The French cuisine has a very high reputation in Germany, definitely so near the border but probably all over. It's justified, French people just have loads of good ideas to turn loads of stuff (including some slimy little animals with a low speed or green ones with an affinity for jumping) into really classy meals. Some things, like cheese or wine are also a very important export factor.
The French know this. I'd bet that most restaurants are genuine French ones (sounds obvious, but how many restaurants you've been to actually serve and specialise on German or [put in own nationality] food?). However, I found the reputation slightly overrated. I suppose your average French full-time mum can still do the most wonderful things if you get invited around. Among students, I mostly saw the same affection for food as amongst German ones.
French wine selection is incredible. A huge French supermarket will have several kilometres of wine shelves, a full range of prices, regions and tastes. This is fine as long as you don't want any foreign wines. Some people French always think their wine is the best - I say they don't know there is any other. Amongst the aforementioned infinite lengths of shelves I spotted a section 'Produits du monde' (Products of the world), about 70cm wide. 70% of these wines were French, too (well, I suppose France is a part of the world), but no German or even South American ones to be seen. If I had to stick with one sort of wines for the rest of my life it would probably be French, but the world of wine would not be the same without a good Chilean, Spanish or German one.
The cheese however is unrivalled. The reason we get good cheeses in Germany is because we generally quite happily import stuff from all over the world (including vocab), but the first time I went to a German supermarket the shopkeeper and several employees came running to see if I was fine lying in front of the cheese counter, crying.
Funny French cuisine hasn't managed to be more successful outernationally. How many French restaurants do you know outside France? Yes, they exist - but in Germany they're way down the list after Italian, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mexican, Indian and probably even German. Well, they brought us the Crêpe.
As I wrote earlier, French bakers have an important role in their country. So, is the average French baker better than the German? NO, he's not. True, your baguette, croissant and pain-au-chocolat isn't the same here, but even the big baking chains smell wonderfully of brezels and good German bread, of which the variety is incredible. The first thing I bought here was half a loaf of bread which cost more than your average Döner Kebap and which still isn't empty even though I had some of it every night, enjoying it immensely.
