Volkshaus Basel

Volkshaus Basel is the 19th-century workers' hall, restaurant and bar in Kleinbasel that the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron — Basel natives, Pritzker laureates — redesigned and reopened in 2012. The project kept the original 1925 bones (the timbered hall, the carved oak bar, the dark-steel pillars) and added a restrained modern vocabulary: brushed copper ceilings, new pendant lights, a courtyard garden filled with linden trees.

The bistro runs all day, with a lunch menu of daily plates (risotto, wiener schnitzel, a rotating fish), a dinner card built around shareable mains (a whole roast chicken for two, a Simmental steak, the city's best burger), and a small-plate midnight menu that keeps the bar busy until 01:00. The cooking is French-Swiss bistro at a high level and without pretence.

The bar is the real centrepiece — one of Europe's best-designed contemporary hotel bars — and the crowd is the mix Basel tries to be: architects, lawyers, Art Basel exhibitors, Roche scientists, FC Basel players on a good night. The courtyard garden is open from April through October. Dress is urban-casual; sneakers acceptable anywhere.

For a Team Dinner: Volkshaus's long oak hall tables, shareable main plates (a whole roast chicken, a Simmental for the table), and the courtyard garden in summer make it Kleinbasel's easiest group dinner. The bar carries the group afterwards without the venue change. Bill lands around CHF 90 a head with wine.