The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Lijsterbes
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Rank 2. Pur Boeuf
Steakhouse
A glass-walled maturing room full of aging beef greets you at the door, which tells you exactly where you stand. This is a steakhouse built around Blanc Bleu Belge, the hulking Belgian breed the chef grew up with on his family's cattle farm. The cooking leans modern without losing the plot, and a cheese and dessert trolley still makes the rounds, bless it. Good country to be hungry in if you're passing through the Lake Donk area.
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A former linen factory in Zele that now turns out Michelin-starred modern cuisine, the kind where every vegetable arrives as though it was measured with a ruler. The chef's cooking is classical at its core, with quiet creative detours that keep things interesting. Dishes favor a few strong ingredients and let them do the arguing, which takes more confidence than it looks. Small, spare room; the food is doing the decorating.
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The cobblestone alley off Dendermonde's Grand-Place looks like a period drama forgot to wrap. Inside this creative seasonal restaurant, the kitchen runs on live fire, with the chef coaxing smoke and char into scallops, grilled fruit, and vegetables in combinations that keep you guessing course to course. The menu reads as playful without being precious, which is a harder balance than it sounds.
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Rank 5. Restaurant VOS
Modern French
Behind a tennis and padel club in Lokeren, which is exactly the kind of address you stop second-guessing once you're inside, Restaurant VOS is a light-filled modern French dining room with a wall garden and a set menu that follows the seasons. The kitchen leans into Franco-Belgian classics with a grilled ribeye in veal gravy that earns its place on the menu several times over.
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Rank 8. Sense
Modern French
A Michelin-starred fine dining room in a quiet Flemish town, where the pared-back elegance of the space lets the cooking do the talking. The chef's approach is minimalist in spirit but classical in technique, running from spit-roasting to Binchotan grilling, with the kind of food-and-wine pairings that make you want to take notes. Dress well and expect a long, unhurried evening.
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Rank 9. Restaurant Cloche
Modern French
A church belltower looms over the terrace at this bright, elegant modern French restaurant in a quiet Flemish village, which makes the summertime outdoor tables feel vaguely ceremonial. The cooking is precise and delicate, built around high-end produce handled with care, the kind of place where a scallop carpaccio arrives dressed in fermented asparagus and lovage oil. Hushed, polished, and a little special.
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Rank 10. Kelderman
Seafood
A light-filled fine dining room in Aalst, overlooking a manicured garden, where the front-of-house sets a warm, unhurried tone from the moment you walk in. The kitchen leans toward seafood and treats classical French technique as a native language rather than a costume. A cheese trolley still makes the rounds, which tells you something about how seriously they take the full meal. Kelderman holds a Michelin star.
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Rank 11. Baasroodse Zuurdesembakker
Sourdough Bakery
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The vol-au-vent and steak tartare have been on the menu long enough to feel like the point, not the legacy. This is a smart, traditional restaurant where the kitchen leans into fire and seasonal produce, and the wine cellar runs deep on Burgundy and Tuscany. The room is elegant without being stiff, the kind of place where Waasmunster regulars occupy the same tables week after week and nobody seems in a hurry to leave.
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Olly Ceulenaere's Michelin-starred bistro in Ghent looks like an artist's living room, because that's essentially what it is: vintage finds mixed with designer pieces from friends, the original beer pump still behind the bar. The chef frequently brings the main course out himself, and the menu follows his mood rather than a calendar. Expect little-known vegetables over luxury ingredients, and natural wine pairings that lean toward the unusual.
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The chef's Italian-Brazilian roots and a kitchen team assembled from across the map give this Michelin-starred Ghent restaurant its restless, globe-spanning menu. North Sea clams turn up alongside Amazonian manioc, and the cooking chases a tension between sharp acidity and silky comfort that shouldn't work as often as it does. The setting is a 17th-century townhouse in the old city, dressed up with contemporary art, which at least gives you something to stare at between courses.
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An Art Nouveau townhouse in Ghent where the chef's obsession with vegetables gets its own dedicated tasting menu, though the kitchen ranges from Flemish pheasant to white truffles he'll carry to the table himself. The cooking fuses French technique with fermentation and global influences in ways that feel considered rather than busy. Two Michelin stars. The sommelier leans toward the surprising, which fits the room.
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Rank 17. Moscou by Danny Horseele
Modern French
Named for the district it anchors, this Michelin-starred modern French restaurant wraps gilded details around a casually warm room where you can watch the kitchen work through a glass partition. The menu moves between big-boned classical cooking and quieter technique, pigeon aged and sauced with the kind of seriousness that suggests the chef has thought about little else. A place that earns its star without seeming to try.
