"Meat eaters also like to come to the Hiltl".

Rolf Hiltl has invited us to an interview on the fifth floor of the Hiltl building. The Hiltl Academy is located in the rooms high above Sihlstrasse. Anyone interested can attend vegan or vegetarian cooking courses, also available as a company event. We meander through the ABB employees, who are getting a lesson in kitchen magic à la Hiltl that afternoon. On the terrace, which looks out onto the inner courtyard, a gentle calm spreads, and with the mastermind trophy loosely in his hand, he talks about how pleased he is to have received this award and what it takes to be and, above all, remain a mastermind. Not to rest on one's laurels with successful business ideas, but to remain interested and committed, even and especially when things are going well. And it does. The Hiltl restaurants, the veggie butcher's, the clubs, the Hiltl parent company - all of this requires care, foresight, diligence and love, and the love of good food is a tradition, as Rolf Hiltl is the fourth generation to hold the reins of Hiltl AG in his hands. He steers the world's oldest vegetarian restaurant through the tides, along the customer journey. And this "customer" is the focus for him and his team. Hippsters, models, families, pensioners, schoolchildren and entrepreneurs all flock to the Hiltl restaurants. Why? "Because it tastes good and is fun, I guess," laughs Rolf Hiltl. And adds: "Meat eaters also like coming to Hiltl. "Rolf was already ambitious as a child. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the five-year-old pointed to his father Heinz's chef's chair. After an apprenticeship as a chef at the Dolder Grand Hotel, Rolf graduated from hotel management school in Lausanne. He gradually established himself in the family business and since 1998, 100 years after the Hiltl was founded, he has been sitting in the chair that he was already aiming for as a toddler.Rolf Hiltl is a positive and cool guy and that is precisely one of the secrets of his success. Grain-picker, veggie-lover, eco-lover, food-lover and so on ... these are just some of the clichés that used to circulate about vegetarians. And there sits this businessman and bon vivant, in stylish sneakers, jeans and a shirt, with a Harley out front, who loves a good glass of wine with his pasta and doesn't at all embody the image of the patchouli-scented vegetable softy. "My great-grandfather Ambrosius was ridiculed when he took over the Hiltl company as managing director. Jokes like 'When do you talk about a vegetable casserole? When there are more than 10 guests in the Hiltl', he had to listen to them all the time," says Rolf. Grandfather and father Heinz also had a hard time not being pigeonholed as men. And to this day, friends in the men's chat chat about tofu, which makes you blind, and he used to live in San Francisco for a while. Rolf Hiltl still enjoys flying across the pond today. New York and Los Angeles are his favorite metropolises. The lifestyle and the openness of the people inspire the entrepreneur. Hiltl goes America? "That's a vision," he says. He could well imagine a Hiltl House on the Hudson River or on Melrose Avenue. Contacts have already been made, but the 53-year-old father of three is in no hurry to do so.zest for life, enjoyment of pleasure, commitment to people who are not doing so well, mindfulness towards the earth - all this is lifestyle today. These skills have always been part of the Hiltl family's DNA. And will probably be passed on to the fifth generation. Is the son already eyeing his dad's chair?Name: Rolf HiltlVintage: 1965Company: Hiltl AGFunction: Managing director and ownerFamily: three childrenHobbies: Sport, cooking, yoga