Parkhuus, at the Park Hyatt Zurich, delivers culinary compositions from its open kitchen that reflect Swiss authenticity and sustainable regional foods. The restaurant’s approach to casual luxury puts the emphasis on taste, with roots in home cooking. And it’s addressing a seemingly universal challenge in the fast-moving world of hotel F&B – how to keep its Gen Y and Z employees engaged at at their best.
Parkhuus is one of six restaurants featured in HOTELS September issue that’s interpreting the casual-luxury trend in its own unique way. Take a look at other restaurants we’ve featured: Bleu Blanc at the Renaissance Hotel Downtown Dubai, Conrad New York Downtown’s Atrio, and the Apparatus Room in the Detroit Foundation Hotel.
Stay tuned next week for Scarlett Wine Bar & Restaurant, serving French-inspired cuisine from its perch atop the Pullman Bangkok Hotel G.
Parkhuus, Park Hyatt Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
Chef: Frank Widmer, executive chef
Cuisine: Seasonal Swiss
Signature dish: Salmon, farmed in the Lostallo in Switzerland’s Grisons canton, oven-roasted on applewood, with mashed potatoes, nut butter, sugar peas, nasturtium and apple.
Average check: US$107 (dinner)
Opened: 2004
Local market positioning: The kitchen’s philosophy is centered around sustainable products and their origins in forest, field, and rivers or lake. We serve meals with a story to tell and to enjoy. Guests experience a feeling of nature and Swiss authenticity. In the Parkhuus Restaurant, sustainability, respect and regionality are the key pillars of our daily work. Each culinary composition reveals a deep respect for the origins and the story behind the products that are finely selected from sustainable sources and combined to create a unique experience of tastes from forest, field and lake, offering sensations of flavors steeped in Swiss history. Our open kitchen is still unique in Zurich.
What’s been tweaked since opening: We change the menu every six weeks for dinner and every three weeks for lunch.
Most successful promotion: Our Masters of Food & Wine events, a series of enriching culinary and beverage experiences hosted at Park Hyatt locations worldwide, have been our most successful promotion. Guests engage in one-of-a-kind, interactive experiences featuring interesting food and beverage offerings that are hosted by skilled Park Hyatt chefs, mixologists and sommeliers.
Biggest operational challenges: Our biggest challenge is the shift in the mentality of our workforce and their request of more of a work-life balance, for example, working with Generations Y and Z. So we offer duty rosters well in advance, as well as personal mentors-coaches, and extensive training and development opportunities. As well, our biggest challenges are business performance and expense forecasting, and we use zero-based manning and are training the senior team members on how to manage those costs.
Source of inspiration: Our regional products and our small provider companies inspire our chefs to create unique meals with an emphasis on taste. It is important is to have a great team. Success is only guaranteed if there is teamwork, which is motivated through spirit and initiative to achieve a unique concept. We also find inspiration through childhood memories. Our chefs create menus that used to be cooked by their mothers, and our chefs interpret them in a new version that is more modern and sophisticated.
Where casual luxury is going: There will be a shift toward experiences that can be personalized with food and drinks that embody product transparency, sourceability and environmental responsibility, with relaxed dress codes and a focus on comfort. Food and drink presentation will need to be appealing to the eye as well as providing excellent, authentic taste.
Advice for hoteliers: Hoteliers need to become less generic in concepts and operation, as well as become more team member-focused.