October's New Openings — and Which Ones You Can Actually Book for an Event

Dorsi opened as a pop-up on 16 October and is upfront about it: "here for a good time, not a long time". The kitchen does modern brasserie food made for sharing — familiar favourites, a little indulgence and good wine. The martinis are cold, and later on the music gets louder, with drinks, bar food and DJs.

What makes it worth knowing now: a private dining room seats up to 24, and the whole place can be booked for a takeover.

Best for: a Christmas party or a team night that starts as a sit-down dinner and ends with a DJ — take the private room for up to 24, or the whole place if you're more. It's a pop-up, so book while it's still here.

Schmiedenplatz 5 is the house of the Zunftgesellschaft zu Schmieden, Bern's blacksmiths' guild, a listed building at the quiet end of the old town a few steps from the Zytglogge. Its ground-floor restaurant, for decades the Schmiedstube, was closed through a full refurbishment of the building and has now come back with a new name and a new team. The cooking is popular cuisine with alpine influences: honest food, local and fair products, familiar dishes with a creative turn.

It bills itself as restaurant, bar and Saal in one, with just under a hundred seats indoors and out, and the house's banquet and culture hall is part of the same operation. Lunch, dinner and the bigger gatherings all run from one kitchen. Event enquiries go by email to restaurant@schmied-bern.ch.

Best for: a company dinner, a big birthday or a wedding party in Bern's old town that needs a proper hall, not just a long table in a restaurant.

Michel Péclard's grill by Paradeplatz came back from a short renovation on 3 October looking maximalist. Dark furniture and wooden walls are covered in pictures from an art collection curated by Zürich's Musée Visionnaire, and the pictures are for sale. The Salon Rouge is deep red, with pink blossoms hanging from the ceiling, and the fumoir bar has new brick walls (fake, Péclard admits) hung with more art. Péclard and chef Ibi Ben Dhafer went to New York for menu ideas: oriental mezze, Asian dumplings, a duck fettuccine sauced with a duck press, and meat and fish from the charcoal grill.

For groups, the wine cellar for private parties is still there. It now has a second, smaller cellar for two next to it, and much of the wine is imported directly, which keeps the list affordable for Paradeplatz.

Best for: a private client dinner in the wine cellar, a few minutes' walk from the banks. The cellar for two is the anniversary-dinner version of the same idea.

Soï has been one of Geneva's go-to places for punchy Thai street food in the Pâquis since 2017. Its owners have now turned their Satu bar at the Jonction into a second Soï, with the same cooking in a more modern, neon-lit room. The menu covers grills (Kai Yang chicken, Sangsom-marinated pork neck, Chiang Mai sausage, "crying tiger" beef) and som tam, laab and other Thai salads.

Best for: a birthday or a team party in Geneva with a room to yourselves. On Saturdays it's kept for private hire only.

Zürich's dinner-and-show spectacle premiered its seventh season on 10 October, steps from Paradeplatz. A four-course menu runs alongside a show of acrobatics, music, magic and comedy, staged under 360-degree projections and 3D mapping, with an aftershow party to follow.

Best for: a Christmas party where nobody has to organise the entertainment, or a client evening that people will still talk about in January. It runs through December, so if you want a December weekend, book it now.

RAZZIA's heritage-protected hall in Seefeld still feels like the old cinema it once was. The redesigned corner bar is the first step in a staged relaunch of the whole house, and a new restaurant concept follows in January 2027. The cocktail list comes from Margarita Sáder and Giacomo Giannotti of Barcelona's Paradiso, No. 1 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2022. It leans on fermenting, clarifying and infusing, with a proper non-alcoholic list alongside. Felicia Ludwig, GaultMillau's Pâtissière of the Year 2022, designed pralines to match the drinks.

The bar has 42 seats inside and 28 on the terrace, behind two large sliding windows that make it a self-contained room in the evening.

Best for: client drinks before or after dinner, or a small team celebration that wants a bit of theatre.

The Kesselhaus is named after the coal-fired steam boilers that once powered the Papieri paper mill. The industrial shell is still there, with high ceilings, raw steel and concrete, and an open charcoal grill now does the boilers' work. It's run by the Segmüller family, who already operate nine Zürich restaurants including Sonnenberg, Carlton and James Joyce. The grill menu of meat, fish and garden vegetables comes with a cocktail bar and a terrace on Papieri-Platz, and there are vegetarian and vegan options throughout.

Best for: a Zug-area team dinner that starts at the bar. It's a relaxed neighbourhood restaurant rather than a fine-dining stage, which suits a team that wants to talk.

TYDE replaces the old in-house restaurant at FORTYSEVEN, Baden's thermal baths, with its own kitchen and its own rhythm: coffee turns into lunch, and aperitivo turns into dinner. "Blue TYDE" brings small plates, signature drinks and dishes for sharing, and there's a Sunday brunch built around Baden's largest croissant, made with the Spitzbueb bakery.

Best for: the end of a team day out. Spend the afternoon in the baths and finish with aperitivo and sharing plates. You don't need a spa ticket for the restaurant, so anyone who skips the water can still come along.

Milena Kunz spent ten years making Hinz & Kunz a Markthalle institution before it closed at the end of 2024. Sisyphus is her return, co-owned with Gabrielle Schatz: a forty-seat cocktail bar on the Klosterberg, with a broad spirits list, the bar's own creations and a deliberate push into low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks. It's run by two people where the Markthalle had nine, by design. There's also outdoor seating, which the old bar never had.

Best for: a small after-work round in Basel with good low-alcohol and alcohol-free options for anyone not drinking. With forty seats, a group of twelve already fills a good part of the room, so call ahead.

NOVA is the first step in a full relaunch of the Teufelhof's restaurants. It takes over the first-floor room of the art hotel that used to be the Bel Etage, with Christoph Hartmann as head chef and Fabian Borer as sous chef running a kitchen of eighteen. They describe the cooking as modern, honest and product-focused, with the ingredient at the centre. It's served as a multi-course menu, either meat and fish or fully vegetarian, with pairings from a list of more than 500 wines.

Best for: the client dinner that has to impress in Basel. The Teufelhof also has its own seminar and banquet rooms, so a meeting during the day and a dinner at NOVA can happen under one roof.

Kjū took over the Kreis 5 address that used to be Yooji's Josef, and describes itself as "Japanese at heart, Nordic in spirit". It's a brasserie with Japanese cooking in a Scandinavian-style room and a good vinyl selection. The opening menu is fusion sharing plates: watermelon carpaccio, Wagyu toast, and chicken wings stuffed with pimientos de Padrón.

Best for: a date, or dinner for four to six who want sharing plates and good music. Reservations are by phone for now (+41 44 687 68 68).

For one year, the first floor of Manger & Boire on Gerbergasse is home to Nr. 22: one room with 22 seats. Roger von Büren, who has held 14 Gault&Millau points, runs the kitchen, and well-known chefs join him at the stove at intervals. The first, Dominic Lambelet, cooks with him from late November to the end of January. Downstairs, the bar and café serves wine, cocktails and small plates.

Best for: a client dinner in Basel with something to talk about: a guest chef, a single small room, and a run that ends on 26 June 2027. Book ahead, especially for the Lambelet weeks.

Wilma's has been baking Roman pizza in teglia on Via Pretorio in Lugano since 2021, and Luisenstrasse is its first shop north of the Alps. The dough is light and airy, baked in trays and cut to order, and the toppings change daily: margherita bufalina, carbonara, amatriciana, mortadella.

Best for: the office lunch, the workshop break or the apéro that needs feeding without a caterer's minimum. Wilma's caters for offices and events, and a tray goes a long way.