© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011. The turbulent flow over periodically arranged geometrically two-dimensional hills in a channel at a Reynolds number of Re = 37,000 has been considered as benchmark case for various eddy-resolving methods. The aim of this study is to assess various LES models and numerical approaches in a turbulent flow detaching from a curved surface. We compare results of a Cartesian grid solver using the immersed boundary method with various curvilinear approaches ranging from standard eddy-viscosity subgrid-scale models to hybrid LES-RANS models. The results are validated by a recent experiment conducted in a water channel by particle image velocimetry and laser-Doppler anemometry.