Brussels' best and worst food archive

November 95's top three:

• Il senza nome Creative Italian food, next to the Halles de Schaerbeek. The lady in charge is sometimes as smiling as a prison door, but the Prosciutto alle erbe con radicchio (around 400FB) is divine in simplicity and taste.
• Le Trieste Another Italian, this one dedicated to tradition. Forget the menu and ask for the day's special (around 350FB). It's in a busy street parallel the rue d'Alost, behind the Gare du Nord.
• La Marie-Josèphe Perfect fish food served with perfect attention. Pricey (nothing under 600FB). Their Alsace house wine is a damnation. No credit cards. On the Quai aux Briques.

...and one to avoid:

• Au Relais Place Meiser. Way overpriced. Two waiters, one excellent, while the other one is the lousiest in town. Unfortunately, you can't choose.

December 95's top zero:

Spent the month abroad. Watch out for Banjul, Madrid and Bethlehem's best food special editions ASAP

January 96's top three:

• Le grain de sel Creative french food by an Euro-Asian crew, chaussee de Vleurgat, near the corner of the Place Flagey. The day menu is a great value. Lots of colors and vegetables. Not the most romantic place however: you have to share your neighbour's conversation and they will share yours too.
• Osteria Classy Italian, affordable if you stick to the lunch. On the Art Nouveau Avenue Louis Bertrand in Schaerbeek. Light and delicious. Booking your table is a good idea (phone 2414808).
• Le Macon Rue Edith Cavell, just in front of the hospital. Service is a shame but the Americain frites has this extra special little something that makes it stand apart in its simplicity for a democratic price. Not easy to find a parking place.

...and one to avoid:

• Au Stekerlapatte Near the Palais de Justice. Good food overall, but the "new floor" has lost all the charm of the downstairs room. Avoid this soulless annexe at all cost. It's always full anyway so they won't miss you.

February 96's top three:

• Centro Gallego Best paëlla in town, but you have to call ahead to book it (5385222) Their lightly sparkling white wine is a perfect match. Don't be put off by the place: it's a cultural center first, and a restaurant second, but it's definitely worth a visit.
• Fin de siècle Rue des Chartreux, close to the Bourse. The place is cool, soooooooo cool that nobody seems to care if the waitress is a bit on the sleepy side. Great Saucisse de Toulouse aux lentilles. On the minus side there's no wine list, and the apple pie needs a thorough rethinking. Music on friday and saturday's evenings.
• Aux saveurs retrouvées Avenue Buyl, near the corner of the boulevard Général Jacques. South of France classics. Not for the cholesterol-conscious, but worth every franc if foie gras and magret are keywords of your palatal nirvanas. Excellent wine-by-the-glass list.

...and one to avoid:

• Les jardins du Sablon Place du Grand Sablon, 36. Great potential with a luminous setting in a confidential shopping garden. Unfortunately the food is anything-goes and the service quality ghostlike. Someone should bring back a soul here.

March 96's top two:

• Saveurs du Monde Excellent 395BF three courses lunch with a choice of "d'ici" or "de là-bas" food. "De là-bas" is often Thai in inspiration, but could as well be Viet, or Senegalese. The common feature is the predominance of nose-stimulating flavours. The wine list has some strange choices though, and no correct rosé, a shame. You need a map and probably a car to go there, it's in Woluwe, rue de la station 76, not far from the Woluwe Shopping Center.
• Restaurant Vincent Rue des Dominicains, perpendicular to the infamous rue des Bouchers. If you were heading for Chez Leon, try this place instead. It's a few meters away, the food is not worse and you'll get an out-of-time stupendous setting for the price - that is if you can find a seat in the "boat" room. Order an Americain-frites and picture yourself as a Bourgeois de Bruxelles a century ago.

...and one to avoid:

• Aux délices de Chine Avenue de la chasse, 14 The quintessential Chinese turned Belgian restaurant. The food is remarkably bland, the waitress smiles like a robot and the setting is the mock dragon and lillyflowers abomination kind. Could be a kitschy experience if not for the bored customers, middle aged families apparently fulfilling, sunday after sunday, dreams of plastic evasion. In a word: sordid.

