1 – BREAK THE CRUSTS
Bozar-Restaurant
PDombes duck ithiviers and goose foie gras, Basque pork pie from Pierre Oteiza and sweetbreads, Wellington beef and Paris mushrooms, koulibiac… Karen Torosyan is the master of all possible and imaginable crusts at her table erected in the Palace of Fine Arts. These delicatessen jewels must be reserved at least forty-eight hours in advance. Except for one, his noble pâté-crust, which earned him the title of world champion in 2015. A delight served with black Bigorre pork, Dombes duck and goose foie gras. On the sweet side, don’t miss its stunning Tahitian vanilla millefeuille pampered with a puff pastry cooked to order.
Menus: €75 (lunch), €105, €145, €175. Menu: from 110 to 205 €. 3, rue Baron-Horta. bozarrestaurant.be
2 – WAFFLE
Waffles & Waffles
Sébastien Mattagne and Michael Chiche are restoring the glory of the Brussels waffle at their counter in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert. At home, it does not have 24 squares but 10 and comes in 14 versions (7 sweet and 7 savory) based on recipes from Yves Mattagne, Sébastien’s father, 2 stars at La Villa Lorraine. Organic flour, yeast, water, milk, fresh eggs, butter, sugar and salt make the dough crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Our favourite: the “beef tartar” generously garnished with ground beef tartare seasoned with mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, capers and pickled gherkins, white onions and watercress.
From €5 for sweet and €10 for savoury. 6, King’s gallery. wafflesandwaffles.be
3 – GO GREEN
Humus x Hortense
Nicolas Decloedt swears only by plants at his table straight out ofAlice in Wonderland which hatched in the Flagey sector. His primeur cuisine having earned him the title of “best vegetable chef” by the Gault & Millau flourishes at the rate of twenty-four micro-seasons. The boy with the Viking look competes in audacity during the year to sublimate celery, Jerusalem artichoke, squash, carrot, pea, tomato, zucchini… which notably grew up in the wild garden of Dries Delanote’s World of a Thousand Colors, in Ypres (Flanders). An ode to nature that can be found even in the botanical cocktails imagined by mixologist Caroline Baerten, Nicolas’s wife.
Menus: €44, €53, €78 (lunch), €86 and €98 (dinner). 2, rue de Vergnies. humushortense.be
4 – PLAY IT BOURGEOISE CUISINE
The Brigittines
His reinterpretation of sauerkraut has become a must at his Art Nouveau brasserie nestled in a former post office, in the heart of the Chapelle district. The “Zenne Pot” by Dirk Myny combines cabbage cooked in Cantillon gueuze with black pudding cream, whelks and diced dry sausage. The pure-bred Brussels resident also bets on the great Belgian classics: croquettes of North Sea gray shrimp; Jumbo mussels from Zeeland marinière; pork cheek pampered for four hours in Stouterik beer and served with stoemp, mashed potatoes.
Menu: €35 (lunch), €65 (dinner). Menu: from 37 to 80 €. 5, place of the Chapel. lesbrigittines.com
5 – TAKE OUT YOUR GUN
Original Pistol
Outside the Belgian borders, its name evokes only a firearm. Here, this round sandwich, the equivalent of French ham and butter, brings out childhood memories. Those of a fluffy roll with a light crumb and a crunchy crust, for which Valérie Lepla flies the flag in her grocery store in the Sablon district. This indulgence shaped by artisan baker Yves Guns is complemented by skilfully sourced local products: red Flanders beef from star butcher Hendrik Dierendonck, pork from Carlos et Fils, black pudding from Van Tongelen, gray shrimp from De Jager …
From €4.80. 26 Joseph Stevens Street. pistol-original.be
6 – DO YOUR MARKET
Ferry Terminal Food Market
Since the end of November, the former ferry terminal on the Tour & Taxis site has been completely renovated and has been hosting covered halls bringing together Belgian and foreign chefs. This new culinary eldorado is home to ten restaurants with various concepts. Mallory Gabsi and Adrien Cachot, who shone in season 11 of Top chef, work the potato in all its forms in their shop, the 140! ; Sang Hoon Degeimbre gives pride of place to broths at Bouillon; Bart de Pooter revisits the specialties of the flat country at Bart; Mauro Colagreco is developing its range of burgers using 100% Belgian meat at Carne…
9 Picard Street. maritimestation-foodmarket.be
7 – BEING IN A BARREL AND IN TROUBLES
Jane
Bertrand and Maxime Delubac and their companions, Carole Benoist and Morane Le Hiress, shine in the fight against food waste. The quartet applies the circular economy without fail by recycling the residues of its dual activity of brewer and baker, near the Parc de Forest. Dregs, leftover malted barley yeast that is moist and devoid of sugar, are used to make many of their breads with natural sourdough and organic flours. As for their unsold products, they replace part of the malt to brew their beers.
From €1.40 a baguette and €2.50 a beer (33 cl). 258, Alsemberg road. janine.brussels
8 – PUT THE PRESSURE ON
Cantillon Brewery
“Time does not respect what is done without it”, can we read in the cellars of this century-old brewery in Anderlecht. At the head of the house since 1900, the Van Roy-Cantillon family has not changed the traditional method for brewing lambic, which is based on natural and spontaneous fermentation using wild yeasts. A stage preceding that of passage in oak barrels, which allows the beers, once bottled, to age for more than twenty years before being drunk. We rush to the shop to leave with a gueuze (assembly of lambics of different ages), a kriek (cherry), a Rosé de Gambrinus (raspberry)… among the twenty references on sale.
From €4.5 per 37.5 cl bottle. 56, rue Gheude. cantillon.be
9 – MAKE IT A WHOLE CHEESE
The Fruitiere
We no longer know where to turn in this cheese dairy doubled as a cheese bar installed a stride from Manneken Pis. Véronique Socié and Léo Begin have turned their polymorphous lair into a temple of raw milk. Originally from the Jura, the “first cheesemaker in Belgium” – the equivalent of Meilleur Ouvrier de France – and her son take you on a journey through their impressive stall through Namur, the Hautes-Fagnes, the country of Herve… This last area geographical location in the province of Liège is home to the country’s only PDO cheese in its hilly bocages: herve, a soft, cubic-shaped washed-rind cow cheese. You just have to decide between the sweet and the spicy.
From €5.70 for a 200g piece of herve. 99-103 Coal Market Street Kolenmarkt. lafruitiere.business.site
10 – PRESS THE MUSHROOM
hatched
The former slaughterhouses in the Anderlecht district are home to unexpected residents. Six varieties of exotic mushrooms grow in centuries-old basements. We owe this unusual culture to Eclo – Le Champignon de Bruxelles, still recently – who took up the challenge of uniting the wisdom of Japan with Belgian folklore. Oyster mushrooms, royal oyster mushrooms, shiitakes, maitakes, namekos and pompoms thrive in the shelter of the light in the 10,000 square meters of the Cureghem cellars. Nearly two-thirds of the substrates used to make mushrooms are composed of organic waste (beer spent grains, stale bread, wheat) before being inoculated with mycelium. An innovation that made it possible to harvest 74 tons of mushrooms in 2021.
22 € the basket of 750 g. 24, rue Ropsy-Chaudron. eclo.farm
EquinoxLightPhoto (x11) – Quentin Mailet (x3) – Quentin Mailet Equinox light photos – EquinoxLightPhoto EquinoxLightPhoto
