As the largest city in Switzerland, Zürich spreads out beyond its historic center and seems intent on aggrandizing more of the outlying areas.   But, bisected by two rivers with graceful bridges, it is a city without the bustle and traffic of comparable European capitals. You never get the sense of its citizens being in a great rush, not least because they are assured that all transport leaves and arrives frequently and on time and because the Bahnhof train station is a small city in itself to spend time in.
    More than one survey ranks Zürich as a city with the best quality of life in the world, and like the rest of Switzerland it enjoys an astonishing unemployment rate of only 2.7% in a city of 380,000 people, 90% working in the service sector, especially financial, and there is now a large biotech and medical industry in the city. Salaries are higher than elsewhere in Europe, but the efficiency and productivity of the city’s laborers make for low non-wage labor costs.
    There has been an influx of non-Swiss, many settling along neighborhoods behind the main train station, while Langerstrasse is being built up with modern businesses and apartments, bars and cafés. According to Stadt Zürich, “The city's housing market is currently a source of tension, with many people looking for apartments and having trouble finding one in the City of Zürich.”
    Banking is the backbone of the city—stores of gold bullion lie underneath the streets—with tourism right behind, and the lay-out of the Old City along the banks of the Limnat River, which supplies 70 percent of the city’s drinking water, allows for good long walks from Platzspitz Park and the magnificent Bahnhoff (above) to the Quailbrücke bridge, where the river fans out into Lake Zürich.
    Along the west bank walkways you’ll find small artisan shops for gold and jewelry, local fashion designers and numerous cafés. Farther away from the river, Zürich expands into central shopping districts, especially along Bahnhofstrasse, where, if you care, all the international labels are to be found. The east bank of the river has a much younger vibe, the streets chockablock with restaurants, bars, marijuana shops, tattoo parlors, puppet and doll stores and cheaper clothing stores. On several blocks around town you’ll find Sprüngli chocolate and pastry shops and restaurants (left)—there are six in town, not counting at the train stations and airports—ideal for breakfast, a quick lunch or a breather.
    Churches occupy more blocks of Zürich, and a few are superb examples, including the Church of St. Peter, added onto over centuries in Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque styles, with the largest four-faced clock in Europe. After Catholics countered the Reformation, they went all out at St. Peter with an interior of flamboyant magnificence. More subdued but esthetically pleasing is the Romanesque Grossmünster (right), dating back to the 14th century, with its easily recognizable twin towers—Richard Wagner called them “salt and pepper shakers”—and intricately carved portal. Founded originally by Charlemagne, whose statue tops one tower, the church became the principal venue from which Huyldrich Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation in 1519, and there is a Reformation museum in the cloister.
    The Swiss National Museum, in two attached Gothic buildings, is extremely rich throughout, with important works from prehistory and Roman eras as well as the Carolingian and Renaissance periods. Art from Asia is the focus of the Rietberg Museum, but I was most impressed by the deep collection of modern art from the 19th century at the Kuntshaus, where you’ll find the largest number of Edvard Munch paintings outside of Norway, a splendid Monet water lily painting, a room of first-rate Chagalls and another of the romantic artist Henry Fuseli’s work, along with sculptures by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti.  For those with a taste for folklore, what is purported to be a crossbow of hero William Tell, who may never have existed, is on display at the Zeughauskeller restaurant on the  Bahnhofstrasse.
    Zürich has a thriving opera and ballet community, both performing at the gleaming white and gray Opernhaus, re-built in 1891 after a fire destroyed the original. Though it had fallen into decrepitude, it was restored to its current brilliance and has seen its share of youth protests for presenting too many German and Austrian works, probably evoking the disfavor of Mozart, Weber and Wagner, whose busts look down from the façade.

Next week I’ll report on Zürich’s best hotels and restaurants.

