40 Best Restaurants in Luxembourg

Having always been the go-to for government ministers and visiting dignitaries, long-standing owner-chef Arnaud Magnier has attempted to shake things up a bit. Out went the old red leather, in came a bolder new look. Yet what remains is a Michelin-starred menu and everything that makes this an institution. Its €105 prix-fixe meals are a deep-dive into classic French cuisine, with Breton lobster, 48-hour-cooked Aberdeen Angus beef, and langoustine carpaccio just some of the detours through the mind of its chef. 

The scruffy street on which Como sits might not conjure the kind of memories you can expect to make inside this fine Italian eatery, but therein lies the surprise. Chef Renato Favaro dives into his Lombardy roots with dishes of osso buco, buckwheat tagliatelle-style pizzoccheri, and polenta with wild shrimp—all culinary staples of Northern Italy. 

The culinary gem of the city. The setting, nestled within the courtyard of the castle, is a peach, and its terrace makes a grand alfresco escape on a summer's evening. Inside, seating is spread across small rooms under a low white-beamed ceiling. It's a wonderfully intimate affair. Menus are divided into three- and four-course set meals, offering a mix of meat, game, and fish. Dishes are exquisitely prepared, and the only surprise is that the Michelin folks haven't yet come calling. 

Dark, cozy, and casual, this 1683 inn serves simple brasserie fare—schnitzels, cordon bleu, fondue—and a wide selection of grilled meats cooked in full view of the dining area over a sizzling wood fire. If you've given up on pork chops, this is the place to get reacquainted. The nine rooms upstairs are rustically furnished and tidy, and make for a good-value place to bed down if you're staying the night. 

This Italian pizzeria attracts an upscale, downtown set as much for its location in the historic center and its slick peach-and-brass decor as for its food, which is straightforward and reasonably priced. Wood-fired pizza and classic pastas are dependable choices. Reserve a seat in the tranquil courtyard, especially for lunch when this is a haunt for members of parliament.

This vegan restaurant-café has two levels. Downstairs, the café (Seed) is more of a juice and cocktail bar; above, Beet conjures an upmarket fast-food vibe, dishing up plant-based burgers and soups. The former typically come slathered in a melted vegan cheese that does a decent impersonation of the real thing. A crowd-pleasing blend of falafel, fries, and the lesser-seen picon beer, a pint-size French apéritif made with orange bitters, make this a treat, even if the staff are a little high-handed.  

Despite originally opening in 1907, this restaurant only improves with age. Seasonal specials accompany a fine selection of Luxembourgish dishes, from the classic kniddelen, fried gnocchi-style dumplings with lashings of speck ham or Berdorf cheese, to the typical wäinzoossiss, a thick local sausage in a creamy mustard and wine sauce. It's about 10 km (6 miles) upriver from Remich in the small village of Wormeldingen.

This well-regarded Spanish restaurant, up in the parkland hills of the Gaalgebierg, makes quite the impression. Inside, its wavy walls and blazing fire set a modern tone that the menu picks up and runs with in its focus on refined tapas and tasting menus that veer from foie gras and quince to falafel and crispy noodles. 

As you might expect from a city 300 km (186 miles) from the nearest coastline, Luxembourg isn’t known for its seafood. Yet this friendly brasserie on place Guillaume II bucks the trend. Its location and sprawling terrace might resemble the usual tourist hustlers, but it’s a favorite with locals for good reason. The seafood comes direct from Paris’s famed Rungi market, and it's not cheap. Regulars love it for the lobster and—rather surprisingly—beef carpaccio, which comes served 10 different ways. It also just never seems to close, which makes it a handy standby. 

This Parisian-style café in the heart of the Place d'Armes serves French favorites, from onion soup to paté to pastries. The tuxedoed wait staff is friendly whether you order an elaborate three-course meal or linger over a cup of coffee. Sit outside and watch the pedestrian parade through the square.

The service might be among the more lethargic in town, but where this café-restaurant truly shines is its setting: perched directly above the waters of the River Our. The menu is pretty standard stuff, with an array of schnitzels catching the eye. Or just come for a coffee and soak in the views. 

On the road from Schengen to Remerschen, the stone exterior of the Caves du Sud belies the architecturally clever wooden boat in the interior. (The boat itself pays homage to the Romans who sailed the Moselle during harvest time two millennia ago.) Just about every Vinsmoselle wine, liquor, and crémant is available in this shop, and a friendly staff can help find what you're looking for. An adjoining dining room is a perfect place to match Luxembourg's wines with French food for lunch or dinner. Call for dinner reservations.

While at the Parc Brill, stop by the Châlet am Brill for a cold drink or a light snack. There's a kids' menu, too.

This small, homey spot serves large portions at reasonable prices. The pizzas are made with fresh ingredients and baked in a wood-fire oven. The pastas are flavorful and filling.

Located at the top of the hill overlooking town and the river below, this inn is surrounded by a seasonal garden. Although the river view is somewhat obscured, bright windows and handsome furniture all create a welcoming environment. This restaurant is known across the country for its fine French cuisine. The inn rents spacious rooms and the pension plans combining room and board are an appealing option.