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A creative restaurant in Gent where the minimalist Japanese decor and leafy terrace lend the whole room a monastic calm, right up until the food arrives and demands your full attention. The chef works through fermentation, open-flame cooking, and sharp acidic sauces, with natural wines chosen by a sommelier who clearly has opinions. The kind of place where quiet surroundings and quietly ambitious cooking end up in an interesting argument.
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Rank 19. Rooselaer
Classical Steakhouse
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A pintxos bar on the edge of Ghent that doesn't take reservations, so arrive early or embrace the wait. The menu runs through small Spanish plates with a modern lean, the kind of cooking where good produce does most of the talking. The vintage interior nods to Basque tapas bars, the room buzzes accordingly, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests the kitchen is earning its keep. Sister spot to Bar Bask, and worth the trek out to Ledeberg.
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A Michelin-starred fine dining room inside a period mansion on the edge of Ghent, where the renovation kept the historic bones and layered in enough contemporary polish to feel considered rather than cold. The chef draws on Zeeland roots and a restless technical range, running small plates through unusual combinations and international inflections. The sommelier runs the floor with the kind of ease that makes the wine pairings feel inevitable.
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Rank 23. Nova
Basque
A Basque barbecue grill anchors the open kitchen of this calm, stylish townhouse tucked into a working-class neighborhood near the Grand Place. The surprise menu follows whatever the market brought that morning, with the chef working closely with local producers and running a low-waste kitchen. Counter seats let you watch it all come together. Selected by the Michelin Guide.
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Rank 24. OX’E
French
Aged Txogitxu ribeye with a made-to-order béarnaise is the centrepiece at this fine dining room in Lochristi, where the kitchen leans deep into classical French cooking with a particular fondness for matured meat. The Art Deco interior manages to feel romantic without feeling stiff, and the front-of-house team runs things with enough warmth to keep the whole evening from tipping into ceremony. The wine list spans South Africa, France, and Italy.
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Rank 25. 't Korennaer
Modern French
A Michelin-starred modern French restaurant in Sint-Niklaas where the chef pulls from Japanese and North African flavors without making a fuss about it. Trusted local suppliers, from a specific butcher to a specific asparagus grower, keep the ingredients doing most of the talking. The room is genuinely stylish, the terrace inviting, and the whole thing carries a warmth that doesn't usually come with this level of cooking.
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Rank 26. Bruun
Contemporary French
The open kitchen is the first thing you see at this contemporary French restaurant outside Ghent, and it sets the tone: nothing is being hidden here. The team's cooking is clean and unfussy, built on French technique but leaning toward something quieter and more modern. Lunch runs straightforward; dinner stretches into more ambitious territory. The kind of place where the restraint on the plate is clearly deliberate, not accidental.
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Rank 27. DEBRA
Contemporary French
The name comes from a Beck song, and the vintage turntable spinning in the corner means you'll figure that out before anyone tells you. DEBRA is a contemporary French restaurant where the cooking slaloms between classical technique and global instinct, whole roasts alongside sauces that arrive from unexpected directions. The room is warm and a little hip without trying too hard, which, in Ghent, is exactly the right register.
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Rank 28. Sir Kwinten
Modern French
Wine gets its own display case before you've even found your seat at this two-Michelin-starred fine dining room in a grand mansion outside Brussels. The sommelier pairs local Pajottenland producers and sake alongside the classics, while the chef's French-leaning menu leans on extraordinary sauces and hyper-fresh ingredients. The food and wine matching is the point here, less an afterthought than the whole architecture of the meal.
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Rank 29. DOOR73
Modern New American
Vintage floor tiles and an open kitchen firing a Josper oven set the tone at this share-plates restaurant in Ghent. The cooking runs international and deliberately unorthodox, with bold combinations that have no interest in playing it safe. The mood is loose and unstuffy, the kind of place where the food takes itself seriously so the room doesn't have to. It's connected to the Michelin-starred OAK, though it has clearly stopped caring about the comparison.
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Rank 30. De Bakermat
Modern French
A white villa set back from a busy boulevard, with a glazed wine cellar that stops people mid-sentence. De Bakermat is a Michelin-starred modern French restaurant where the chef's instinct runs toward contrast: lobster with nori, foie gras pushed somewhere richer than you expected. The sommelier clearly enjoys their job, and the wine list is long enough to make the decision feel consequential.
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Rank 31. Rizoom
Modern Japanese
Koji fermentation and dry-ageing drive the menu at this creative restaurant in Ghent, where the chef's Japanese technique shapes dishes built around umami and seasonal produce. The room is a post-industrial loft that somehow feels cosy, and the open kitchen puts the whole process on display. The wine and sake list is serious enough that ordering a glass takes a quiet minute. A place for people who think about where sauces come from.
