Kameha Grand Zurich, Autograph Collection

The Hotel

Kameha Grand Zurich opened on 1 December 2015 at Dufaux-Strasse 1 in Glattpark — Opfikon's mixed-use business district halfway between Zurich Hauptbahnhof and the airport. The hotel is the second Kameha Grand property after the 2009 Bonn flagship; both are owned by Kameha Hotels & Resorts (Carsten Rath's group) and operated under Marriott's Autograph Collection. Architecture is contemporary metal-and-glass tower; interior design is Marcel Wanders Studio's most extensive hotel project — every public space, every standard category, and every signature suite was designed by the studio over a four-year project that wrapped six weeks before opening. The address is unusual for a luxury hotel — Glattpark is a 21st-century business and residential district built on former agricultural land — but the position is the proposition: 10 minutes by car or 4 minutes by train (Glattpark/Lindbergh-Allee) to Zurich Airport, 13 minutes by tram to Hauptbahnhof.

The 245 rooms are divided between 234 standard categories and 11 themed signature suites. Standard rooms run 30 square metres for the Cosy King, 40 for the Grand King, 65 for the Junior Suites; all share Wanders's all-over pattern language — the carpet, the wallpaper, the furniture upholstery, the bathroom tile — and the hotel's deliberate maximalism. The signature suites are the property's identity: the Poker Suite (a working green-felt poker table at the centre, flanked by a Joost van Bleiswijk-designed banker's-lamp chandelier); the Toblerone Suite (the bed shaped as the chocolate triangle, the wallpaper as the mountain in profile); the Space Suite (panels of NASA-licensed prints, Mercury-capsule beds); the Workout Suite (a private gym set as the bedroom); the Diva Suite, the Burlesque Suite, the Couture Suite, the Movie Suite, the Music Suite, the Spirit Suite, and the Kameha Suite (350 square metres on the top floor with a private terrace and the only Glattpark roof Jacuzzi). The themed suites have become the property's most-photographed feature.

Yu Nijo by chef Yu Hiura is the panoramic Japanese restaurant on the top floor — robatayaki and sushi counter, with terrace seating in summer and a city-and-airport panorama from the dining room. L'Unico is the Italian-Mediterranean room. SHISHA Lounge handles the bar programme. The Kameha Spa runs to 1,000 square metres on the basement-and-ground-floor wellness levels with a sauna, steam, fitness centre, and treatment programme; the indoor pool is unusually long for the city footprint at 17 metres. Conference and event facilities are scaled for what the building does best: 1,000-guest gala dinners and large-format conferences (the Kameha Dome ballroom seats up to 1,000 cabaret-style; eleven additional meeting rooms handle satellite work). The hotel hosts the Swiss Bitcoin conference, the Zurich Tech Forum, and a roster of European corporate events for which the airport-proximity matters more than the city-centre proximity.

The market position is clear and unique. This is the Zurich hotel for fly-in groups, conference attendees, bachelor/bachelorette parties booking the Poker or Burlesque Suite for a weekend, and families that want a contemporary themed hotel rather than a Bahnhofstrasse heritage property. The Wanders design language is Marmite — guests either commit to the maximalism or do not — and the price-point reflects that. Standard category rates are meaningfully below Baur au Lac, Park Hyatt, or La Réserve Eden au Lac. The trade-off is the Glattpark address: this is not a Bahnhofstrasse hotel and does not pretend to be one. For travellers whose Zurich stay is bracketed by airport arrivals and conference floor time — and for groups who want the largest themed-suite inventory in Switzerland — Kameha Grand is the answer.

Best Occasion Fit

Practical Information

Also Great in Zurich