Evening Standard - ES Magazine
ALPINE FRESH
Lotte Jeffs is whisked off her feet by Zurich
If Zurich was a person, he’d have been the coolest kid in college — the one who got the grades and the girls. Now he’s all grown-up, he wears Jil Sander suits and skinny knitted ties, swims one mile every morning and hosts the kind of fabulously debauched dinner parties you’re never invited to. The city is one big smug Instagram picture just waiting to happen, but thanks to a peculiarly Swiss sense of humour behind its patina of perfection, you can’t help but have a blast.
Switzerland’s most populated city constantly tops ‘quality of living’ surveys and has been voted the best place to live in the entire universe (though this year it was pipped to the post by Vienna). Designophile’s bible Monocle treats the city as Playboy might Kate Upton — a place to be pored over in obsessive detail. But it’s easy to see why Zurich is such a pin-up — there are mountains, a lake, the freshest air, the cleanest streets, an impeccably run transport system and beautiful Swiss people. Swooon!
I stayed at The Dolder Grand, which from the outside looks like a gothic Disney palace, but inside, thanks to a recent facelift by Foster + Partners, is more Tate Modern than Maleficent’s castle. There are lots of impressive things to say about this über-sleek hotel but the thing to put in capitals is THE ART. I wasn’t kidding when I said The Dolder was like the Tate — there are 124 original pieces by 90 artists dotted throughout. Stretching above the reception desk is Andy Warhol’s brilliant Big Retrospective Painting, there’s a Henry Moore sculpture on the terrace, a Dalí in the restaurant and works by everyone from Pissarro to Keith Haring to be discovered.
The hotel has hosted Prince William, Hillary Clinton and David Cameron in the past, and someone of note was certainly in residence during my stay: I spied a bellboy walking a tiny Pomeranian through the hotel’s endless glass-walled corridors and only someone truly fabulous could own such a pooch. Sadly, it wasn’t Leonardo DiCaprio, who I’m told also stays here when he’s in town. If only our visits had coincided — we could have recreated a Titanic scene in the outdoor Jacuzzi (views of the lake and snow-topped Alps).
It would be easy to never leave the Lotte Jeffs f lew to Zurich from London City with British Airways ( ba.com). Double rooms at The Dolder Grand start from £407 (thedoldergrand. com). The Dolder Grand is a member of Design Hotels (designhotels.com) hotel, particularly once you’ve found the spa, with its 25m pool and Japanese sunaburo baths full of heated pebbles, into which you sink and fall instantly, deeply asleep. But I dragged myself away and hopped on the funicular, which conveniently starts its descent into town from outside The Dolder Grand. The city is rich in art history, and the Dada movement originated here. Around the same time, during the First World War, Lenin was in exile in Zurich. His house is now commemorated with a plaque and easily stumbled upon when strolling through the cobbled streets. There’s currently an exhibition about the relationship between the Absurdist art movement and the Communist leader at Cabaret Voltaire, a club that was the birthplace of Dada and is now a cool café bar and event space.
Continuing on an arty theme, I visited Fraumünster Abbey to marvel