Piano bars, river bars and jazz in a shipyard: Zurich after dark

Zurich keeps its evenings in many rooms: the bar where Dada was born, hotel bars lined with bottles, bars in the sky above the lake, river baths that turn into bars at dusk, and clubs in old garages, cinemas and factories. An evening, with the places in our guide.

Zurich has a reputation for early nights, and it is only half true. Behind the banks and the boutiques, the city keeps a long tradition of evenings out, from the cabaret where an art movement began to bars in the sky, river baths that turn into bars at dusk and clubs in old garages and shipyards. Choose your rooms well and the night runs long.

Where Dada began

Begin at Spiegelgasse 1. Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings founded the Cabaret Voltaire here in 1916, and Dada was born in its rooms. Today it holds exhibitions in its vaulted cellar and soirées in the Historical Hall, with a bar there and an Artists’ Bar at the entrance; it is closed on Mondays.

The movement soon spread across town. Kaufleuten, on Pelikanplatz, drew artists a century ago and held the eighth and last official Dada soirée in Zurich on 9 April 1919; today it is a nightclub and cultural venue with a bar, a restaurant, a lounge and a programme of concerts, readings and talks.

The classic bars

The Kronenhalle, at Rämistrasse 4, has its own bar beside the restaurant, close to the Opera House and the Kunsthaus, with the house’s own art collection. On the Rennweg, the Widder Bar serves classic cocktails to live jazz, with a Library of Spirits of more than 1,000 bottles.

In the Niederdorf, the Splendid Piano Bar has served cocktails to live jazz and blues for almost 40 years, while Bar Le Philosophe, on the Nägelihof by the Grossmünster, pours wine and cocktails in a small French-style room with a courtyard. Before or after the opera, the Goethe Bar sits right beside the Opernhaus on the Sechseläutenplatz.

Bars with a view

For the city at your feet, go high. Clouds, on the 35th floor of the Prime Tower in Zurich West, is the city’s highest bar in Zurich Tourism’s words. In the centre, the Jules Verne Panorama Bar shares the Urania tower with the observatory and looks over the rooftops to the lake and the Alps; take the lift in the Brasserie Lipp.

Kaufleuten held the eighth and last official Dada soirée in Zurich.

On the water

In summer the evening moves to the river. On Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday the women’s baths at Stadthausquai become the Barfussbar, open to everyone, shoes left at the door. A few steps away, the Bauschänzli beer garden fills its bastion island under the chestnut trees from April to September.

Clubs and live music

Later, head west. Moods, one of Europe’s leading jazz clubs, plays almost every night in the old Escher Wyss boiler shop where ships were once built, with parties after the concerts on Friday and Saturday. Helsinki, in an old garage by Hardbrücke, keeps Sunday nights for country and soul, and Kasheme, on Neugasse, is a listening bar with its own record shop.

The Plaza Klub dances on a multicoloured 1980s disco floor in the building where Zurich’s first cinema opened in 1924. And on the lakeshore at Wollishofen, the Rote Fabrik, a silk mill until 1940, hosts concerts, theatre and film; Nirvana and Manu Chao played here before they were famous in Europe.

Our advice: begin with an apéritif in the Old Town, keep the view bars for sunset, and book the hotel bars on busy weekends. Check each club’s programme before you set out, since many open only on concert nights.