Restaurant Kunsthalle

Kunsthalle Basel was the 1872 art-hall restaurant of the Basler Kunstverein, the oldest art society in the country, and has served food continuously on that footprint for 153 years. The regulars list reads like a 20th-century European art history: Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Meret Oppenheim, Jean Dubuffet, Joseph Beuys. The room has not visibly changed since the 1920s — frescoed ceilings, cream walls, brass chandeliers, long wooden tables.

The cooking is Swiss continental done properly: wiener schnitzel with rösti and a cucumber salad, zander with sauce hollandaise, a classical beef tartare, and a Sunday brunch that has run since the 1960s. There is a modern tasting menu as well (five courses at CHF 135, in the dedicated 'salon rouge' back room) but the anchor is the bistro offering, and the bistro offering is what the locals come for.

The terrace on Steinenberg — cobblestones, chestnut trees, facing the Tinguely Brunnen fountain — is the city's best theatre for a weekday lunch. Lawyers from the cantonal court, pharmaceutical executives from Roche, gallery owners from the Art Basel cluster. You will recognise half the room by the time your coffee arrives.

To Close a Deal at lunch: Kunsthalle's terrace is the Basel boardroom. The service is brisk enough to finish a negotiation within ninety minutes, the menu classical enough not to distract, and the room's gravity — 153 years of art-world history — signals to a client that you understand the city. Order the tartare. It has not changed since 1960.