It is not known exactly how the hotel got its name «Zum Storchen». Legend has it that the name was adopted after a pair of rare black storks nested on its roof. In 1357 the «Hus zum Storchen» was mentioned in the tax records for the city of Zürich for the first time and just over 100 years later, it was specifically described as an inn.

Paracelsus knew it, Grimmelshausen stayed here, Richard Wagner was a guest at the «Storchen»: For more than 650 years, the hospitality of the «Storchen» at the Weinplatz in Zurich has been renowned. The wellknown author John Irving immortalised the «Storchen» in «A Son of the Circus» and «A Widow for One Year». And in the early twentieth century, the industrialist E.G. Bührle transformed it into what it is today. Let us leaf back through a few pages in the wonderful history of the «Storchen».