Basel is home to over 1000 restaurants, and just about every cuisine from around the world can be found within the town. The local cuisine forms a mix of the best of French, German and even Italian cooking.
The excellent Basel Restaurant Guide is your best bet for finding your way around the city gastronomically. It even includes helpful interactive maps, which we definitely recommend you have a look at before you get there.
Local Bars
It wouldn't be an FSF Guide if we didn't recommend a few drinking dens and spots to grab a bit of grub, however, so here goes.
Zum Roten Engel on Andreasplatz is a great spot to stop for a light bite during the day, and the food is pretty cheap, too.
Cargo Bar at 46 St Johanns-Rheinweg offers a lively night out, with live music 3 nights a week. A lovely spot down by the riverbank, it's one to check out. If you're looking for something hip and trendy, visit Eoipso on Dornacherstrasse, which is a converted factory complex that now houses a great bar. They serve Basel's own Unser Bier (literally Our Beer) on tap, which is worth a try.
You'll likely pay around £3.50 or so for a pint in most bars in Basel.
Irish & English Pubs
Even in Basel, you can't escape the curse of the English/Irish bar. And there's more than one, so expect to see these places full of replica shirts come matchday.
McGuinness's Irish Pub can be found not far from the station on Elisabethenstrasse, and the Nelson Pub is not far away, in the town centre on Rümelinsplatz. Both offer up the tradition fare of pub grub, familiar beers and probably a load of crap all over the wall, to boot.
Mr Pickwick's has its own website to peruse before you land in Basel, and they can be found at 13 Steinenvorstadt.
Of course, if those three aren't to your taste, then you could always try Paddy Reilly's Irish Pub, which describes itself as "a genuine Irish pub; Irish owned, Irish managed and Irish staffed, excelling in all the traditions of an authentic Irish pub".
We think it's an Irish pub, but we're not quite sure they've made it clear.
