Cheval Blanc

Fried carp from the vivier

Out of the live tank at Cheval Blanc in Feldbach, the executive chef Eric Ispa sends carp to the table fried, on the bone, with green salad, frites and mayonnaise. It is not softened into a symbol. The house is a stop on the Fried Carp Route through the Sundgau, in southern Alsace at the foot of the Swiss Jura, and freshwater fish eaten with the hands close to the plate is the local habit rather than a piece of theatre. Eric and Claire Ispa lead the current iteration of a table the Ispa family has kept for several generations, and the house holds Maître-Restaurateur status, which in France is a statement about fresh product and house-made work rather than about style. The kitchen calls what it does cuisine de tradition, fed by local inspiration, and the menu shifts by season and by day of the week: lighter at a weekday lunch, built for family tables at the weekend.

Time, sauce and the old forms

The method leans on time. A souris d’agneau is braised for four hours and sent with a bouquetière of vegetables and spaetzle. Feuilleté d’escargots aux chanterelles, rognons de veau au porto, civet de cerf façon grand-mère, house foie gras de canard with chutney and brioche, and filet de bœuf with a sabayon de poivre et estragon sit inside a repertoire where the old forms still hold their shape. Terrines, foie gras, sorbets and desserts are made in the house. Game arrives in season, alongside fish, seafood and a vegetarian line. The cellar carries its own weight: in 2024 La Revue du Vin de France named the wine list carte des vins de l’année, a narrow and specific kind of recognition for a village house where the cave is part of the craft rather than an accessory to it.

Four rooms and a heated terrace

The room keeps the polish of a formal table without losing the texture of a village house. Historical walls, refined lighting and an Alsatian sense of welcome set the pace; the service is formal but the mood is not brittle. Across four dining rooms and a heated terrace the work moves between weekend family gatherings, quieter weekday lunches and banquets, with parking at the door and children and dogs accounted for. Feldbach sits at 411 metres, five minutes from Ferrette and half an hour from Basel, which is why the tables fill with cross-border traffic as well as with locals.

Generosity as a discipline

The pass has to manage abundance without losing its edges. Portions run generous and the plates still arrive clean: a lamb broth amuse-bouche, raw salmon on sauerkraut, scallop carpaccio, braised lamb, veal with chanterelles, passion fruit sorbet with white rum, a chocolate croquette with orange sorbet. The Michelin Guide listed the house in 2025 under Traditional Cuisine and Farm to Table, which only names what the dishes already say. What holds it together is the carp, the frites, the mayonnaise and the vivier at Cheval Blanc in Feldbach.