Zineb Hattab

The Philosophy Plants are the staple food of every indigenous population and have been for generations. Zineb Hattab starts from that premise: plant-based cooking as baseline, not add-on. Moroccan-Spanish and born in Blanes, Spain, she brings a background shaped outside the kitchen before it found its clearest use there. Before cooking became the public form of her work, she was an engineer and, from 2012 to 2014, a software developer. That training shows up in the way the food is described at KLE: precise, intense, and composed, with complexity arriving without theatrics. Her education includes Barcelona, a city that appears in her training path before KLE became the address most closely associated with her cooking. The route suggests a mind fluent in structure as well as instinct, and Hattab puts that balance plainly: "I have jumped into the deep end without being able to swim, but I trust that I will figure it out. I have learned early on to surround myself with the best swimmers, so that together we can reach the shore."

In Practice The work centers plants, and it does so without treating them as compromise. At KLE, the specialty is plant-based cuisine, but the cooking is built for intensity, layered flavor, and a clear sense of structure. Hattab’s plates aim for balance rather than effect, and the room’s casual setup keeps the focus on the food instead of the stage around it. "For me personally a star makes no difference."

In Their Words "I think the initiative is positive." In the context of Hattab’s Green Michelin star, the line reads as a matter-of-fact acknowledgment rather than a pitch. The restraint matches the cooking: the point is not to frame plant-based food as lesser or corrective, but to make it stand on its own terms through flavor, layering, and balance. "We need to go back to that" is a short line, but it lands as both kitchen logic and cultural position. From Blanes to Barcelona to Zürich, and from engineering and software development into the kitchen, Hattab’s path reflects a return to plants as a center, to teamwork as method, and to eating as a practical expression of conviction.

Signature

Zineb's signature dishes include beet tartare and Taste of Love.