Luxembourgish food, and where to actually eat it

Luxembourg has a national cuisine and most residents could not name three dishes from it, which is understandable given that the restaurant scene is dominated by French, Italian, Portuguese and increasingly Asian cooking. The national dishes are Germanic in construction and French in seasoning, they are substantial rather than delicate, and they are best eaten in winter. Finding them requires knowing what to look for, because the places that cook them well are not the places that advertise.

The dishes worth knowing

Judd mat Gaardebounen

Smoked collar of pork with broad beans, usually with boiled potatoes, and the closest thing Luxembourg has to a national dish. The pork is brined, smoked and then simmered, and the result is closer to a gammon than to anything roasted. It is a large plate and it is not a summer dish.

Bouneschlupp

Green bean soup with potatoes and usually smoked sausage or bacon. Thick, plain and good, and the dish most likely to convert a sceptic. It appears on set lunch menus across the country in winter.

Gromperekichelcher

Fried potato cakes with onion and parsley, sold at every market, funfair and Christmas event in the country. Eaten standing up, from paper, with apple sauce. They are excellent and they are the entry point to Luxembourgish food for most people.

Kachkéis

A soft cooked cheese spread, mild and slightly tangy, eaten on bread with mustard. It divides opinion sharply and it is genuinely local.

Friture de la Moselle

Small river fish, floured and deep fried, eaten whole with lemon and a glass of Moselle white. Served along the river in summer and one of the more pleasant things to do on a warm evening in the country.

Others worth ordering

• Träipen, black pudding, usually with apple sauce and potatoes, traditional around the turn of the year.
• Feierstengszalot, a cold salad of boiled beef with vinaigrette, onion and egg, and a good summer alternative.
• Rieslingspaschtéit, a pâté in pastry made with Riesling, served warm.
• Quetschentaart, plum tart, in late summer when the quetsches come in.
• Mettwurst and Luxembourgish charcuterie, which is closer to German than French in style.

Where to find it

The honest answer is that the best Luxembourgish cooking is domestic, and the restaurant version requires looking in the right places.

• Traditional brasseries in the Ville-Haute and the lower town carry the classics, particularly in winter, and are the easiest starting point.
• Village inns outside the capital are where the cooking is generally better and cheaper. Any commune of reasonable size has one, and the Sunday lunch trade is what sustains it.
• The Moselle villages for river fish and for the wine to go with it.
• Markets and festivals for Gromperekichelcher and the street versions.
• The Schueberfouer in late summer, where the Fëschhaischen and the traditional stalls serve a great deal of it.

Look for a menu written first in Luxembourgish, or for a set lunch board handwritten in the window. Those are the reliable signals.

The seasonal calendar

• Late summer: Schueberfouer food, quetsch tart, Moselle grape harvest and the first new wine.
• Autumn: game, particularly wild boar and venison, which Luxembourg restaurants do well and cheaply given the forest cover.
• Winter: Judd, Bouneschlupp, Träipen, and the Christmas market food.
• Spring: asparagus, taken as seriously here as in Germany, and river fish as the season opens.

The wider picture

Luxembourgish cooking sits in a country where French technique, German ingredients and, more recently, Portuguese and Italian home cooking all coexist. The result is that a menu in a village inn may carry Judd next to a steak frites next to a bacalhau, and none of it is fusion; it is simply what the population eats.

The country also has an unusual density of high-end restaurants for its size, and several of them work with local produce in a modern idiom. That is a different article, and it is covered elsewhere in this journal.

Cooking it at home

Most of the repertoire is straightforward and the ingredients are all in an ordinary Luxembourg supermarket, which makes it the easiest way to eat this food well.

• Bouneschlupp is the place to start. Green beans, potatoes, onion, stock and smoked sausage, simmered until thick. It is a weeknight dish and it improves overnight.
• Gromperekichelcher need grated potato, onion, egg, flour and parsley, squeezed dry and fried hard. The squeezing is the step people skip and it is the one that matters.
• Judd mat Gaardebounen requires the smoked collar, which the butchery counters carry, soaked and then simmered slowly. It is a Sunday dish rather than a weeknight one.
• Quetschentaart in September, with the plums halved and arranged cut side up on a yeasted base.
• Buy the charcuterie from a proper butcher rather than a supermarket pack. The difference in a smoked product is the whole dish.

The Cactus butchery counters and the independent butchers in Bonnevoie carry everything needed, and the staff will tell you what to do with it if you ask.

Three questions we are asked

Is Luxembourgish food any good?

It is hearty rather than refined, and it is very good in cold weather when it was designed to be eaten. Bouneschlupp and Gromperekichelcher convert most people. Judd mat Gaardebounen is an acquired taste for anyone who does not like smoked pork.

Where do locals actually eat it?

At home, and in village inns at Sunday lunch. The city-centre versions are aimed at visitors and are generally more expensive and less good. Drive twenty minutes out and the same dish improves and halves in price.

Is there anything for vegetarians?

Traditionally, not much: the cuisine is built on pork, smoke and potatoes. Bouneschlupp can be made without the sausage, Gromperekichelcher are vegetarian, and the cheese and tart end of the repertoire works. Modern Luxembourg restaurants cater properly for vegetarians; traditional village inns frequently do not.

Why this matters when you are choosing where to live

Every district in the capital has an international food scene and the traditional cooking is mostly outside it. That is one of the arguments for the communes, and it is a real one for households who want to feel they live in Luxembourg rather than in an international business district.

A note on the language of menus. Luxembourgish dish names appear untranslated on a great many menus, including in restaurants that otherwise operate in French. Judd mat Gaardebounen, Bouneschlupp, Feierstengszalot and Träipen will not be explained, and asking is entirely normal rather than a sign of ignorance. Staff are used to it and generally pleased to be asked, which is more than can be said in some neighbouring countries.

When comparing two options on the seasonal calendar, avoid scoring them only on the feature named in the title. For the question raised by “The seasonal calendar”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

For cooking it at home, note what you can see, what you can measure, what you need to ask and what would be expensive to change. For the question raised by “The seasonal calendar”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

The long-term test for the wider picture is maintenance. For the question raised by “The wider picture”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages. It means pricing the effort honestly. That list can be surprisingly clarifying.

A stronger reading of cooking it at home starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.