Eating in Brussels
Brussels is known for its high-quality French-style cuisine and for multicultural variety. Seafood — fish, eels, shrimp, and oysters — is especially well prepared here.
Mussels in Brussels
Mussels are served all over town. For an atmospheric cellar or a table right on the Grand Place, eat at 't Kelderke (daily 12:00–24:00, Grand Place 15, tel. 02-513-7344). It serves local specialties, including mussels (a splittable kilo bucket from €16).
The touristy Restaurant Chez Leon is a mussels factory — slamming out piles of good and cheap buckets in the intense restaurant lane (see below). It's a big, welcoming place with busy green-aproned waiters offering a "Formula Leon" for €12.25, a light meal consisting of a small bucket of mussels, fries, and a beer (daily 12:00–23:00, non-smoking section, kids eat free, rue des Bouchers 18, tel. 02-511-1415).
Restaurant Lane — Rue des Bouchers
Brussels' restaurant streets — two blocks north of the Grand Place — are touristy and notorious for aggressively sucking you in and ripping you off. But the area is an exhilarating spectacle and fun for at least a walk. Order carefully and understand the prices thoroughly.
Restaurant Chez Leon is the place for buckets of cheap and good mussels (see above). Aux Armes de Bruxelles is a venerable eatery that has been serving reliably good food to locals in a dressy setting for generations (indoors only, €30 menus, Tue–Sun 12:00–23:00, closed Mon, Rue des Bouchers 13, tel. 02-511-5550). At Restaurant Vincent, you enter through the kitchen — say hello to owners Michel and Jacques — and end up in their 1905-era establishment. Enjoy a €25 menu and Old World ambience with the locals (daily 12:00-14:30 & 18:30-23:00, Rue des Dominicains 8-10, tel. 02-511-2607).
More Eateries near the Grand Place
La Maison des Crêpes is a sweet little place serving delicious €7 crêpes (savory and sweet) and salads, just a half-block south of the Bourse (daily 11:30–23:00, good beers, rue du Midi 13).
Osteria a l'Ombra, a tiny three-table place across the lane from the TI a block off the Grand Place, is perfect for anyone needing a quality bowl of pasta with a fine glass of Italian wine served by good-looking pony-tailed Italian stallions. It's pricey but the woody bistro ambience and tasty food make it a good value (daily 12:00–15:00 & 18:30–24:00, rue des Harengs 2, tel. 02-511-6710).
You'll find sandwich shops throughout Brussels. Panos (on Grasmarkt, across from entrance of Galleries Royales St. Hubert) and La Suisse (across from the Bourse, Boulevard Ansprach 73) are both reliably good.
Two supermarkets are about a block from the Bourse and a few blocks from the Grand Place. AD Delhaize is at the intersection of Ansprach and Marché-aux-Poulets (Mon–Sat 9:00–20:00, Fri until 21:00, Sun 9:00–18:00), and Super GB is a half-block away at Halles and Marché-aux-Poulets (Mon–Sat 9:00–20:00, Fri until 21:00, closed Sun).
Around the Sainte Catherine Fish Market
A five-minute walk from the old center puts you in "the village within the city" area of Sainte Catherine, where the historic fish market has spawned a tradition of fine restaurants specializing mostly in seafood. The old fish canal survives and if you walk around it you'll see plenty of enticing restaurants. Consider these:
Bij den Boer, a fun and noisy eatery popular with locals and tourists, feels like a traditional and very successful brasserie. The specialty: fish (€25 menu, Mon–Sat 12:00–14:30 & 18:00–22:30, closed Sun, quai aux Briques 60, tel. 02-512-6122). Its neighbor, Restaurant Jacques (at #44), also has a good reputation.
La Marie Joseph, a stylish modern place with the focus only on the fish, has earned raves among locals (€30 meals, Tue–Sun 12:00–15:00 & 18:30–23:00, closed Mon, smoke-free zone, Brandhoutkaai 47, tel. 02-218-0596).
Restaurant le Loup-Galant is a wonderfully local place a block beyond the market, with a rustic-yet-dressy charm, serving fine contemporary Belgian cuisine from a menu that changes monthly with what's fresh (€25 three-course menu of the week, Tue–Sat 19:00–22:00, closed Sun–Mon, air-con, no tourists, reservations wise, quai aux Barques 4, tel. 02-219-9998).
In 't Spinnekopke, a five-minute walk from the Fish Market or Bourse (through an unappealing but safe neighborhood), is the king of traditional old Brussels eateries — the Spider's Head. Its dark, tangled halls of heavy wooden tables surrounded by antique paintings are filled with serious eaters (€15–20 plates, Mon–Sat 18:00–23:00, closed Sun, place du Jardin aux Fleurs 1, tel. 02-511-8695).
Near Place Grand Sablon
La Pain Quotidien ("The Daily Bread") is an incredibly atmospheric bakery that extends out back into an elegant "Marie-Antoinette has a picnic" terrace. You'll find classy open-face sandwiches, soups, and salads — expensive but fresh and tasty (daily 8:00–19:00, rue des Sablons 11, tel. 02-513-5154).
L'Estrille du Vieux Bruxelles is a dressy, half-timbered place just downhill from place Grand Sablon serving a fine €10 daily lunch special (daily 12:00–14:00, rue de Rollebeek 7, tel. 02-512-5857).
Sampling Belgian Beer with Food and Ambience
Looking for a good place to enjoy that famous Belgian beer? Brussels is full of atmospheric cafés to savor. The places lining the Grand Place are a little touristy, but the setting's hard to beat. I've listed three places a few minutes walk off the square with magical old-time ambience. For a few euros, you can generally get a cold meat plate, an open-face sandwich, or a salad.
All varieties of Belgian beers are available, but Brussels' most unusual beers are lambic-based. Look for lambic doux,lambic blanche,gueuze (pron. kurrs), faro, and fruit-flavored lambics such as Kriek and Framboise. These beers look and taste more like a dry, somewhat bitter cider. The brewer doesn't add yeast — the beer ferments naturally from yeast found floating only in the marshy air around Brussels. For more on Belgian beer, see page 260.
At Le Cirio, across from the Bourse, the dark wooden tables boast the skid marks of over a century's worth of beer steins (rue de la Bourse 18–20, tel. 02-512-1395).
A la Bécasse is lower profile, with a simple wood-panel and wood-table decor that appeals to both poor students and businessmen at lunch. The home-brewed lambic doux is served in a clay jar. It's just around the corner from Le Cirio toward the Grand Place, hidden away at the end of a courtyard (daily from 10:00, rue de Tabora 11, tel. 02-511-0006).
A la Mort Subite, north of the restaurant streets, is a classic old bar that retains its 1928 decor and many of its 1928 customers (rue Montagne-aux-Herbes Potagères 7, tel. 02-513-1318). Named 80 years ago after the "sudden death" playoff that workingmen used to end their lunchtime dice games, the place still has an unpretentious, working-class feel. The decor is simple, with wood tables, grimy yellow wallpaper, and some-other-era garland trim. A typical lunch or snack here is a tartine (open-face sandwich) spread with fromage blanc (cream cheese) or pressed meat. Eat it with one of the home-brewed lambic-based beers.