Hiltl Restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant in Switzerland. The restaurant, founded in 1898, is the oldest continuously open vegetarian restaurant in the world. The restaurant is in Sihlstrasse in Zurich.

Now, an all-vegetarian restaurant in Zurich doesn’t seem like a big deal today, but back in 1898, when the Vegetarierheim and Abstinence-Cafe came up, such a place was unthinkable. In a country where meat features predominantly across all meals, vegetarian food was both uncommon and mocked at.

In 1898 some German immigrants founded the “Vegetaria AG.” A year later the “Vegetarierheim and abstinence Café” opened at its present location at Sihlstrasse in Zurich. The restaurant was not going well: Vegetarians were then denounced as “grazers”.

Around that time, a Bavarian tailor named Ambrosius Hiltl settled in Zurich. Soon after he was diagnosed with rheumatism and was advised a plant-based diet as a cure. Hiltl began to dine at the Abstinence-Cafe and, to his surprise, his health improved tremendously. When the opportunity arose, he joined the restaurant as a manager. When he took over as the Managing Director and revamped the place as a vegetarian restaurant. The restaurant began to run better, the daily turnover rose to 35 francs, and in 1904 Ambrosius Hiltl married Martha Gneupel and together they took over Vegetaria AG.

The restaurant’s food received a big thumbs up when Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) approached them in 2009 to provide Indian meals across their flights. Till date, Hiltl has catered all vegetarian meals served on intercontinental flights departing from Switzerland.

According to Wikipedia; cntraveller