April 96's top zero:

Spent most of the month in Myanmar. Nothing gastronomically spectacular, but:

• Best Strawberry Milkshake: Marie Min Vegetarian Restaurant in Mandalay
• Best Club Sandwich: The Strand Cafe in Yangon
• Best Fruit Salad: Cold SomethingIDon'tRemember, on the street between the station and the main crossroad, close to the crossroad down a little alleyway, in Pyin U Lwyin

May 96's top three:

• Le Loup Galant Quai aux Barques, at the back end of what everybody including me incorrectly calls Place Ste Catherine. A friendly and affordable place in an otherwise overpriced and snobbish area. Creative lunch: the usual Salade de foie de volaille, but with a surprisingly fitting pineapple sauce for instance. Young crew of apprentice waiters eager to please. A small terraced area behind the main room adds to the charm.
• Faubourg St Antoine Avenue Giraud in Schaerbeek. Looks like one more snack bar with unpalatable tuna sandwiches, but enter the snack and you discover an utterly sympathetic little restaurant with a Tintinesque decoration and a dozen appetizing meals handwritten daily on a small board passed from customer to customer. Nothing extravagant or overambitious: pasta, salads and florentine cabillaud are all you should expect. Always fresh and cheap.
• Atanase There's only one Atanase and you will like it. Accordingly, the Retsina is the worst this side of the Acropole, the tables could be cleaner, the additions often don't add up to what they should, but the 200BF Couilles de Socrate with small greek pasta ordered directly in the kitchen are to be experienced one day. This Oscar for conviviality is in front of the Midi Station's main exit.

...and one to avoid:

• Bangkok Airport's Dining Room The main one, upstairs. Ok, it's not really in Brussels, but there were so many Belgians when I turned up there... Possibly the worst restaurant on earth: I had to write that down somewhere !

June 96's top three:

• Le Prévot Rue Victor Greyson, between the Boulevard Général Jacques and the Place Flagey. Inventive, courteous and always surprising. The 280Bf meal of the day with a glass of the red housewine is unbeatable. Lots of exotic lettuces in the chief's preparations. One little warning: if you are anxious to avoid salt, keep clear of some of the entries.
• Le Pou qui Tousse Place de la vieille halle-aux-blés. Monday at lunch time, you'll find half the Walloon government enjoying here the wonders of Sardinian cooking after a hard morning's work at the Socialist Party headquarters next door. A sometimes expensive adventure if you don't beware. My advice: take the Risotto frutti di mare as a main course; it's one of the cheapest options and it mixes well with the political gossip.
• Chez Henri Rue de Flandre, 113. Dear Henry ! Ok, you have to pay cash and share the evening with a sample of very superficially happy bourgeois de Bruxelles just back from le Zoute or Ibiza. But nowhere else are the Moules so fresh and the Macon so conforting. Best mustard in Brussels by the way. Dip the ultrafine french fries in it, and forget about tax time.

...and one to avoid:

• Bonsoir Clara The hip place in the Antoine Dansaert Street. Noisy, overpriced and bland at the same time. The waitresses have clearly been selected on their vegetarian body figures only. Their knowledge of food and beverage specifics is slightly above that of my hairdresser's and their memory span averages five whole seconds. I'm still waiting for my dessert.

July-August 96's top three:

• La Bonne Humeur Chaussée de Louvain, 244. Aren't mussels supposed to be Belgium's national dish ? Yessss sir, and this year, after a long long long wait, the Zelandese finally arrived two weeks ago. If someone tries to sell you the idea that they're more tasty than last year, he's lying: they were perfectly tasty last year. And so are they right now at La Bonne Humeur, the ideal place to eat them the local way, in a noisy, smokey, oily, packed atmosphere with a gang of Brussels' least respectable old ladies and the odd mailman. Not clean at all, but soooo authentic. Don't miss it.
• Pastissimo Rue du Berger. A reader suggested including this one, and he was right to underline the creative use of pasta by the crew in the kitchen. Dietetic food full of colours and light in calories, a favorite of fashion models, and globally a feast for the eyes. True, the price list is a bit on the stingy side: the billed amount to cost of raw material ratio is vertiginous. And there is some laissez-aller in the maintenance: some of those trendy little table lamps begin to show their age. But all in all, you should try it. And bring in your apprentice covergirl niece.
• L'essentiel Place Sainte-Catherine. The 450bf lunch rapide is the reason to go there - and the only one. But a good one: scampi fritti sauce tartare, onglet à la moutarde et tartelette aux pommes served the Flash Gordon way in fifteen minutes start to finish, extra coffee included ! Excellent food in fact, and very reasonably priced. Just ask them to slow down the pace a little bit. And by the way, if they could also throw away these pseudo Louis-something chairs and replace those passé pink curtains by a more lively kind of furniture...

