restaurant recommendations in Lucern

My favorite restaurant in Luzern was the Manora (top floor inside the Manor department store). It looks like a cafeteria, but everything is made fresh to order (so, when you get fish, they take a raw piece off the ice and fry it for you; it's not precooked and sitting on a steam table). It's easily half the price of other sit-down restaurants. The only problems are 1) it's not a secret and is VERY popular with locals, so it's always mobbed, and 2) it has department store hours, meaning that M-F it closes early for dinner, Saturday it's only open for lunch, and it's closed completely on Sunday.

If you want a less expensive place when Manora is closed, there's a Tibbits on the top floor of the train station, which is a vegetarian buffet (priced by weight). Again, lots of locals there.

I mention these places because once you see regular restaurant prices, you may be looking for alternatives. Rick's book listed several good places in Luzern; they were fine, but frankly, not as memorable as the two above (and easily double the price). For an interesting setting, see his listings along the lake.

It is hard to go wrong in a Manora.

Another alternative we use are the two big Swiss supermarket chains, Migros and Coop. Their larger branches have a similar, but not as good, setup as the Manora.

Along a similar line, more expensive but excellent food, is the Le Marche restaurants by Moevenpick. If you are driving to Luzern there is an autobahn rest area just north of Luzern that I stop at often which has both a Holiday Inn Express and a Le Marche.