San Marco - Caffe Florian
Obsolescence
Well, not quite. It looks as though the smoking ban in Zürich's bars, restaurants and cafes may come into effect in May 2010, but I'm not holding my breath. Well I am, most of the time actually.
Bread, olives and red wine
On a Friday, enjoying a simple meal in the Bodega Espanola in Zürich. Food of the gods - olives, bread, chorizo and red wine. I'm feeling happy and ready for the weekend.
(OK, eagle eyed readers might have spotted that there is no bread in this photo, or chorizo - just trust me....)
Juice Bar - Zürich - 8am
.... before I got my hands on the croissants....
Globus
The tabletop apparatus in Globus' cafe fascinates me. As anyone who visits this blog will already know.
Maybe it's because I'm in here most mornings and the familiarity and orderliness is comforting.
iPhone 3GS
The camera in the new iPhone 3GS has been talked about quite a bit. It takes a bit of getting used to but it can produce reasonable photos.
It's better in some situations than others, and it helps if you can hold it still. A bonus is the automatic GPS tagging that comes courtesy of the phone.
Zürich - Niederdorf
Nothing like a nice cup of tea, reading the morning paper.
Apologies for disappointing all the music fans on Sunday. Normal service will be resumed next week.. but what the hell, doesn't really go with the photo, but I already uploaded a piece specially for Peter, so here it is. I should stress that the dedication is based on the combination of Swedish text by a Swedish (thanks, Peter) Finnish poet, set by a Finnish composer, sung by a Norwegian soprano and has nothing to do with the lyrics.....
A famous voice from an old recording. Kirsten Flagstad was maybe past her best when it was recorded, and this sort of voice is rather unfashionable today, but there is no denying the glorious sweep in the climaxes of this short Runeberg setting by Sibelius. One can understand why she was such a renowned Brünnhilde.
Lilies - Glasses - Music
I wish I had a pound for every photographer who has a portfolio of lilies. These were shot in Globus cafe this morning over breakfast
As were these glasses, which you've seen before - maybe not the exact same ones..
And because it is Sunday, we have some mood music. I'm not a big jazz fan, but it's certainly the music if you want a bit of mood. Here is Nils Landgren, trombonist from Sweden with a distinctive vocal style.
Naive and Sentimental Breakfast
A couple of new grand cafes opened recently around Bellevue. With decor in the severe modern Swiss style, and located in the refurbished Neue Zürcher Zeitung building, I favour Brasserie Schiller. The other is Cafe Felix, a Viennese frothy stucco thing that I'm not so keen on.
This is Brasserie Schiller.
It has full restaurant facilities and a bar overlooking the street - seen in the photo above. I had breakfast here this morning and tried to get some decent photos but the lighting, perfect for ambience, is impossible for photography. Dark, with bright inlaid panels in the table tops and behind the bar.
Friendly staff, table service, linen, porcelain and silver. All very nice and not any more expensive than anywhere else. Peppermint tea from a cast iron teapot hiding in the shadows and a generous bowl of birchermuesli
Our Daily Bread
I tried a new cafe the other day. Le Pain Quotidien is quite a well know brand. Originating in the gourmet paradise of Belgium they now have locations around the world with the fare based on the founders favourite style of pain au levain.
Update: Non smoking throughout :)
I'm not sure how standardised the decor is, but I think all the cafes have a distinctive long communal table as a kind of centrepiece.
It's about three times as long as the bit shown - the idea is to get people to sit with strangers and strike up conversations. This cafe in Zurich is fairly new and I'm not sure how successful this idea is - need to go when it's busy and plonk myself down next to a complete stranger.
On this visit I skipped the extensive bread offerings and had a big unhealthy looking pain au chocolat instead. The coffee was excellent, the bun suitably fattening, and it all went down accompanied by some cheery, but unobtrusive baroque in the background
I'm very disparaging of global brands like Starbucks, so can I justify liking this smaller version? Well I think so. First of all Starbucks is just like MacDonalds. It provides familiarity but the coffee is crap and the ordering procedure is a joke. In addition they seem to shoulder all the little individual cafes out of the way. How I don't know. maybe it's just market forces. LPQ provides real quality food, has great table service as a cafe should, and generally does things right. For me anyway.