Across the street from the train station, this lively establishment with vinyl booths draws a loyal local crowd. Many come for vast portions of mussels in a rich wine-and-garlic broth (available September through March), accompanied by frites and a bottle of sharp, cold, inexpensive Auxerrois or Rivaner.

Hear us out. The location isn't all that promising (next to a petrol station), but this takeaway burger joint is popular for good reason: it's good. When you can grab petrol and an Aberdeen angus, rosti, and raclette-cheeseburger at the same time, who needs to dine in. The enthusiasm of visiting touring motorcyclists might have boosted its profile, but this is a true guilty pleasure just a few miles south of town, and there isn't much else in the area. 

If heavy Western cuisine palls, take the elevator down from St-Esprit to the Grund and try this elegant Japanese restaurant. It's a long-standing favorite among locals, with a number of fixed-price menus (from €65) offering delicate, nouvelle-accented dishes, artfully presented and graciously served. À la carte specialties, considerably more expensive, include impeccably fresh sashimi and light tempura vegetables.

A slightly eccentric café bar set in a vaulted cellar. There are homemade cakes, organic snacks, decent coffee, and not a single piece of matching furniture. Live music is often held here in the evenings; it's something of an expat institution.  

French cuisine with a seasonal bias and a gift for flair. Dishes arrive like tiny works of art, painted with the broad strokes of classical French cooking. Everything here is nicely presented, including the interior. 

The restaurant of the Hotel du Commerce has had a revamp in recent years, but remains an eminently reliable spot for a bit of brasserie fare, with a menu steeped in the French classics and the odd Luxembourgish aside. Think Bouchée à la Reine (creamy chicken-stuffed vol-au-vents) and the usual array of steaks, cordon bleus, and carpaccios, all pulled off with no little flair. 

Pierrick Guilloux was responsible for the Saint-Michel restaurant in Luxembourg City, in its heyday one of Europe's finest, before "retiring" to the countryside to run this great little restaurant in a converted farmhouse. Here he cooks what he pleases, mostly dishes based on the traditions of his native Brittany. Trust his recommendations; few regret it.

This working boulangerie-patisserie is decorated like a French country farmhouse, with pine tables to seat 2 or 20 and rustic sideboards lining the walls. Copious soups, salads, and sandwiches, as well as warm dishes, can be ordered from a waiter. Don't forget to buy a loaf of Luxembourg's best bread or one of the almost-too-pretty-to-eat cakes or pastries. The locally made jams, jellies, and wines on display are also for sale.

On the fourth floor of a former brewery, this top-class establishment stands above the brasher bars of Rives de Clausen that surround it. The open kitchen at the back of the spacious industrial chic (read high ceilings and bare brick walls) dining room leaves chef Christophe Petra and his team nowhere to hide, but that's no problem for them since their mouth-watering creations are something to shout about. Don't miss out on the superb signature dish: pigeon fillet en croute, with foie gras and cabbage stuffing, and truffle mash. You're welcome to visit the bar on the floor above and enjoy the view from the terrace without a dinner reservation, if dressed smartly.

As the first woman to win France's top culinary award, the Paul Bocuse d'Or, Lea Linster has earned international attention and keeps her modest farmhouse—once her mother's rustic café—full of prominent guests. Have a glass of champagne in the shady garden out back (cows may wander nearby), and then relax in the elegant dining room and enjoy her prize-winning dishes: salmon-stuffed zucchini flowers with cardamom sauce, rack of lamb in a crisp potato crust, and caramelized pears with rosemary-lime ice cream. The wine list is weighted toward the high end, as are the food prices.

Its name (“Friends First”) quotes a popular 1960s song by French chanteur George Brassens. It's a coziness replicated on a warm hug of a menu that fixes its ambitions on burgers and the comfier corners of French cuisine. The "Bavard," a fillet of beef done a dozen ways is the specialty, but the cordon bleu (cheese-and-ham stuffed chicken) is not to be missed: smothered in a creamy mushroom sauce, it's like a comfy blanket in food form. Stick to the brasserie-style fare and you’ll find delights for a decent price. 

This was the first meat-free restaurant in Luxembourg back in 1990. Today, its vegetarian, vegan, and seafood menu typically piles on myriad flavors (some more successfully than others) as tofu, seitan, spring rolls, veggies, samosas, rice, vol-au-vents, and creamy Thai curry sauces spill across the plate. On the whole, it's a winner, with colorful murals and a candlelit interior accompanying live music on some nights. 

A pleasant spot for lunch or a quick meal, just next to the theater. It claims to specialize in pizza but, in truth, it does a little bit of everything, usually to a good standard. Large salads, pastas, grilled fish and meat, and even the usual Luxembourgish classics, including kuddelfleck (tripe), judd mat Gardebonnen (smoked pork and broad bean stew), and bouchée à la reine (vol-au-vent and creamy chicken) decorate a menu not short on ideas. 

Directly adjoining the former Mousel brewery, now the Rives de Clausen entertainment district, this comfortable, wood-paneled café serves up heaping platters of local specialties—braised and grilled ham, sausage, broad beans, and fried potatoes—to be washed down with crockery steins of Clausel and unfiltered Gezwickelte beers. New owners have taken over in the last couple of years, but the menu remains very much the same. However, Mousel beers have been brewed at a plant in Diekirch for a long time now.