Zurich

There’s more to Switzerlands’s largest city than financial institutions and chocolate. As Maria Teresa Mancuso discovers, it’s also the place to go for great coffee

The city of Zurich is consistently voted as one of the world’s best places to live, and one of the reasons for this may be its vibrant coffee scene. Among the traditional coffee houses serving the classic caffè crema and countless branches of Starbucks, you can find a growing number of next-generation cafés bringing specialty coffee to local and visiting Kaffeeliebhaber (coffee lovers).

To experience the best coffee, you need to know your way around. To help you out, here are some of the city’s top cafés that will not only sell you a great cup of coffee but will also guide you through the scene’s history.

SPORT BAR  

Despite its name, there’s no televised sport to be found here, just great coffee. Sport Bar (Kanzleistrasse 76; sport-bar.ch) is one of the founder members of Zurich’s coffee scene: it was one of the city’s first cafés to serve specialty coffee, the first to join the SCAE (in 2009) and was once home to influential Swiss barista Shem Leupin.

On entering, you may mistake it for a hip local bar rather than a café, but head over to the counter and you’ll see the classic La Marzocco, ready at the touch of the barista’s hand to extract a perfect Stoll espresso.

The success of Sport Bar and a passion for specialty coffee have led manager Kaspar Fenkart to open a second location on Langstrasse. ACID has a unique name and concept, and serves coffee roasted locally by the Sanchez brothers at Miró Coffee.

LA STANZA