spare the disaster of caviars spilling all over my lounge area... mission accomplished. It was good... but tiny and left us wanting more.


The second entree was a really nice seared tuna... too bad our lounge mate, Rich, was not a fan and I had to polish off his helping and mine. Pity.

This was about the point where I spilled the wasabi jelly (err... I mean, panna cotta, silly me!) all over my top and swore never to eat laying down again - and when everyone else us was talking about sneaking out and getting a kabab. Not a good sign...but we had a few more courses to go... including an interesting leek soup with curry foam and the highlight...


(By this time the lights were SUPER PINK, see below, so the main meal needed a flash photo... sorry...)... the highlight was the veal with creamy mushrooms, potato cheese gratin and roasted cherry tomatoes. Honestly, I would have been ecstatic with a big portion of this alone, but it was a great cap to an interesting dining experience.


The rest of the evening was spent people watching, chatting, and chilling on the lounge. Cake was served, people danced and some of us came home at hours reserved for breakfast. ;) Happy Birthday, Jake! Thanks again for the invite and to those that organized a great night out in Zurich.

If you want to try lounge foods at Vertigo, book ahead. I hear the place is quite hard to get into with a reservation and the lines for the club after 11 pm are long.