The Baur Au Lac Is Zurich’s Time-Honored Icon

Most cities are known for something. In Los Angeles, it’s movies. In Paris, it’s fashion. And in Zurich, Switzerland’s gleaming metro set along a lake dotted with white swans and shiny bikes, it’s money. To be more specific, it’s “serious money,” as a Swiss colleague insisted during our afternoon tea. In Zurich, the serious money of the world is deployed, managed, and grown for generations to come. Accordingly, the people that hold the serious money of the world need somewhere to stay when a trip to Zurich is called for. As another Swiss businessman told me: “There’s only one place you stay when you come to visit your money in Switzerland. It’s the Baur au Lac.”

Far more than a hotel, the Baur au Lac is, without doubt, the home of the global elite when they come to Zurich. Opened in 1844, it’s hosted aristocrats, billionaires, heads of state, emperors, barons, princesses and more, from German Emperor Wilhelm II to Elton John, for nearly two centuries. One can feel the sincere warmth but knowing discretion the Baur au Lac holds. It reminds me a bit of the Hotel Bel Air and Hotel Washington, two stunning properties in the US that I love which delicately host Hollywood’s A-list and political heavyweights, respectively. The Bel Air Hotel has its copious gardens and deep al-fresco booths at its Wolfgang Puck restaurant, for instance, while the Baur au Lac has its cozy Le Hall, considered “Zurich’s living room” for dealmaking over tea sandwiches. Both the Hotel Bel Air and Hotel Washington match the Baur au Lac’s care for their caliber of guests, but nothing in the US can compete with the deep, meticulously stewarded history of a place like the Baur au Lac.

A remarkable attribute of the Baur au Lac, seemingly unmatched, is its long-held ownership spanning more than 175 years. It’s now one of the world’s oldest 5-star hotels owned by the same founding family, ran today by the seventh and sixth generation, Marguita and Andrea Kracht, a powerful daughter and dad duo. Since officially joining in 2022, Marguita ushered in several novel updates to the hotel, leveraging her international hospitality and marketing experience. A few of her touches thus far include modernizing the property’s lion symbol, reducing the hotel’s CO2 emissions by 48.5 percent, and guiding the renovations of the forecourt, entrance and reception area. The result of Marguita’s influence is a hotel still old and cherished, but fresh and now. I spotted a bucolic painting by Nicolas Party, a contemporary Swiss visual artist, behind the check in counter while the front desk attendant fetched the silver key for my room from a cabinet of dangling ones. The now can be with the old, beautifully.

This is the other great attribute of the Baur au Lac: it’s all beauty, inside and out. The property sits majestically on Lake Zurich, just a stroll away from Zurich’s stunning shopping strip, the Bahnhofstrasse. The Pavilion, the large outdoor restaurant known to be quite the summer scene of the hotel, is nearly an entire park in itself and will debut this summer with a new, even more captivating concept. In my room, a vessel of flowers that must have weighed 10 pounds greeted me. Even the macarons by Executive Chef Pâtissier David Potier were particularly elegant, dainty. I never admired macarons so much. (They were also delicious.)

There’s also beauty in print via Views, the 130+ page glossy magazine published annually by the Baur au Lac. The 2024 issue pairs the photography of globally noted photographer James Balog with one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals pertaining to climate. Many hotels have magazines or booklets showcasing their collection of properties, but Views reads far more like an authority on life with ads from Asprey to Bulgari.

In a way, the Baur au Lac is an authority of Zurich. It’s the city’s iconic place to meet, stay, and do serious business. It’s the home dignitaries to royals return to. And it’s setting the elegant tone of reinvention without cloaking nearly two centuries of grandeur. I have to agree with the Swiss businessman: there’s only one place to stay in Switzerland, and that’s the Baur au Lac.