Wistub Brenner

Wistub Brenner has stood on the corner of Petite Venise for three decades — a typical half-timbered Alsatian building with flower boxes cascading down the façade, heavy wooden doors, and a summer terrace that sits directly on the canal where the little tourist boats pass slowly under the bridges. The interior is everything a winstub should be: low ceilings, wood panelling, checkered tablecloths, a tiled stove in the corner, framed photographs of Colmar in the 1920s and 1930s.

The menu is the full Alsatian canon, honestly executed. Choucroute garnie royale — sauerkraut slow-cooked in Riesling with Strasbourg sausages, smoked pork shoulder, pork knuckle, and the compulsory boiled potatoes — is the centrepiece. Baeckeoffe (the Alsatian meat-and-potato casserole slow-baked in an earthenware pot, named for the baker's oven where it used to finish) is served on Fridays. Tarte flambée — Alsace's thin-crust bacon-and-cream pizza — is the reliable opener.

The wine list stays on familiar Alsatian ground: Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, a short selection of light Alsatian Pinot Noir, and the regional eaux-de-vie — kirsch, framboise, mirabelle — from the Distillerie Nusbaumer in the hills above. Pitchers of house Riesling are the working order for most tables.

The kitchen is generous — a choucroute royale will feed two comfortably, three if the third person orders a tarte flambée to share. Birthdays and team celebrations are the backbone of weekend trade; the staff are practiced at a candle on the baeckeoffe and a round of mirabelle to follow.

For a team dinner in Colmar — the kind where you want six or eight people to leave full, slightly drunk, and laughing — Wistub Brenner is the canonical answer. The menu makes ordering easy (share choucroutes and tartes flambées, pour Riesling from the pitcher), the terrace in summer is one of the most photogenic dining settings in Alsace, and the bill comes in well under €50 a head including wine.