Lohri

Lohri is a family jewellery and watch house that has run its own workshop in Zug's old town since 1970, now in its second generation under Franz Lohri and his son Franco. For anyone based in the Zug financial district, or already weighing a short train ride out of Zürich, it's a genuine local option, and one where you can check the actual price of a ring before you ever book a visit.

What you get

The business sits across two addresses a few doors apart in the old town: Lohri Galerie at Neugasse 9 and Lohri-Haus at Neugasse 27. By its own description the group runs four boutiques across that footprint, though the public store directory we could open only lists those two street addresses. Both keep the same hours, Monday to Friday 10:00 to 18:30 and Saturday 9:00 to 16:00, closed Sunday, and both share one phone line, +41 41 710 30 14.

The retail side splits three ways. There's Lohri's own jewellery, made in its in-house atelier and sold through the sister site lohri.com. There's watches, covering a dedicated Patek Philippe line, other Swiss watch brands, and a separate vintage and pre-owned watch selection. And there's Lohri Unique Vintage Jewels, a standalone estate and antique jewellery line with its own site, lohrivintage.com, sitting apart from the new-jewellery catalogue.

What stands out for a newcomer

lohri.com is where the international-buyer case gets made. Rather than a single enquiry form standing in for a price list, it runs a full catalogue with visible prices in CHF, each marked as inclusive of tax. Engagement rings have their own dedicated collection there, separate from the house's broader diamond line, Les Diamants, which despite what a first glance suggests is not itself the engagement-ring catalogue: it's a parallel range of diamond necklaces, earrings and bracelets. In the engagement-ring collection, the pieces we could see ranged from CHF 3,900 up to CHF 39,500, each listed with its own metal, cut and carat rather than a generic starting price. One example: an 18 karat white gold brilliant-cut solitaire with a 0.5 carat diamond, listed at CHF 4,650 including tax. In Les Diamants, the pieces we saw ran from CHF 3,900 for a pair of earring pendants to around CHF 19,600 for a fuller diamond earring set. If you're searching the site specifically for a ring, "Engagement Rings" is the collection to look under, not "Les Diamants".

Two other things matter for someone new to Zürich or Zug. First, the language spread: the boutique listing states the on-site team speaks German, English, French, Italian, Chinese and Thai, which is an unusually wide range for a house this size and a real point in its favour if you'd rather not negotiate a five-figure purchase in a second language. Second, the building itself. According to Lohri's own history page, the Lohri-Haus at Neugasse 27 has had goldsmiths working in it since 1620, a claim Wikipedia's entry on the building corroborates in detail: it dates the current structure to 1806, when the upper four floors were rebuilt in the Empire style then in fashion, while the vaulted cellar underneath is older still, dating to around 1500 when the street was first laid out. Wikipedia also records a full renovation of the building between 2014 and 2016. Lohri's own site frames the family as the "16th generation of goldsmiths" to work in that house, while also stating plainly that the Lohri name itself has run its own workshop for a bit over 50 years, since 1970, currently in its second generation. Those are two different claims worth keeping apart: one about the building's long goldsmithing history, the other about how long this particular family has owned it. Lohri also takes bookings for a look inside the historic building through a separate scheduling link, kept apart from the sales appointment flow.

Lohri Unique Vintage Jewels is the other differentiator. Run by Eva and Franz Lohri, who describe themselves as having worked with what the site calls treasures from past eras for over 40 years, it sells dated, one-off pieces rather than generic "antique" stock, organised by named period: Vintage, Retro, Art Deco, Belle Époque, Art Nouveau (Jugendstil), Historicism/Victorian and Classicism/Biedermeier, alongside pieces attributed to houses including Cartier, Fabergé and Tiffany. One piece on the site when we looked, a brooch called "Mystique Mosaique" dated to the Art Deco years of 1925 to 1930, was priced at CHF 18,800. For a buyer drawn to something with real provenance rather than a fresh catalogue piece, it's a genuine alternative sitting right alongside the new-jewellery offer.

How it compares

Everything on the new-jewellery side, engagement rings, the wider Les Diamants line, wedding bands and the house's own Papillon and Franco Lohri high-jewellery collections, is made in Lohri's own workshop rather than sourced ready-made. The site also states its diamonds come exclusively from long-standing suppliers through the Kimberley Process, the industry's conflict-free sourcing scheme, which is a specific and checkable claim rather than a general ethics line. Within this category, that combination, a published price list you can check from your phone, an in-house workshop, and over 50 years under the same family, sets Lohri apart from houses that only quote once you're standing in the shop.

What isn't published anywhere on the site is a resizing policy or a stated turnaround time for a commission. The contact form does offer "after sales" as a reason to get in touch, so there's a route to ask, but neither a fee nor a timeframe is stated online, and that's worth raising directly before you commit rather than assuming either way. The public website itself also only switches between German and English, so anyone who needs French or Italian in writing, rather than from the staff in person, is relying on a conversation rather than the site. And nothing on the site addresses shipping abroad or Swiss export duty for a buyer who expects to leave the country eventually, so that's a question for the boutique directly, not something published to check in advance.

Who it suits

Lohri suits a buyer who wants a real price in front of them before booking anything, who's already in Zug for work or is happy to make the trip out from Zürich, and who wants English-language service confirmed on the page rather than assumed. It's also worth a look for anyone curious about a vintage or estate piece as an alternative to new stock, which most jewellery houses in this category don't offer at all. It suits newcomers to Switzerland less well if every term, shipping abroad, resizing costs, has to be settled before the first phone call, since those specifics simply aren't published and need a direct conversation to pin down.

The verdict

For someone weighing whether Zug is worth a look before heading into Zürich, Lohri makes a solid case: a family that has run its own workshop since 1970 and is now in its second generation, a building with documented goldsmiths since 1620, a full CHF price list you can check before you go, and a team that lists English as standard rather than an afterthought. The published-pricing engagement ring collection alone puts it ahead of houses that keep every figure behind a consultation, and the vintage line gives it a second reason to visit that a plain new-jewellery boutique simply doesn't have.