Restaurant Uto, Zweierstrasse, Zurich

There’s a restaurant I’ve been driving past for a couple of years and it always seems to be closed. It must have been my lucky day, when I waltz past it at lunchtime and the place is open for business. Uto prides itself in being a family restaurant, I’m not quite sure what this means but I enter. Now I’ve endured boy scouts, the army, years of a bachelor pad but even I find the place a bit grimy. There’s only 2 other patrons sitting here and the place is obviously stuck back in the late 70ties. There’s a lone and somewhat aged italian gentleman running the whole operations. There’s no written menu and there’s different assortments of pasta available.

The gentlemen takes my order and returns with a salad. Surprisingly good, even with a bit of fennel mixed in, this is clearly someone who takes pride in cooking. The vegetable soup was indifferent in taste, but filling. The ravioli where of decent quality, but not top-notch. I thought the dough was too thick. How do you judge such a restaurant ? Difficult, it has all the aspects a special place needs to have, owner run, small menu, somewhat peculiar. On the other hand, I’m not sure the place can deal with more then 3-4 people at a time, and it could be cleaner. But if you’re looking for a somewhat different experience for lunch, this is your place, also price is fairly decent and the menu salad deserves a special mention.