Restaurant in Metz, France
Michelin-recognised cooking without the splurge.
Derrière holds a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025 and delivers consistent modern French cooking at a mid-range €€ price point. With a 4.5 Google rating across nearly 800 reviews, it is one of Metz's most reliable choices for a special occasion dinner without the cost of a starred table. Book ahead for weekend sittings.
Derrière holds a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, which in practical terms means Michelin's inspectors found the cooking consistently good enough to flag without pinning a star to it. At the €€ price point, that is a meaningful credential: you are getting food that cleared a serious quality bar without paying the premium that comes with Metz's pricier modern tables. If you are planning a special occasion dinner in Metz and want a venue where the kitchen takes the meal as seriously as you do, Derrière is worth booking. It is not the boldest or most ambitious room in the city, but it is one of the most reliably solid at its price tier.
Derrière sits at 17 Rue de la Chèvre in central Metz, a short walk from the cathedral quarter. The address places it squarely in the old city, where stone-fronted buildings and narrow streets frame the approach. The cuisine is classified as modern, which in a mid-price French context typically means a menu that respects classical technique while making room for seasonal shifts and contemporary plating. This is not a venue trying to reinvent anything; it is trying to execute well, and based on its consecutive Michelin Plate recognition, it does.
For a special occasion, the €€ positioning is one of Derrière's strongest arguments. Anniversary dinners, birthday meals, or business dinners where you want the setting to signal effort without the bill signalling excess all land well here. You are not walking into a white-tablecloth austerity exercise or a noisy bistro where the conversation gets buried. The modern cuisine format gives the meal enough structure to feel like an occasion without making it feel like a formal endurance event.
The timing question matters here. Metz is a cathedral city with a measurable tourist and student population, and the rhythm of a mid-week dinner will be quieter and more deliberate than a Friday or Saturday service. If your priority is atmosphere and energy, the weekend is the right call. If your priority is attentive service and a table that does not feel rushed, Tuesday through Thursday tends to reward you in venues of this type. For a genuinely late dinner, it is worth confirming with the venue directly since hours are not published, but French modern restaurants in this tier typically run late sittings on Friday and Saturday that extend well past 9 PM, making them viable for post-theatre or post-event dining.
The Michelin Plate, awarded in consecutive years, tells you something specific: this is not a one-year anomaly. The 2025 retention of the Plate means the kitchen has maintained its standard across a full additional year of service. For a mid-range modern restaurant in a regional French city, that kind of consistency is more meaningful than a single-year flourish. Across the wider context of French modern cuisine, venues carrying this credential sit in good company alongside destinations like Auberge de l'Ill in Illhaeusern and Bras in Laguiole on the broader Michelin map of France, though Derrière is operating at a very different price tier and scale. The point is that Michelin's regional coverage in France is thorough, and earning a Plate in consecutive years in a city like Metz is not handed out as a courtesy.
Google rating of 4.5 across 799 reviews adds a second independent data layer. A 4.5 average at nearly 800 reviews is harder to sustain than at 100 reviews, because the sample size absorbs bad nights, off-service weeks, and the inevitable one-star outliers. It suggests the experience is broadly consistent across different diner types and different nights of the week, not just polished for critics.
On the late-night dimension: Derrière's mid-range positioning and modern cuisine format make it a plausible choice for an evening that starts elsewhere. If you are in Metz for the evening and want a proper meal rather than a quick plate, venues in this category typically allow you to book a late sitting on weekend evenings and run the full menu through a later service window. That is the more practical option for anyone arriving after 8:30 PM. Cross-reference with our full Metz bars guide if you want to map the full evening before or after dinner.
The one practical gap here is that booking details, hours, and the specific menu format are not published in this record. Book directly through the venue at 17 Rue de la Chèvre or ask your hotel concierge to call ahead. Given a 4.5 Google score and Michelin visibility, tables on Friday and Saturday evenings will fill faster than mid-week. Booking is classified as easy at this venue, but that does not mean walk-in at 8 PM on a Saturday is reliable. Give yourself at least a week's notice for weekend sittings around public holidays or during the summer season when Metz's tourism traffic increases. For the wider dining picture in Metz, see our full Metz restaurants guide.
If you want to anchor a longer trip around serious French cooking and are curious how Metz compares to the broader circuit, the northeast of France connects reasonably to venues like Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen in Paris or, heading into the Alps, Flocons de Sel in Megève. Derrière is not in that league on ambition or price, but for what it is — a credentialed, consistent, mid-range modern table in a city worth visiting — the decision to book is easy to make.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derrière | Modern Cuisine | €€ | Easy |
| Yozora | Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| 83 Restaurant | Italian | €€ | Unknown |
| La Lanterne | Modern Cuisine | €€€ | Unknown |
| La Réserve | Modern Cuisine | €€ | Unknown |
| Le Jardin de Bellevue | Modern Cuisine | €€€ | Unknown |
Comparing your options in Metz for this tier.
Yes, for the category. A back-to-back Michelin Plate in 2024 and 2025 signals consistent, inspected quality, which gives a special dinner here a credible foundation. At €€ pricing, you get a recognisable occasion without the cost pressure of a starred room. For a milestone that needs more ceremony, the starred options in the wider Lorraine region will raise the stakes further.
At €€, it almost certainly is. Michelin Plate recognition means inspectors judged the cooking good enough to single out, and that standard at mid-range prices is a solid deal in any French city. You are not paying for a starred experience, but you are getting food that has cleared a credible quality bar without the premium pricing that usually accompanies it in France.
Menu format details are not confirmed in available data for Derrière, so committing to a specific tasting menu recommendation is not possible here. What is confirmed: the kitchen holds a Michelin Plate at €€ prices, which suggests structured, considered cooking rather than a casual à la carte format. Check directly with the restaurant at 17 Rue de la Chèvre to confirm current menu options before booking.
Book ahead. A Michelin Plate restaurant in a compact old-city address in Metz is not going to have spare covers on short notice. The €€ price range makes it one of the more accessible Michelin-recognised kitchens in the region, so demand is likely higher than the price point suggests. Arrive knowing it is a modern cuisine format, not a traditional Lorraine brasserie.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in the venue record. Given the address at 17 Rue de la Chèvre in central Metz and the Michelin Plate positioning, this reads more as a sit-down dining restaurant than a bar-forward space, but check the venue's official channels to confirm before assuming walk-in bar access is available.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
