Pays de rêve

Zurich’s Kronenhalle restaurant is a living legend and 2024 marks the centenary of the likewise legendary Hulda Zumsteg (1890–1984) taking over as its landlady. For decades, the restaurant and adjacent bar have brought together the city’s bohemians and the bourgeoisie. Celebrities from the worlds of art, design, literature, and stage were among the regulars. Works by artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso are naturally part of its interior.

The revised new edition of this book, first published in 2019, explores the art at the Kronenhalle from various perspectives. Photographs offer atmospheric impressions of the brasserie, dining rooms, and bar, in daylight and at night. Literary texts turn paintings into protagonists. A complete catalogue and the story of its emergence and evolution place the collection in wider context and portray one of Zurich’s most traditional restaurants against the backdrop of an extraordinary family and business history.

The restaurant’s enduring success is founded in the unique way in which Hulda Zumsteg ran the place, and in the friendships that her son Gustav Zumsteg (1915–2005) brought to Zurich. His deep appreciation of art fueled the textile creations of Abraham AG, the silk trading firm he owned, and led to him assembling the fine collection that today turns every lunch, dinner, or drink at the Kronenhalle into an encounter with classical modernism in art.