Café Mozart

Maison Jacques pastry, served above the square

Café Mozart is the salon de thé and lunch room of Maison Jacques, the Mulhouse pâtissier, chocolatier and glacier whose craft dates to 1934, so the pastry on the plate comes from that house rather than from a separate café kitchen. Four generations of artisan pâtissiers stand behind it, and the house talks about careful selection of raw materials as the part that carries through to the counter. Maison Jacques belongs to Relais Desserts, the international association founded in 1981 to bring together the leading names in French pâtisserie, which is the clearest signal of what the cakes and tarts here are meant to be. This is a traditional French tea room, not a specialty coffee bar.

Windows over Place de la Réunion

The room sits above Mulhouse's central square, and its windows and terrace look across Place de la Réunion toward the Temple Saint-Étienne, so the view does as much work as the plate. The atmosphere is elegant and unhurried, with indoor seating and outdoor tables when the weather allows. What it is not is a modern coffee room: there is no pour-over ritual, no espresso-machine talk and no matcha programme competing with the pastry. Coffee and tea are here as the classic accompaniment to a cake, and the visit is shaped as a gourmet pause in the middle of the day rather than as a place to settle in with a laptop.

Cake in the afternoon, quiche at midday

The day divides cleanly. Breakfast is continental. Midday brings a plat du jour, quiches, savoury tarts and lighter snacks, which is the least-known side of the place and the reason it works for more than a sweet stop. Afterwards the draw returns to the Maison Jacques display: pastries, cakes, tarts, chocolate work and ice cream made by the same house. If you have one visit, take a pastry and a coffee at a window table in the afternoon, when the square is busiest and the case is fullest. If you have two, come at midday for a quiche or the dish of the day and finish with a tart.