At Bellevue Square, just a block and a half from the opera house, is the most celebrated of Zürich’s many sausage stands, the Sternen Grill (Star Grill).

They serve their sausages with ultra-sharp mustard, so be careful, otherwise you’ll feel like this cartoon character:

The beginning of a cartoon by Mike van Audenhove

The cartoon, which is displayed proudly on the front wall of the Sternen Grill, is by the American cartoonist Mike van Audenhove (1957-2009), who until his untimely death at age 52 did a full-page cartoon called “Zürich by Mike” every week in one of the local papers.

Eating at the Sternen Grill

The old Sternen Grill website featured tongue-in-cheek biographies (in German only, sorry) of the people who worked there, the “dream team” consisting “without exception only of the most skillful specialists of the worldwide grill scene.” One, from Bangladesh, claimed to have grilled the last hamburger that Elvis Presley ate before he died, with hot bacon sauce and four centimeters of peanut butter. Another, from Turkey, claimed to be a confirmed vegetarian.

Their current website does not include these biographies, at least I haven’t been able to find them.

Sternen Grill, Theaterstrasse 22, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland

My photos in this post are from 2010. I revised the text in 2018.