George Bar & Grill – feasting with food bloggers

Recently, local.ch extended invitations for a meet-and-eat of food bloggers at George Bar & Grill in Zurich, Switzerland. Since a good meal also falls into the “lifestyle” category, the renowned food bloggers from Harry’s Ding and Das Filet were joined by a few fashion and lifestyle bloggers. Personally, having up to that point only socialized at similar events for travel bloggers, I was stoked about the new mix…

We started the evening at Max Chocolatier where it went down in a richly exotic fashion and where it was all about one thing: how to drive lovers of fine chocolate absolutely nuts… But before we got to the main act of the evening, I had a chance to share 14 tips for food photography, that at best will probably just be enough to make foodporn snapshots turn out better.

After that, we charged through some fairly stiff wind and weather into the elegant George Bar & Grill Restaurant, professionally ranked an exultant third in the “Trend” category by Best of Swiss Gastro Award 2016.

For the opening round of drinks, our blogger group was arrayed at bar tables next to the powerfully-voiced female pianist. They practically let us mix our own “Winter George” made of Cointreau, Amaretto, orange juice and a dusting of nutmeg — stylishly, from George Bar & Grill’s house hip flasks…

The interlude at the bar would be the starting gun for what would turn into a veritable photo orgy. When in the company of peers, bloggers will apparently mutate into camera freaks: all evening long, we shot, hash-tagged, instagrammed and snapchatted like there was no tomorrow.

Katja in fact always feels a little uneasy when I haul out my piece of Canon 7D camera furniture to photograph our food (at least I never use flash!). But this evening, there were no such scruples! Some of the bloggers even hefted flood lights to achieve slick lighting effects. For want of better, we also lit things up for each other with our smartphones.

Pure insanity ;-)

Next, we took our places at a large dining table set slightly apart. A large glass pane screened us off acoustically from the rest of the establishment but without isolating us and still letting the other guests view the peculiar table etiquette of food and life style bloggers… For as soon as the mouth-watering grilled food is on the table, do food bloggers reach for knife and fork? No – its smartphones and floodlights first. It’s all for the sake of passion and glory, because only a tiny number of bloggers actually manage to make a living from their blog.

Fitting photos of the evening were also published by Christina of New in Zurich, by Sylwina of her eponymous blog and by Darya of Swissglam.

In sum, it was interesting to hobnob with bloggers who have other style orientations. We had previously heard from other bloggers that it is much more relaxed in travel blogger circles than among the highly competitive (and jealous) lifestyle and fashion bloggers. But our evening was relaxing, and in the future we’re also going to holster a flood light. Just in case the ambient light is overly dim.

Address:
George Grill & Bar
Sihlstrasse 50
8001 Zürich
+41 44 444 50 60

Blogger outreach by local.ch

The invite for the event came from local.ch (where I work as Head of Product). Since some 30% of search queries on their information portal relate to restaurants, the subject is highly relevant for them. After all, with Localina they offer their own restaurant booking platform and with Local Flavors they also publish their own foodie magazine. The related Instagram account is instagram.com/localgastro.

The event was perfectly organized thanks to the combined efforts of Harry and Carrie of Harrysding.ch. And, our host Robin explained to us not only why the restaurant is fully booked every evening, he also showed us the fridge in which his restaurant’s “heart” is constantly aging…