Top Restaurants in Lille, France: A Foodie’s Guide, Lille, France

I’d been to Lille once before… it could be 10 years ago, it could be 20. Either way, I didn’t remember much about it and I didn’t have particularly high expectations. The only reason I was going to Lille at all was because northern France was the easiest place for my entire family - coming from England, Belgium and the Netherlands respectively - to get to without having to quarantine in the midst of the second year of the pandemic. We hadn’t seen each other in 18 months - the location was pretty much irrelevant. So while I rushed to make restaurant reservations for the third time (we’d already planned and then nixed two other destinations), I did not have high hopes for Lille. Luckily for me, I’d got it all wrong.

Lille’s old town is compact but still larger than I’d imagined: there are restaurants on every corner. Not just French brasseries and bistros but everything from high-end modern European dining to quick-and-tasty poké bowls and stuffed pitas. Lille has foodie city written all over it.

Lille’s old town is compact but still larger than I’d imagined: there are restaurants on every corner. Not just French brasseries and bistros but everything from high-end modern European dining to quick-and-tasty poké bowls and stuffed pitas. Lille has foodie city written all over it. During that first post-pandemic trip, we were only in Lille for three days. But a couple of years later, we went back for another family reunion - this time to celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. So the tips below for the top restaurants in Lille have been put together over a couple of different visits, spaced a couple of years apart. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).