The Brussels Bloggers' Guide to Food and Drink

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In the Belgian capital’s gourmet year, Peter Geoghegan hunts down its most trusted culinary bloggers for some eating, drinking and food-shopping tips. Photographs

by Jean-Marc Luneau

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“The thing about Brussels is that everyone goes out to eat all the time. Food is everywhere here.”

I’m sitting outside Delecta, an achingly hip bar in the upmarket Brussels neighbourhood of Ixelles, enjoying a beer with my guide for the evening, local blogger Yamina El Atlassi. As if on cue, a smiling waitress approaches with a plate of amuse-bouche: quinoa tabbouleh, saag, flatbread. I ask how much they are. She laughs at my naivety. “C’est gratuit.”

Between the free nibbles and the funky decor it’s no surprise that Delecta (2 Rue Lannoy, tel. +32 (0)2 644 1949) is, as Yamina says, “the place to be on Thursday evening”.

It’s just past 8pm and the weekend has already started. The bar is full, music pumping. Through the window I catch a glimpse of a DJ, silhouetted

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in front of brown floral 1970s wallpaper. An old stove planted in the centre of the bar doesn’t seem to bother the waitresses, who shimmy around it.

Everyone else – even the small cadre of dancers arranged around the DJ – seems to be eating.

Brussels may be the biggest city in Belgium (not to mention the unofficial capital of Europe) but it retains a refreshingly intimate feel. Most of the city can be traversed on foot in an hour or two, and neighbourhoods feel less like urban spaces and more like small, overlapping villages, each with its own special ambience and – as I quickly discover – culinary specialities. This year has been billed by the city as Brusselicious 2012 (brusselicious.be), a quirky moniker for a fun and year-long food festival.

Yamina has been blogging about food in her native city for the website Spotted by Locals (spottedbylocals.com) since 2009. She writes mainly about places in and around Ixelles, where she lives.

The leafy suburb is popular with cool kids and also

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clockwise from left impossible-tofinish portions at kuumba; football meets food; yamina tucks in

Cars drive by blasting their horns, people stand talking on the street and, of course, there is the rich, sweet smell of cooking

friends gather for drinks and music at delecta

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with expats who work in the nearby European Union buildings. As the DJ ups the tempo, we polish off our drinks, ready to build up an appetite with a walking tour of some of Yamina’s favourite restaurants.

On Chaussée d’Ixelles, the main thoroughfare connecting Ixelles to the city centre, every second building seems to be a restaurant. It’s a fittingly multicultural mix: there’s Italian, Egyptian, Chinese, Vietnamese – even an Eritrean, decked out in garish neon lights. We look in the window of Hama Shin (number 272), a Japanese place that, Yamina says, “doesn’t look fancy but it’s one of the best in town”. There’s also a fantastic Portuguese

deli that is so small only an estate agent could describe it as bijou.

At the summit of Chaussée d’Ixelles sits Matongé, a little piece of Africa in the heart of Brussels. Matongé, which takes its name from a neighbourhood in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has the lively, bustling feel of an African city. Cars drive by blasting their horns, people stand talking on the street and, of course, there is the rich, sweet smell of cooking.

Matongé boasts a number of restaurants, many specialising in a fusion of Western and African styles.

For a genuine taste of Central Africa, we head straight to Kuumba (35 Rue de la Paix), a community centrecum-restaurant decked out in African art, and posters of Manchester City and Belgium captain Vincent Kompany, a footballer proud of his DRC heritage.

“People who visit Matongé should not just experience the food but the culture too,” enthuses Jeroen Marckelbach, a tall Flemish man who set up Kuumba three years ago, after completing a ninemonth cycle from Matongé in Brussels to its Kinshasa namesake. Having explored the gallery at the back, BOOK NOW! GO TO ryanair.com

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“In Brussels a lot of the best places are hidden. I think the Belgians like it that way”

clockwise from below jane goes classic in les brassins; tasty japanese joint Kokuban; chez marie

Jane’s favourite, Chez Marie (tel. +32 (0)2 644 3031, 40 Rue Alphonse de Witte). You’d easily miss the quiet street near the Ixelles ponds that is home to this small, stylish French bistro (although you’re less likely to forget the myriad photographs of buxom ladies in various states of undress that adorn the walls). Nearby, Kokuban (53-55 Rue Vilain XIIII, tel. +32 (0)2 611 0622), an excellent Japanese noodle bar, sits in the midst of an unassuming row of offices and town houses.

When it comes to food on the street, your options are plentiful. Situated between the imposing Palace of Justice and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, the Place du Grand Sablon is one of Brussels’ most charming public squares. It’s also home to a Brussels food institution: Claire Fontaine (3 Ernest Allardstraat, tel. +32 (0)2 512 2410).

