11 Best Restaurants in The Bodensee, Germany

This bistro-style restaurant with a seafood market specializes in fresh fish from the lake prepared on a grill in front of guests. In good weather, sit outside on the long communal tables, or stop for a fish roll when wandering the island. If you want dinner, make it an early one; the restaurant closes at 7:30.

This small brewery with shiny copper cauldrons, part of a chain of five throughout Germany, serves simple dishes as well as regional specialties and vegetarian food on large wooden tables.

This bustling multilevel café opens early, closes late, and offers a mind-boggling array of ice-cream dishes and other sweet and savory fare. For a quick and inexpensive meal, consider the tasty breakfasts, sandwiches, and German- and Italian-influenced items available.

This popular place, with two floors and a large terrace on Marienplatz, has an international range of dishes, from kebabs and curries to pastas and local specialties. You can also enjoy coffee, cakes, or an aperitif.

This ancient inn was serving warm meals to the patricians, officials, merchants, and other good burghers of Lindau back in the 14th century. Today you can sit under the building's arches on the cobblestoned street or in the traditional warm wooden interior and enjoy authentic home-style cooking featuring fish from the lake in season, venison from the mountains, and apples—pressed to juice or distilled to schnapps—from local orchards.

Enjoy eclectic cooking—including Italian, Bavarian, and Swabian fare—on the terrace at this warm-weather spot on the harbor. Sit outside and watch the busy harbor traffic, or enjoy the beer garden with a sandbox for children and a big TV screen for watching sports. The restaurant frequently presents sporting, culinary, and live-music events. If you're in town on Ash Wednesday at the end of the Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht (carnival) celebrations, try to get a spot at Hafenhalle's annual fish-and-snails dining event, which marks the reopening of the restaurant after a period of winter closure.

This kiosk-style restaurant at Reichenau's yacht harbor provides an ideal lunch, drink, or snack stop when wandering the island. In good weather, you can sit outside and watch the boats come and go. It's also a perfect place to try the Bodensee specialty Zanderknusperle (crispy battered pike-perch bites)—fresh out of the lake.

The resident Bernadotte family is Swedish, and so are the specialties of the chef at this country-inspired restaurant with a large terrace. Have your hotel reserve a table for you.

Fresh fish from the lake is a specialty at this traditional restaurant near the New Castle, which has been in the Benz family for four generations. You can pair the day's catch with white wine from their own vineyard. A popular entrée is badische Ente (duck with bacon and apples in a wine-kirsch sauce). Reservations are recommended.

A grand view of the harbor and the lake is only one of the attractions of this art deco–style restaurant, serving lunch and dinner (after the museum has closed), in the Zeppelin Museum. Soak up the retro airship travel theme as you enjoy cakes and drinks, and a range of Swabian, Italian, and Asian-influenced meals.

In this bright-pink half-timbered building dating to the 1500s, three generations of the Scheiner family have run wine bars named for a classic German song, \"Die Fischerin vom Bodensee\" (\"The Fisherwoman From the Bodensee\"). It's a cozy place to pair well-curated wines from local producers with shareable dishes such as an impressive opener of white beans with chili oil and hummus with focaccia. This version is a gallery, too, with attractive art lining the wooden walls of a small dining area just below street level.