Brasserie Fédéral

Food & beer were good (and it was a lot of food), but the place is loud. Good family place too.

After an exhausting search for beef sandwich , we settled for a nice cozy restaurant at the train station . It's Switzerland and I have nothing but nice to say. Although they may not speak your language, quality customer service is always an A+++ in this place. So we were immediately seated upon arrival to a reserved only table. I ordered the macaroni with minced meat and my friend ordered a burger which according to her was excellent. You'll never find decent good food in Zurich for under $20 so expect to splurge a little every time you take a bite. Our waiter was the best ... friendly, fast and very accommodating. We highly recommend this place

We walked by after a long tour day. It was convenient and in the train station. It was lively outside. The place is nice inside where we sat for dinner. The food was ok. Service was ok. Nothing special. Prices are high given what we've found elsewhere in the city.

Yes, I know it's a touristy place because it's a restaurant in a train station. If that doesn't scream "touristy", I don't know what does. However, what made us even want to stop in was that the day before, we saw someone drinking 7 different beer sampler and my husband wanted to try it. So we decided to come here for happy hour before leaving Switzerland.

I got the rose wine and my husband got the 7 beer sampler, he liked most of them. I got an ice cream sundae made with raspberry sauce and tasted like a bit of beer in it. We also got a fig salad and a charcuterie plate of meats and cheeses to go for dinner on the train later. Best idea ever!

Everything we had were great and delicious. In fact, the fig salad we had on the train later was the best thing we ever ate on a train. It hit the spot and it made me appreciate European "fast food" much more than what crap we Americans serve for "fast food".

On a hot summer day in a town devoid of air conditioning, this was a nice spot to grab a beer and cool off a bit.

Service was almost non existent, but still an ok spot to sit for a few min.

The bathrooms are 2 Francs...but quite clean!

A local restaurant guide in my hotel suggested this spot for classic German food. I had a little trouble finding it with yelp and my iPhone GPS, note that it is located inside a large train station. You can't miss it once you are actually inside the train station, which is kinda fabulous all on its own.

The seating outside is on long communal tables, the service is a little slow but friendly and very competent. The menus are available in multiple languages, they seem to have a touch of tourist element going on.

I decided to try the Rosti (this version had bacon and a fried egg). Like most of the food I had in Zurich, everything seemed to be made with high quality ingredients and little things like the bread basket were all consistently excellent.

The main dish was a bit disappointing, the Rosti base (fried potatoes, much like hash browns I'd been led to expect) was a little mushy, more like a cheese potato casserole. The bacon was not cooked much before being added to the dish, so while tasty did not offer any texture (and had a good amount of fat). The egg had an amazingly bright and intense yolk, perhaps farm fresh? Don't get me wrong, the flavor of the dish was wonderful, it just wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

I have a suspicion that this might be like a TGI Friday's to the locals, but I enjoyed my visit. Having good food in train stations is a lovely thing.

Good Swiss restaurant with a lot of traditional Swiss plates.
I had Züri-Geschnetzeltes, which was good and not too expensive!

Great food on hot plates. We ordered 3 liters of water for a whopping 42 franks. That's the only issue I had with this place. But the food was great and so was the service. It was super hot so that 42 frank water was totally worth it.

I'm a bit torn on Federal; on the one hand my Swiss friends seem to despise it. It doesn't exactly cater to "our" crowd, its often full of tourists, and you're just in the middle of the train station - not exactly a cool neighborhood haunt.

On the other hand, this is - as far as I can tell - one of the *only* places in Zurich to have a wide selection of Swiss beers on tap (or ANY beers on tap beyond whatever the particular bar decides to serve in the stange). And beyond the tap selection, there is a huge bottle selection. If you're a fan of trying out a variety of beers and get sick of the standard Feldschlossen and Hurlimann you find *everywhere* else, then this is a place you must try. I can't speak to the food, and honestly can't imagine I'll ever have a reason to eat there. But for beer fans, this is a place worth visiting.

The prices are fine/normal for Zurich, and the staff is usually friendly, if not extremely busy trying to keep up with the crowd.

Decent Swiss fare for the masses. Service is typical of what one should expect in any high traffic/tourist area: brash and careless. Large selection of Swiss beers.