7 Best Restaurants in Alsace-Lorraine, France

This popular landmark (the name means "customhouse") serves huge portions of regional standards, plus changing specialties like coq au vin with spaetzle or choucroute "Colmarienne" with five different meats. Appreciative tourists and canny locals contribute to the lively atmosphere. If you can cut a swath through this enthusiastic horde, you can sit in the big, open dining room, glowing with wood and warm fabric, or at a shaded table on the broad, lovely square.

This modern restaurant on a touristy street offers up creative dishes with regional flourishes that are a hit with both locals and visitors. The small dining room is a discreet space decked out in black and white, with the owner's artwork adding dashes of color. Menu choices include seared skin-on fillet of Heimbach-sourced trout, and steak with Munster sauce. There are standout desserts. The basement dining room doubles as a venue for weekly concerts.

With its stone walls, wooden tables, and friendly waiters, "The Corkscrew" is the best place in town to sample Alsatian choucroute garnie and flammekueche. The menu also promises some seasonally changing innovations, plus a fine selection of Pinot Blanc and Riesling wines. This winstub is recommended for that guaranteed touch of authenticity.

Within a former 16th-century villa on a quiet cobbled street, chef Nicolas Rapenne is proof that exceptional French creativity and aesthetics don’t have to come with a high price tag. A cozy, carpeted interior provides a contemporary backdrop to savor immaculately presented, locally sourced dishes like ducklet cooked in juice of crème de cassis or shepherd’s pie with wild boar in a rich beer sauce. While the small menu changes regularly, the service and attention-to-detail are ever-present.

Named for the 13th-century stone tower that flanks it, La Vieille Tour gives classic dishes a contemporary spin. Chefs Nicolas and Samy Ruhlmann seek inspiration from locally sourced seasonal produce, and their love for it shows in the savory dishes and tantalizing desserts. The interior blends contemporary comfort with the historical charm of centuries-old wooden beams and stone walls. The fixed-price menus are excellent value.

Across from the Palais Ducal, you can sink your teeth into authentic regional dishes such as quiche Lorraine, fried grated-potato râpés, or Andouillette sausage with pungent Gros Lorrain cheese. Tables inside are tight, creating a bustling atmosphere, and the quality of the service seems to vary with the weather, but the hearty food is irreproachable.

This 16th-century, half-timber landmark (one of oldest riverside buildings in Petite France) is draped with geranium-filled flower pots and perennially popular. Come for generous and delicious portions of choucroute garnie, as well as other regional favorites.