Rue de Gand: three estaminets, three ways to eat Flemish

Rue de Gand runs to the north-east of old Lille and ends at the porte de Gand, a remnant of the seventeenth-century fortifications. It has kept its cobbles, its narrow brick and stone houses, and a density of tables found nowhere else in the city.

It is a street you walk. Terraces follow one another, menus are posted outside, and people often choose as they climb. Our three houses have been settled here for a long time, within calling distance of each other.

This is the house for groups and noisy evenings. The tables are long, you eat side by side, and the sound level is part of the decor. The menu is northern: carbonade, potjevleesch, welsh, croquettes, and regional fresh-cut chips.

You come here as six, as twelve, as twenty. It is also the house chosen for a birthday or a team dinner, because it absorbs numbers without the kitchen slowing down. Booking advised at weekends, and essential beyond eight.

A few numbers down, the mood changes. La Vieille France works the old dishes, the ones that spend hours in the pot: carbonade in beer, potjevleesch, chicken with maroilles, maroilles tart. The grill takes over for the meats.

This is the house for family meals, tables of four, and people who want to taste the region without choosing between six dishes. A brick-walled room, and a terrace on the street as soon as the weather allows.

The house is named after its dish. The welsh comes in several versions here, from classic cheddar to a frankly regional maroilles, served in its dish with regional fresh-cut chips and a salad.

You come here when you know what you want. The menu also offers carbonade and potjevleesch, but most of the room orders a welsh. It is the kind of place you take someone who has never eaten in the North.

How many are you? Beyond six, go up to Chez la Vieille. Four or fewer, all three work.

What do you feel like? A slow-cooked dish means La Vieille France. A welsh means the Welsh. An evening that runs long means Chez la Vieille. And if you are still hesitating, there is less than two minutes' walk from the first to the last: read all three menus, they are posted outside.

All three are on the guide to Lille's estaminets, with the five other houses, their menus and their hours.