For almost a decade Sami and his team, aka Mr. Samigo, set the standard for Zurich pop-ups with his travelling restaurant that suddenly appeared every year before Christmas at some unexpected location. Examples of odd locales include a former freight station and a space that once housed a toy store. You could only book a table at these positively crazy places (which featured performances by artists, musicians and burlesque dancers, mirror mazes and much more) by sending a message to a secret mobile phone number.
Now the ubiquitous pop-up boom seems to have tired the king. He has settled down at a proper address, the former Quai 61 at the lakeshore, where what may well be his last pop-up project took place last December. “Pop-up is dead”, he writes in a real snail mail letter to his friends (aka the members of his mailing list). “I leave this territory to Migros (the Swiss supermarket chain) and the other pop-up kings” he says, not without irony. “I have decided to stay longer’’.
He continues by adding that the most important thing for him is to remain independent, and that this is absolutely possible at the new location. This makes us think that one can still expect the unexpected from Mr. Samigo. Sami’s restaurant Samigo Amusement opens on January 19 and you still need to book your table by SMS – but thankfully, the number is no longer a secret.
-> samigo.ch
