Im Viadukt, Zurich

 

Everyone knows that the Swiss famously love their cheese and chocolate – But they also love making old things new again.

Enter Zurich’s Im Viadukt, a former 1894 railroad embankment built of stone mason arches that’s been converted into a series of shops, galleries, and boutiques capped by a fantastic food market. The urban renewal project is located in scruffy Kreis 5, part of the evolving Zurich West area near iconic Freitag Tower. The Viadukt’s markhalle, which opened in September 2010, is the highlight and a food forager’s paradise, offering obscure, locally made artisanal Swiss products like smoked barley whiskey from Elfingen, raw-milk butter, and Ticinese popcorn—often doled out in generous free samples.