Breathless in Brussels: Hot Restaurants and Hotels in Brussels by Devanshi Mody
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A little incentive and lots of fun addresses can leave you short of breath and short of time. Certainly, my three-night stay threatened to stretch indefinitely until an editor impatiently summoned me back to London.
Designer Domains
The Amigo is arguably the classiest hotel and superbly located just off the celebrated Grande Place. Brussels institution The Conrad also remains a favourite with locals and Bill Clinton, Richard Gere, U2, the Rolling Stones and Celine Dion.
The hotel grandly graces the city’s chicest street Avenue Louise. So shopaholics, here’s where to stay in Brussels and yes, the Belgian capital does have shopping enough to leave you breathless (how else would the wives of European Union heads occupy themselves?). But the new suites and designer rooms in rich burgundy and aubergine might occupy you otherwise. The duplex suite is especially sexy and apposite for entertaining. It almost invites a party.
But the party is at the just-launched racy Terrace Rouge. Enormous umbrellas in Shiseido red shade the sultry summer sun. But the stars (ie Brussels’ beautiful people) who come to see and be seen no doubt protest if they’re too shaded. If you can’t find a place on the throbbing terrace, the elegant all-day dining restaurant has a mini terrace levitating over an inner courtyard.
The city’s elite prettify it during the immensely popular and crazily copious Sunday brunches burgeoning with Mediterranean delicacies (including salads, humous, moutabal etc), sea food, roasts, cheeses etc.
For lighter lunches hit the gentleman’s-club-style lounge-bar where marvellous mini sandwiches await. The award-winning barman can fix you a concoction or two. But the must-do dessert is the “gauffre de Bruxelle” served indulgently with chocolate sauce. You won’t want to leave your leather-bound arm chairs for hours after.
The Conrad, notwithstanding the exceptional service and extensive ongoing modernisation, perhaps appeals to a more distinguished clientele. The younger, hipper Hotel Dominican hides in the historic quarter behind La Monnaie, the famous theatre and opera house.
Would you imagine that this cutting-edge design hotel with its glitzy lights, stunning interiors plushly upholstered and lushly lawned was a 15th-century Dominican abbey bombarded during World War II? It was entirely rebuilt recently by the Dutch design duo FGStijl, and won the prestigious Prix Villégiature-Paris for Best Interior Design in 2005. Lunches in the inner courtyard are glam, as is lounging around the bar which integrates erstwhile home of revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David.
Brunch in Brussels
If Antwerp is Belgium’s diamond capital then Brussels is a treasure trove of epicurean jewels. The food is almost as good as in Paris at half the price. Brunch isn’t possible at a gastronomic restaurant, so lunch or sup instead at 2-Michelin-star Restaurant Bruneau. Celebrated Chef Bruneau establishes why he has overwhelmed Brussels’ culinary scene for decades with his careful classic compositions innovatively touched.
The exquisite black truffle soup reminded me of Guy Savoy’s signature brioche and truffle dish whilst the melt-in-your-mouth ravioli remains memorable. The chic Mme Bruneau charmingly keeps me company throughout the meal whilst the chef joins me over coffee.
We’re interrupted as VIPs at the adjoining table insist on returning the next day to host a private party. The chef resolutely refuses. He cannot compromise on his staff’s day off to ensure they’re in top form when they work. That’s why the restaurant lures Hollywood stars and heads of state if not the Prince of Wales. Chef delightfully recounts his meal at the Prince’s London palaces when he sat beside Camilla herself. Sadly, neither cooked up trouble.
That’s the prerogative of Luigi, owner of La Truffe Noire, another favourite with Prince Charles, The Prince of Spain, the Belgian royals and Hugh Grant. The dapper Luigi has pranced around his now classily refurbished restaurant for 20 years. Some think his strutting and fretting enhance one’s experience. Others are weary. Yet, they return for his creations, all containing black truffle (hence the restaurant’s uniqueness) which Luigi shaves onto your dish with exaggerated flourish.
He zealously demonstrates how the signature truffle composition he conceived (including the containing clay pot) is to be eaten- with crouton just rightly salted and buttered. The innovative dish didn’t upstage the satin-textured ravioli or the warm and varied breads. They aren’t all truffled but are served with spectacularly good olive oil produced by Luigi’s family in Pouilles (near Sicily). After a few glasses of accompanying beverages you’ll have to avail of the beautifully mosaiced terrace.
Nothing OTT about two-Michelin-starred Comme Chez Soi. True to its name the restaurant delivers an extraordinary homely feel with the cosy setting and endearingly old-fashioned staff and service. This restaurant has been around forever and is another Brussels institution. The founding chef doesn’t cook anymore but his charming daughter manages whilst his young son-in-law has taken the kitchen over admirably imparting a contemporised twist to classic recipes.