    Having run low on Cambodian snack bars, taco food trucks and vegetarian burger stands in Brooklyn to cover, the New York food media have turned their sights on Queens in search of the same kind of low-rent, small-menu eating places—all of which well deserve coverage—while largely ignoring more traditional, less trendy restaurants.  It’s hard to remember when the media have covered any Italian restaurants above the level of a pizzeria. Here’s one thus far ignored that deserves kudos galore.
      As an admirable labor of love, Senso Unico—which means “one way” in Italian with the additional meaning of doing things one way, the right way—is a corner osteria that exudes good feelings and hospitality from the moment you meet owner Laura Garofalo at the doorway. She’s the wife of chef Vincenzo Garofalo, whose long résumé includes time at notable restaurants like Antica Osteria Nonna Rosa and Il Pellicano in Italy, as well as a stint with the Maccioni family at Sirio in New York.  But his most enduring and endearing influence is the cooking of his grandmother.
    I love restaurants with a corner entrance, and Senso Unico’s is particularly inviting into a small, tidy, colorful room that opens onto the street in the Queens neighborhood of Sunnyside. A sign on the wall (left) in Italian reads "Enter as friends, leave as family."
    The food is alla famiglia, and housemade pastas are the focus, but the antipasti are not to be ignored. We began with cuoppo (below, right), a plate of lightly fried, crispy calamari, shrimp and mixed vegetables ($15). You can tell when a fresh, light oil is used at the right temperature.
    Vincenzo is obviously manic about the seasonal freshness of his ingredients, evident in the cherry and Roma tomato salad with Castelvetrano and Gaeta olives, pickled onion, basil and—surprise!—a splash of Campari ($11). A fine beef carpaccio had shreds of peppery arugula, shaved parmigiano and a tangy lemon dressing ($14), and it was so good to see an old Italian-American favorite, prosciutto and melon, served; the melon was succulently ripe and very sweet, the prosciutto draped in feather-weight slices, with a delightful, unexpected pistachio dressing ($12). Also dependent on absolute freshness was a carpaccio of sea scallops with capers, cantaloupe, pink peppercorn, a dash of fresh chili and lemon oil ($14).
    And so, on to the delicately wrought pastas at Senso Unico. Spaghetti with plum, cherry, and Roma tomato sauce was the essence of summer in a bowl ($24), as was the scialatielli alla Nerano, a fat form of spaghetti with green and yellow squash, basil butter and Parmigiano ($24).  Spaghetti with the small vongole clams in their shells seems a simple dish, but getting the balance of the white wine, tomatoes and salsa verde takes canny timing, and Vincenzo’s got his down pat ($17). The heartiest of the pastas I sampled was fusilli Avellinesi (left), made with sweet Italian sausage, tomato and a truffle sauce ($19). Portions are very generous.
    As requisite as the pastas are, there are some good secondi on the menu, including a tagliata cut of beef with mixed grilled vegetables ($36); a nicely crisp and juicy Cornish hen with roasted potatoes and brown butter-rosemary sauce ($26); an eggplant parmigiana ($15) so good that the old-fashioned dish deserves to be brought back to eminence; and branzino al cartoccio that was exceptionally succulent, steamed and baked with zucchini, yellow squash, cherry tomato and white wine sauce ($26).
    I didn’t really expect that Vincenzo would make his own desserts, but, of course, he does, and his classic tiramisù ($6)—another version with beer is merely odd— and flakey puff pastry napeolon (right) with amarena cherries ($9) are expertly made.  The refreshing dish called affogato (“drowned”), made by pouring chocolate sauce and espresso over vanilla ice cream ($6), is always going to be a simple pleasure, and I haven’t tasted a zabaglione with vin cotto, glazed berries and vanilla gelato ($8) this good in a very long while.
    For anyone who lives in those other boroughs or drives to Queens for  Mets game or US Open, Senso Unico is well worth the price of a subway or Uber fare or a drive. The people of Queens have already found out how lucky they are to have the Garofalos cooking for them.

Senso Unico is open for lunch Fri. & Sat., and for dinner Tues.-Sun.

FURTHER SIGNS OF THE
DECLINE OF CIVILIZATION

Bay Area-based biotech start-up Perfect Day, founded by vegan bioengineers Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, are now producing ice cream in the lab made from whey protein produced by genetically modified yeast rather than by cows.