Wurst und Moritz, Escher-Wyss-Platz, Zürich

A new place opened near the Escher-Wyss-Platz, the Wurst & Moritz Currywurst place. I think it’s fair to call out that the place is very active on Facebook and even prides itself on being the first Social Media Restaurant. Not sure if crowd-sourced community cooking is the way to go, but certainly it’s a good marketing ploy. My fellow digital immigrants seem to like it and I’m assuming it marks a small trend, since this is the third Currywurst place in Zurich I know (Curry One and Art of Körry). I also got an invite to a pre-opening and a press kit, which made me feel important. But unlike others I can’t show up to these events anonymously, hence I waited until March 1st 2012. The small, self-service shop sports a counter which takes your order and about 20 or so seats are at your disposal. I order the regular Currywurst with fries, a pair of Merguez sausages and a serving of grilled vegetables. The place isn’t running like a well oiled machine and kitchen & counter are still somewhat off their stride, but I’m willing to chalk this down to opening day. I dig into the regular Curry wurst called Seriöser Moritz (the whole place has a pretty cohesive Corporate Identity playing off the Max & Moritz story from Willhelm Busch). The fries weren’t exciting and the sausage was already cold on the inside, something I’m not willing to put down to opening day. On the upside the sauce was pretty decent, apparently it was created by a “star chef”, I’d be curious to know who. It had a lovely balance of acid, sweetness, fruit and curry. I found out that there’s actually a choice of sauces, I wasn’t asked so I’m assuming I had the the classic one. There was no heat, so if you like it hot make sure you order accordingly. The Merguez had more heat but I would have preferred more sear on the sausage. The grilled vegetables were underseasoned and also on the cold side, but the worst thing was that it was doused in a horrible aceto balsamico reduction. Really, who comes up with these ideas ? A dash of olive oil and some sea salt, and people will crave nicely grilled vegetables all day long. The funny thing is, if even a grill stand starts using balsamic vinegar reduction it clearly shows that this is a trend long past its prime. I ended up paying 28 CHF (also got a tasty Thomas Henry ginger ale). The key thing is that the sauce is pretty good and making good fries and warm sausages is an easy fix.