Medici

Medici is Baden-Baden's grown-up Italian. It occupies the ground floor of a 19th-century villa one block from the Kurhaus and the casino, and has run under the same family — the Sciulla brothers, from Livorno — since 1997. The dining room is old-European: stucco ceilings, oil-painted landscapes in gilt frames, white-linen tables set for two or four, a grand piano that gets played on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The kitchen is Tuscan in spine, broader Italian in reach. Pappardelle al cinghiale — wild-boar ragù, hand-cut pasta — has been on the menu since year one and remains the room's defining dish. Beyond that: saltimbocca, ossobuco Milanese, Chianina beef tagliata, a seasonal truffle menu in October and November, and a vegetable antipasto trolley that comes to the table. The wine list is 1,200 references deep, almost entirely Italian, with a rare-vintage Brunello programme that the head sommelier has been building since the late '90s.

Medici is where Baden-Baden celebrates milestones: 50th birthdays, anniversaries, successful divorces, the closing of a family business sale. It is both formal enough for a partner's-retirement dinner and warm enough for a Saturday night with old friends. Smart dress is expected; jackets are usual for gentlemen after 19:30.

For a Birthday: Medici's stucco dining room, the grand piano, and the ritual of the antipasto trolley wheeling up at the start of dinner make the room feel like a private parlour in someone else's villa. The kitchen will sing for any birthday that announces itself in advance; the wine cellar holds vintages old enough to match a decade.