Expect sushi-like innovations, wonderful sauces and lovelier risotto still. Their speciality is the compulsory cheeses baked, fried or grilled and dressed with interesting compotes. But do over-do with dessert (or a couple) for the soufflés are splendid and the chocolate desserts richly irresistible.
A tip: book to eat in the kitchen’s modern private enclave usually reserved for the celebrities and VIPs whose autographs adorn its walls. They have amassed so many, apparently the signatures are displayed on a rotating basis.
My most memorable meal was at Bocconi. Understated sophistication sums up the design. Diners dressed like they’re at the opera clinches the clientele. The chef at this super chi-chi venue is surprisingly young but excels. The food is simple and traditional but exquisitely executed.
Even bean soup or typical Genoese pasta topped with home-made pesto become delicacies. However, don’t skip the cheese course for assembled for you are connoisseur’s cheeses fetched from various Italian regions and each served with a corresponding honey. Extraordinary.
The charismatic manager Massimo (to whom we chatted until after midnight) enlightens how astoundingly many litres of milk make a parmesan tome, exclaiming, “Those cows have to work very hard!” Dessert can’t be skipped though. Even the daring might find the pumpkin pannetone over adventurous. Best settle for the excellent tiramisu or better home-made gelatti.
Balance off the calorie overdose with a light lunch at swank La Rouge Tomate where the Belgian royals are oft spotted. The original concept of healthy but eminently tasty non-fat food, which emphatically isn’t “diet food,” proved such a hit that the restaurant just launched their New York branch.
Discover goat’s cheese with the fat curiously extracted so you bite into a rubbery but rather lovely bubble. The portions, however, are enormous. The chlorophyll and pea soup cauldron leaves me aghast, but I’m found scraping the bowl and continue to shamelessly plunder subsequent courses, including the Mediterranean vegetable stew. The strawberry and pistachio compote is sheer delight. When the avant-garde 20-something-year-old chef finally emerged, I knew he could only be French and one who has worked at celebrated 3-Michelin-star restaurants.
A hotel concierge strenuously recommended Michelin-starred Le Chalet de la Foret, even guaranteeing I could walk there. After a 2-and-half hour trek I finally arrived fuming, “This had better be good!” The restaurant ensconced in lush forests is perfectly pretty abounding with towering floral arrangements and eye-catching art. The cheese trolley is unusually multifarious, including Portuguese cheeses (more academically interesting than tasty), but the ambiance is delectable, especially when Prince Albert of Monaco drops in.
Il Gusto just opened in the supremely elegant home ware Flamant boutique which looks like a private home. The tastefully subtle restaurant with a lovely Italian feel achieves fantastic rustic chic and opens onto a terrace that partakes of the boutique’s precincts. A young Italian chef endeavours to feed you authentic Italian fare but bewails, rather poetically, how his creations don’t sell unless adapted to the local palate. Nevertheless, his eloquence is translated in lyrical linguine, innovative mozzarella with cantaloupe and marvellous tiramisu.
Belga Queen buzzes perennially. The opulent abode with stellar statues, bathrooms with transparent doors that become opaque at the press of a button and other extravagances shot to international fame when acclaimed designer Antonio Pinto transformed a bank into a multi-million-dollar-making hip restaurant. The super-cool walk in for suppers at midnight...
The café fare is very good, especially the lasagne. Check out also the basement Cuban cigar bar in the converted bank vault accessed via mammoth metal vault doors. A lockered façade comprises the wall. I haven’t seen such a riot of imagination in Paris, Milan, London or elsewhere.
Still less have I witnessed an opening overshadowing the Midi Station launch. Think 500 ultra suave people cluttering the immense expanse of this restaurant-lounge-club with a staggering wow factor. The party raged on until 3.00 am at Antonio Pinto’s latest number. Exotic plants flirt with swish metal and glass in a metamorphosed train station that looks like a glasshouse whilst the chandeliers in the private room arrest. Guests gorged lobster, oysters and abundant fun food. The youngsters looked bored by the transvestite whose suggestive gyrations titillated the older crowd. What a soiree!
Choc Shock
Belgian chocolate is supposedly the finest. It doesn’t compare with French finery, Pierre Marcolini excepted. His creations are snazzily displayed in a duplex in Sablon, famously teaming with art galleries. The passionate chocolatier travels to the earth’s ends to procure the finest cocoa beans imaginatively deployed in ganache (lavender, honey, violet…) and chocolate bars.
Next door, Mr Marcolini has just opened his patisserie which freshly bakes fabulously fragranced goodies as you wait. Now you understand why I voluntarily almost missed my Eurostar back to London…