I've only eaten rabbit once and it was bathed in garlic butter so I don't really remember it. Besides the "tastes like chicken hehe" stereotype, is there any knock-your-socks-off dish made with rabbit where it's center stage?
First time I heard of rabbit being considered to taste like chicken, they taste nothing alike.
They don't. It's just a reference to the standing joke that any meat that is unfamiliar "tastes like chicken" as a generic way of describing meat taste.
The meat is gamey and indeed very lean, but when you slow cook it to the point where it falls off the bone... yum. Tends to work better with roasted potatoes than mash.
It's the kind of meat that is, generally speaking, better prepared in more rustic versions as you move inland, though -- see e.g. [1], where it's cooked in clay, together with kidneys, heart, liver, and the head.
With the price of meat I've given some thought to keeping rabbits and/or chickens but it's likely not worth the effort unless you truly cannot afford meat any other way.
At one of my ancestral villages in Galicia, rabbit empanada is also a thing, and tastes amazing. But it's seen less and less often because it's messy to eat (it's cooked with bones so you have to open the empanada, remove the bones and close it again) so people tend to use fillings without that problem now. (You can cook it without the bones, there are also areas where they do that, but in that specific area they shun that variant).
you need an example of what you consider such a dish.
Rabbits are pretty decent, as a kid we used to have quite a few of them at the village (along with all other kind of animals, incl. lambs, pigs, and goats). Either way it's rather easy to tell the meat apart and most meat(s) can be prepared to be delicious.
Honestly fried rabbit legs (southern style fried chicken but rabbit essentially) is also pretty good.
Only recipe I've seen was indeed a stew where the ingredients were almost "one rabbit, unholy amounts of garlic".
It's not a knock-your-socks-off dish, I don't think the meat has enough qualities for such a dish (not enough of a distinct taste or texture or quantity), but it's always nice to have!
https://bordeauxkitchen.com/rabbit-with-prunes-lapin-aux-pru...
The guys from Fallow made a video on YouTube about attempting to make a really good one.
Apparently Lapin à la Moutarde is the classic rabbit dish.
(I ordered it because of my rule: If I see an animal on a menu that I haven't eaten before, I order it.)