The Home Hotel Zurich is a winner for people looking for a modern hotel that still has character and a local vibe in the middle of Zurich, Switzerland.
Located in the Sihlcity shopping and entertainment district in Zurich, Switzerland, you can walk outside the hotel and be shopping within five minutes. Sihlcity is built on the ground of a historic paper mill and is named after its close location to the Sihl River for easy access to summer swimming.
From the dozens of plants and suede-like chairs in the restaurant to the Swiss accents, you’ll have zero doubt as to your location or feeling comfy. In the summer, it’s near the canals for swimming. In the winter, it’s a perfect place to stay after or before long flight if on a trip to do winter sports in the alps.
Pros
- Huge rooms with Dada decor. The bed was super comfy.
- Location. I was back to the main train station in Zurich within 15 minutes. I was meeting a second tour group there for the second leg of my trip.
- The food is fantastic from the breakfast buffet to the LouLou Restaurant.
Cons
- You will have to walk to the fitness center versus one that is within the hotel.
- There’s only one restaurant in the hotel itself besides the hotel bar, so you have limited choices of dining. However, you’re within walking distance of other options.
A Homey Experience at The Home
On a trip that was all about going to small mountain towns, staying at The Home Zurich was refreshing. It was a nice break to arrive at a hotel lobby where you could count the number of plants per square meter. It was equally homey with dozens of plants as it was artistic with Dada style accents and furniture, the anti-art style born in Zurich as war protest post WWI.
The quirky artwork replete with blurred-faced statues and the eclectic furniture reminded me of Las Vegas, where I grew up. The barrel chairs in the restaurant are emerald green velvet. There’s a funky sofa in my room of the blue velvet variety. The bed was super comfy and the fitness center was elaborate.
Transportation was simple. I arrived at The Home on the number 13 tram from the Zurich train station. My tour group had lunch in the LouLou restaurant while we waited for our rooms to be ready. My choice was perch with saffron fennel and purple potatoes, but I should have ordered the entree to split with another person as the serving sizes are quite large. I didn’t get to try the bar food, but the bar itself is pretty cool and serves creme brûlée in a comfy living room environment.
My favorite item on the free breakfast buffet was the crunchy chocolate hazelnut spread that essentially tasted like fresh nutella. There’s a machine, as in most hotels I stayed in, to quickly get a cappuccino, latte, espresso shot or drip coffee. I really appreciated that there were paper cups next to the machine. Every day in Switzerland I’d grab coffee to go post breakfast.
The cheese on the buffet was wonderful, but I had so much cheese everyday I was in Switzerland that it was an impossible standard to beat to have impressive cheese at that point.
Specifications
- Room Types: Comfort, Superior, Triple Room, Junior Suite, and Superior Suite. .
- Address: Kalandergasse 1, 8045 Zürich, Switzerland.
- Distance to Train Station: 15 minutes by tram. Tram 13 drops off in front of the hotel.
- Parking: Self parking is available at the Sihlcity complex.
- Pet Policy: Pets allowed with a fee with food and water bowls provided. Double check before your stay that your pet’s breed and size are allowed in case policies change.
- Accessibility: Elevators are large and modern. Ask for a Superior accessible room if you need in-room accommodations.
The Sihl City Fitnesspark
The Sihl City Fitnesspark is massive and available to hotel guests, but you do have to walk a few minutes outside to get there and it does require a wristband. Don’t lose the wristband! You’ll get billed $100 to replace it plus it opens a locker for you and gets you into the gym. Hold onto the wristband as if it were your house keys.
Once inside the gym, you’ll notice a lot of Swissmade exercise machines. Some you’ll recognize from gyms in other parts of the world. There are machines that remember your settings if you sign up for an annual membership and automatically adjust. For tourists, you’ll use the other machines.
I don’t read German, so I sat there and tried to use these machines until someone told me not to in a different language. They won’t work if you don’t have the proper membership.
I highly recommend asking the front desk which machines to avoid that aren’t for tourists. A machine I really enjoyed that was available for hotel guests was a mini suspension bridge with exercises that helped me prepare for the real pedestrian suspension bridge I’d cross the next day.
What I wish I had time to experience was their spacious sauna located on a separate floor. I brought my own towel from the hotel.
In My Expert Opinion
I stayed at The Home after four nights traveling around Switzerland as part of a hosted media stay on a press trip before starting another five night press trip in other regions. It’s relatively centrally located and an easy train to the Zurich train station where you catch trains to the airport and other regions of Switzerland.
Each day we would go to a new region and did what felt like a zillion things daily. The hotel lived up to what I wanted for relaxing in between trips. My favorite parts of the hotel were the modern decor, and the breakfast with fantastic with a lot of variety of cheeses, granola, deli meat, etc.
Home Hotel Zurich
Often modern hotels can miss the mark on being a cultural experience, however the interior design of the hotel being based on a Swiss artform and serving local, fresh food, I didn’t feel that way. If I really tried to find a problem, it would just be walking to the fitness center rather than having one inside the hotel. And that’s not a problem because the fitness center was an incredible experience worth a 5-minute walk.
