Rive Gauche, Talstrasse, Zurich

Rive Gauche is the smaller of the two dining establishment at the renowned Baur au Lac. It’ half empty on a Friday night and the clientele is what I’d call international, I’m assuming that since this is a prime business location, weekend nights are rather slow. The menu also has an international feel, sporting english, french, german and italian names all mixed together, with every dish being called something like “Tuned Salmon” or similar.

I start with Sotto Piano, a pea risotto with veal sweetbreads. Risotto was good, I liked the pea flavour but wasn’t fond of the sweetbreads, they were simply cut too small, hence you got a bit of crunch but not much taste. Next up was a dish called Sparagratin, which was advertised as an asparagus tip gratin with fresh morels. What I got was white asparagus with morel sauce. I was slightly disappointed, since I exepected something different. The waiter made a flippant remark that there were tips at the very end of the asparagus… Really ? As a diner you need to be able to rely on what’s written in the menu, this isn’t Japan where a plastic version of every dish is available for you to look at. Main dish was a veal chop named El Ternero. I would have liked a better sear and some more color on it. The spinach which I ordered as a side a side was nice. The best thing of the meal was the rhubarb creme brulee, simply delicious save for the joghurt ice cream on the other side of the dish which was lacking taste.

Prices are pretty steep and I guess that’s part location, part Baur au Lac. But 65 CHF for a veal chop plus 9 CHF for a side of spinach makes this an expensive place to dine. Quite frankly, you’ll get better value for money elsewhere, here you invite to impress someone.