Geneva restaurateurs: a menu for International Geneva

The canton of Geneva alone hosts 40 international organisations, several hundred NGOs and the permanent missions of the 185 UN member states and two non-member states. According to the Swiss foreign ministry, about 33,000 international civil servants, diplomats and civil-society representatives make up International Geneva.²

The city holds more than 6,000 meetings a year, attended by some 581,000 delegates, and receives about 4,000 heads of state or government, ministers and other dignitaries every year.²

On 31 December 2025 the city of Geneva had 211,152 residents, Switzerland’s second city after Zurich. It gained 2,091 in a year, or 1.0%. The canton as a whole had 537,084.¹

Behind that net figure, the city recorded 19,328 arrivals and 17,023 departures in 2025, according to the Federal Statistical Office.¹

For Geneva and its surroundings the MICHELIN Guide lists 72 restaurants: one with two stars, 15 with one star, 15 Bib Gourmands and 41 selected addresses.³

The guide’s filters flag vegetarian options at 51 of them, gluten-free at 29 and vegan at 23; 16 offer a vegetarian menu and 55 have a terrace.³

In the city of Geneva a terrace is an accessory to a public establishment, normally right against its front, and nothing is prepared on it: no bar, no grill. It needs a permit, on public land and, since 2016, on private land too. The public space department sets its footprint, which no piece of furniture may exceed.^4,5

The terrace application form goes to the public space department (Service de l’espace public) with a 1:50 plan, a description of the furniture, a copy of the lease and the operating licence issued by the trade police department. A summer terrace, allowed from 1 March to 31 October, has its permit renewed automatically each year if nothing changes.^5,6

On public land a fee depends on the location (inner centre, centre or outskirts) and the area; an administrative charge comes on top, CHF 60 to 100 on average for a small file. The pages we read give no processing time: the department answers on +41 22 418 61 00 and at [email protected].^4,5

Since 2010 the city has recognised four types of terrace. The annual terrace stays out all year and the summer terrace from March to October. The winter terrace, temporary and smaller, goes out in the daytime from November to February, weather permitting; the Parisian terrace, enclosed and glazed, runs from October to April or for twelve months. Each one has its own permit application.^4,5

Since 1 January 2020, some single-use plastic items have been banned on every terrace on public land.⁴