...and one to avoid:

• Chez Léon I know, your guidebook says it's THE place to go for those famous Belgian mussels. Well, if you like prefabricated french fries and the smiling company of Japanese old ladies, why not... Otherwise, avoid this tourist trap at all cost.

September 96's top zero:

Spent much time, way too much indeed, in Japan. Correct overpriced food all over. Never thought a 1450 BF green pepper steak could leave me and my palate so indifferent. Try the one at the first floor cafe of the Osaka Grand Hotel for a replay. One fantastic place however: a small four table joints in an indistinct basement. Unfortunately I couldn't get the place name written down in English. Here's - 2Kbytes .JPG file - their card. The Nuits Saint-Georges 83 is a marvel... if you can find a Japanese sponsor to foot the bill.

October 96's top three:

• La Messenie Avenue Eisenhower. Remember the last time you spent your lunch time looking for an outside terrace and ended up at Mc Donald's because they were all overcrowded ? On sunny days Belgium's shortage of open aired tables is a frequently infuriating experience. Next time, head towards this unfashionable spot in downtown Schaerbeek. La Messenie's small but extensible terrace has always one free sunny seat on display. With a bottle of rose Cretan wine (the dry one only, beware of the other), and a healthy, if not especially spectacular, Greek dish, you'll have plenty of time to meditate on the landscape differences between nearby Avenue Rogier and a Mediterranean front de mer.
• Al Barmaki Rue des Eperonniers, near the Grand Place. Best Lebanese food in Brussels. A bowl of taboule, some chopped liver and a bottle of this splendid red wine they call... er... Kerfaya ? Kermala ? I'll go back to check :). Those lazy Lebanese only opens on evenings unfortunately.
• Ma cuisine Rue de Naples. Suggested by Valerie, a faithful reader. I quote her: "Bonne cuisine raffinée et française Très Très bon... il y a un mignon petit jardin derrière. Les patrons sont très sympas et le chef cuisine presque sous vos yeux.. il n'y a pas de secret et l'on peut même demander une "autre sauce sur ses rognons"... il improvise. Le cadre (à l'intérieur) dépend des goûts". Meet you there sometime soon :)

...and one to avoid:

• Villa Rosa Rue Haute. Of all the Spanish places in this area of the city, this is one of the few I wouldn't recommend. Is it because I had to wait one hour for three slices of ham ? Or the depressing feeling induced by a poorly lit back room ? Or the arrogant waiter ? A highly subjective opinion probably, as Villa Rosa is always packed to the roof. A mystery ! 

November 96's to January 97 top nil:

So many things to do and not a minute to enjoy good gastronomic HTML-coding. In december I had a wonderful salmon in a romantic Irish restaurant whose name I didn't write down unfortunately. Should it ever appear on my VISA bill, I'll write it here. Keep watching. It should appear one day. Dubliners food entrepreneurs don't lose their VISA slips, do they ? Meanwhile you can enjoy a hazy view of me and my romantic crew between two salmon oddyseas.

February 97's top two:

• Mon Village Rue du Champ de la Couronne 6. In the gastronomical desert of Laeken. An hilarious experiment. A bearded cook entertains four tables of customers while taking care of their orders. Book ahead (4783579, I know I shouldn't tell you) because it's always packed. Splendid belgian specialties land on your table, seemingly out of nowhere. Delicious kipkap. Wonderful coucou de Malines a la gueuze et aux chicons. Best Irish coffee in town (makes it become close to a belgian specialty I guess) Ask Jacques the story about the king and the little spoons and drink one more of those Brussels Irishes to my health.
• Brasseries Georges Corner of avenue Churchill and chaussée de Waterloo. Some like it, some don't. I do. It's expensive and snobbish, but the oysters are first class and the wine list is full of affordable surprises. My personal antiwinterblues suggestion: one Plateau Decouverte (600bf), one bottle of white Bergerac (395bf) and one Fromage de Herve au sirop de Liège (belgian cheese delight, 200bf). And, yes, the antiblues effect is more perceptible if you share the Bergerac.

...and one to avoid:

• Datcha Chaussée de Vleurgat. Russain food like in Russia. Too much fat, not enough taste. The smiling ways of the duo in charge make you feel more uneasy than confortable. Even the vodka is nothing special. I guess the mafia bosses on a business trip in the heart of Europe feel at home.

March and April 97's top nil:

Needed some rest from overcholesterolic Belgian specialties. Zanzibar grilled fish was the perfect antidote. See my report elsewhere.

Go to the Lobby Page