Restaurant Zentraleck, Zentraleck, Zurich

A quiet reopening ? A restaurant changing hands silently ? Quite surprising but that’s exactly what happend at the Zentraleck. The old chef moved on and now it’s run by a guy who’s originally from Puglia (Apulien). I called ahead to find out what the menu’s about and I was literally told in swiss german with an italian accent “a little italy, a little mediterranean and a little gourmet”.
We show up for a lunch on a very hot day and are glad to get a table outside, but in the shade. Luckily they also offer a la carte for lunch, so I study the menu. Now the guy is obviously very proud that he’s from Italy, but if the menu is just in italian it makes it somewhat harder to understand the culinary intention of each and every dish. On the other hand it might be an interesting ice-breaker on a date with lots of awkward silence if one of the two diners is fluent. I wasn’t on a date and nor was my co-diner the silent type so I’ll have to verify that theory another day.
I ordered a mille-feuille of pane casau (crispy, sardish bread) with a veal tartare. The plating clearly sent the message that this isn’t just your ordinary italian place, they’re playing for gastronomic recognition. The plate itself, was slightly imbalanced with too much vast space. I liked the italian twist on the mille-feuille, alternating meat with pane casau and the small drops of sauce. The main course was a filet of beef served with potato foam and vegetables. Here probably the chef wanted a tad too much. For an espuma the Espuma di patate was simply too heavy. Dessert was a nice chocolate surprise, from the Caredda italian pastry shop, with which the new Zentraleck guys are affiliated with. Hot day, dense chocolate, cool berries sounds like a winner.
From the newly opened restaurants this year, the Zentraleck has been the best one so far. Even if you discount the glitches I called out, there’s tons of potential. I am happy to see another real restaurant open with culinary ambition and not yet some other corporate feeding venue. I see this place scoring around 13 points in the Gault Millau 2013, but time will tell.