Zum Issak - by Vikki Morgan

Zum Isaak, a restaurant I love for its central location on Munsterplatz.  When we went the snow was still crunchy underfoot, and with the restaurants high ceilings I felt like was eating in a medieval castle vault.

Munsterplatz 16, 4051 Basel, Tel: 061 261 47 12

The food surprised me because its simple but extremely good. To drive out the cold, I had a satisfying, creamy tomato soup.  Why did I like it so much? Really simply it just delivered a great tomato punch without relying on salt or butter or stock..  the main was red snapper wrapped in banana leaf - that I thought was really clever because the fish was so succulent.  I hardly wanted to disturb the caramelised sauce because it was lying so prettily on my plate...but the ginger and pepper in it really made the dish zing... (lifted the fish above the samey ness you get so often in fish dishes. )

The chocolate cake is the pride of the restaurant...but to me it felt like an ordinary chocolate sponge, even a pretty dry one at that.  I think I might be insulting a Basel institution, but that schokkicake was brown, square, and was kept outside the kitchen on the counter, so there's no mystery to it.

I would recommend, and to everybody.  It's a refined, gentle place that is easy to come to for a business lunch.  Ladies - and men- with buggies will find there's plenty of room and the staff are great with children or rubbish German.  Lunch comes at 20 francs for 2 courses, it's quiet, classy and central.