Chez Yvonne — Alsatian Winstub, Strasbourg
Chez Yvonne has been operating as a winstub — the Alsatian wine-and-food institution that is the region’s most distinctive contribution to European dining culture — since 1873. The walls are covered with caricatures of the famous figures who have eaten here: Jacques Chirac, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand. The Presidents of France, it transpires, knew where to eat in Strasbourg.
The menu is everything that Alsatian cooking is at its most generous and honest: choucroute garnie of extraordinary quality — the sauerkraut fermented for weeks, the pork products sourced from the region’s finest charcutiers, the Riesling reduction that brings it together — alongside onion tart, baeckeoffe (a three-meat casserole that requires advance ordering), and a foie gras preparation that represents the Alsatian approach at its most accomplished.
The wine list is Alsatian from cover to cover and understands the relationship between wine and food in this region with the intimacy that 150 years of serving the same pairing combinations builds. The Pinot Blanc house wine is the correct opening; the progression through Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Gewurztraminer provides the standard accompaniment to the meal.
Chez Yvonne is the Strasbourg restaurant that other Strasbourg restaurants recommend to visitors who ask. It is the address that answers the question of what Alsatian food actually is when it is done properly — not the tourist approximation, but the genuine article, executed in rooms that have served it for a century and a half.
Best Occasion: Team Dinner
The winstub format — large tables, shared plates, generous portions, excellent wine — is designed for groups. Chez Yvonne handles team dinners with the efficiency of a restaurant that has been managing them since before most companies existed. The choucroute garnie for the table, a bottle of Riesling per person, and the baeckeoffe ordered in advance: this is the correct team dinner formula in Strasbourg.
Best Occasion: Solo Dining
The winstub tradition is perfectly suited to the solo diner — the communal atmosphere, the counter seating, the staff who treat every guest as a regular from the first visit. Chez Yvonne is one of the few restaurants in Europe where eating alone at the bar feels like an invitation rather than a concession.