This tiny deli, just on the corner, is a veritable foodie heaven. Alongside rows of spices, salts and sugars, fine oils and vinegars, is a fresh food counter stacked high with cheeses, tarts, pâtés,

we sit down to a sumptuous meal of salt cod, wilted cassava leaves, plantains, and that Central African staple, maize. The food is hearty and perfectly cooked, but the incredibly generous portions defeat Yamina and I. Be warned, bring a doggy-bag!

Les Brassins is just a five-minute walk from Matongé, on the other side of Chaussée d’Ixelles, but it feels like another world when I arrive with Jane Goodyear, an American who runs the blog Best of Brussels (bestofbrusselsblog.com).

In the low-ceilinged, wood-panelled brasserie, you can hear the happy chatter of after-work diners sharing glasses of beer and plates of frites, competing with the sound of the Marianne 83

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Faithfull record they're playing over the speakers.

Patrice, Les Brassins’ avuncular owner, presents us with a rustic menu brimming with Belgian specialties: rabbit in cherry sauce, steak with fries, and the famous Brussels take on mashed potatoes, stoemp. In the end, I plump for charbonnade, a succulent meat stew slow-cooked with beer that tastes as good as it sounds.

“In Brussels a lot of the best places are hidden. I think the Belgians like it that way,” Jane remarks as we stroll back along the nondescript residential street that leads to Les Brassins. Certainly many of the city’s finest restaurants are in settings that seem, at first glance, rather unremarkable. Take

cooked vegetables and, a Brussels favourite, shrimp croquettes. Claire prepares all the food in her kitchen. “Every day you’ll find something different here,” she smiles, passing me a small plate of today’s special, shellfish in a creamy tomato sauce.

Sablon has plenty for those with a sweeter tooth, too. Pierre Marcolini is arguably the name in Brussels chocolate right now, but for something a little edgier I head along to Patrick Roger (43 Place du Grand Sablon, tel. +32 (0)2 514 7046, patrickroger. com). Roger is “the enfant terrible of chocolatiers”, says Eric Sohl of the blog tastingandliving.com. The window display – a pair of almost life-size rhinos sculpted out of chocolate – sets the tone. The BOOK NOW! GO TO ryanair.com

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clockwise from above

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a nature-inspired treat from patrick roger; inside the shop; andrew and our writer raise a glass

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For something a little edgier I head along to Patrick Roger, “the enfant terrible of chocolatiers”

chocolates are pretty memorable too: peppermint and lemongrass, lemon and basil, and my personal favourite marzipan, thyme and lemon.

A 10-minute walk south-west from Place du Grand Sablon, up-and-coming Saint-Gilles boasts some of the best bars in the city. It’s also the place to go to sample another Brussels speciality – a cone of frites. La Friterie de la Barrière, essentially a glorified chip van, may not look like much but it’s probably the best friterie in the city, just the spot after a few strong beers in Potemkine or Brasserie Verschueren.

Chips are fried twice and come smothered in a choice of sauces.

As for beverages, what can I say? Belgium is, of course, the beer capital of the world – and Brussels is the place to try them. No one knows exactly how many Belgian beers there are, but Andrew Stroehlein has set himself the challenge of sampling each one. “I think 800 is a fair estimate, but not everyone would agree,” says Andrew, who has tried around 400 so far, blogging about his exploits at 40 Beers at 40 (40beersat40.blogspot.co.uk).

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clockwise from left a bright and beaming crowd at au soleil; a little something to round off the day!

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We start with a local speciality, the Gueuze. It’s a real Marmite beer — you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it We are sitting on the sunny terrace in front of Moeder Lambic Fontainas (8 Place Fontainas, tel. +32 (0)2 503 6068, moederlambic.com) or, as Andrew prefers to call it, “the best bar in Brussels”. Over the course of a couple of hours, he gives me an increasingly blurry master class in Belgian beer.

We start with a local speciality, the Gueuze. It’s a real Marmite beer – you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it. The first sip of this Lambic beer is eyewateringly sour, but I quickly acclimatise and by the end of the glass I’d happily order another.

Except I don’t, as we quickly move on to the next one, a bitter offering from De Ranke, then 86

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an unseasonal (but great) dark winter beer, before ending with one of Andrew’s personal favourites, a sweet Belgian blonde called Taras Boulba.

My introduction to the wonderfully intoxicating world of Belgian beer is rounded off around the corner from Moeder Lambic with a little nightcap outside Au Soleil (86 Rue du Marché au Charbon, tel. +32 (0)2 512 3430). Andrew smiles when he sees the bar’s beer menu: it appears they have one of his favourite Belgian pale ales on tap. “That’s the great thing about Brussels,” he says, as we wait eagerly at the bar for our drinks. “From the outside a place doesn’t look like it would be for beer connoisseurs, but then you go in and it has an amazing selection. It’s a Brussels thing.” ●