Basel Eats
WHERE CAN I FIND INFORMATION ABOUT BASEL RESTAURANTS?
There is a very good site providing information in English or German about restaurants in Basel. The site organizes restaurants by location or by type of cuisine and is updated frequently. Visit Basel Restaurants at: www.basel-restaurants.ch
You can also find recent restaurant and food recommendations on this website under Beyond Fondue.
Too tired to go out? You can have food from some of Basel’s best restaurants delivered right to your door.
Cuisine Express uses bike messengers to deliver hot meals for a 5 CHF fee per restaurant (minimum order of 25 CHF required).
CuisineExpress GmbH, 061 271 15 15, www.cuisinexpress.ch
HOW MUCH SHOULD I EXPECT TO PAY IN A SWISS RESTAURANT?
Too much. Prices for eating out in Switzerland are extremely high. An average pasta entree is 24 CHF. If meat is anywhere near your plate it routinely costs over 30CH and up to 50 or even 60 CHF even for most mid-scale restaurants. Consider hopping over the border to France or Germany for a less expensive meal. Lorrach, Germany, in particular has a bevy of lower-cost restaurants.
HOW DOES TIPPING WORK IN SWITZERLAND?
Tipping in Basel is confusing . You’ll get all kinds of feedback from all kinds of people. In the end you need to do what feels right to you, but here’s what we know: the 20% American tip is not required. Swiss waiters receive much better base pay than Americans. In fact many Swiss will tell you not to tip – it is included. However, others indicate that it is polite to round up the bill (eg, if it is 167 CHF, leave 170 CHF) while still others suggest that the best policy is to leave enough for the person to buy a beer – around 5 or 6 CHF. This is the tipping policy to which we subscribe at the moment and I think it is a nice happy medium. We still don’t have a definitive answer on what to tip at very high-end restaurants, so anyone who has info on this, please let us know.
Tipping in other service industries such as hair salons is also much more modest. I actually had a hairdresser refuse a 20CHF tip (I had a cut and full highlights so the bill was over 100CHF), saying that “if a customer is satisfied she might leave a small token of 5 or 10 CHF.” (In the US, I would have tipped even more for such honesty. Here I gave her a 10 and recommend her constantly – see “Hair We Go” in Getting Pretty
Tipping in taxis is another unknown. At the moment I tip 1 or 2 CHFs. Input is welcome.