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Rank 32. Elders
Modern Vegetarian
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Rank 33. Hofke van Bazel
Contemporary French
The wine cellar is visible through a glass panel in the floor, which sets the tone. This one-Michelin-star restaurant in the Flemish countryside runs on produce the chef tends in his own kitchen garden down the road, and seasonal vegetables form the backbone of creative French contemporary cooking. The room leans romantic, the garden terrace leans northern Italian, and the caviar bar sits somewhere in between, daring you to order.
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Rank 34. Agnes
Modern French
A former presbytery beside a village church, Agnes is a Michelin-starred modern French restaurant where the room still feels like someone's home and the cooking leans hard into classical sauces and impeccable sourcing. The chef's style is generous rather than showy, hop shoots and hare sitting comfortably alongside Burgundy wine pours. A crowd of knowing diners tends to fill this kind of place and never look at the clock.
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Rank 36. Cécile
Modern French
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Rank 37. The Chocolate Maker
Dessert
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Rank 38. Kin Khao
Thai
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A Michelin-starred corner restaurant near the Brussels fish market where the menu is a surprise and the philosophy is not. The chef builds tasting menus around local, seasonal produce, then quietly pivots to something like wasabi sorbet without breaking a sweat. The room is deliberately unpolished, the wine list leans natural, and every decision on the plate seems to have been argued over before it arrived.
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Rank 42. Albertini
Wine Bar
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Rank 43. Alard
Palestinian Middle Eastern
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An open kitchen and a chef's table sit at the heart of this Michelin-starred modern restaurant in Grimbergen, where the team has been running a genuinely personal operation for a long time. The chef's classical training holds firm underneath techniques that lean quietly toward Asia, producing combinations that sound eccentric on paper and make complete sense on the plate. The vegetarian menu gets the same serious attention as everything else.
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Rank 46. Benoit en Bernard Dewitte
Modern French
A Michelin-starred villa restaurant outside Ghent where the garden alone does half the work, setting a summer-holiday mood before the food arrives. The chef's style is quiet and precise, leaning on vegetables and spices to build flavors that take a moment to reveal themselves. The room pairs rustic warmth with soft pastels, and the whole operation has a calm, unhurried quality that feels genuinely considered rather than merely slow.
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Rank 47. La Paix
French Fusion Japanese
A two-Michelin-star restaurant that has traded its old corner spot opposite the Anderlecht slaughterhouses for a grand Belle Époque hotel, La Paix is mid-move and temporarily closed. The kitchen's signature territory is French technique pulled toward Japanese restraint, with serious seafood running through most of it. A destination fine dining room, the kind where you dress up and clear your afternoon.
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Rank 51. Golden Gai
Japanese
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Rank 52. Kraz Gand
Breton French
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Rank 55. Røk
Texan Barbecue
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Rank 56. Astro Boy
Japanese
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Timber rafters, bare brick, and windows big enough to make the Flemish village feel like part of the dining room, which is exactly the point. This family-run country restaurant occupies a former brewery in a quietly beautiful village outside Aalst, and the menu leans into Belgian classics before giving them a playful nudge, mussels in nduja and red curry among them. Guestrooms are available if the drive home feels like an overrated idea.
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Rank 62. Amour
Vegetarian
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Kobe Desramaults, who made his name at In De Wulf and Chambre Séparée, runs this Michelin-starred creative dining room in central Brussels with a lounge soundtrack and an open kitchen counter at its heart. The set menu changes daily, which keeps the chef honest and the regulars guessing. Expect bold, ingredient-focused cooking where the produce does most of the talking, and service polished enough to feel made-to-measure without being stiff about it.
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Rank 64. Ferri
Vegetarian Italian
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Rank 66. Bakker Klaas
Bakery
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Rank 67. Mi Garba
Coffee
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Rank 70. Kultur
Artisan Bakery
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Rank 71. Uncle Babe's
American
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Rank 72. 'T Kanon
Coffee
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Rank 74. Giuseppe's
Sicilian Pizza
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Rank 75. Brasserie Midi
French
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Rank 77. Zuru Zuru Ramen
Noodles
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Rank 79. Wild Child
Bakery
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The view from the top floor of the Museum aan de Stroom takes in the whole Antwerp skyline, which is a strong opening move for a three-Michelin-star creative restaurant. Viki Geunes runs a stripped-back room, elegant and quiet except for an old record player adding a jazzy hum, and builds dishes that are intricate without fussing about it. The kind of place where the sauces alone warrant a moment of silence.
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Rank 81. Full Circle Coffee
Vegan Coffee
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Rank 82. Morgen
Bakery
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Rank 84. Bozar Restaurant
Modern French
Karen Torosyan's pâté en croûte, made by reservation only and shown to you unbaked before it goes into the oven, is the kind of production that makes you sit very still. This two-Michelin-star modern French restaurant occupies a Victor Horta Art Nouveau building, so the room is already doing a lot. The kitchen revives ancestral French and Belgian technique with a precision that borders on meditative, puff pastry very much included.
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Rank 86. Auberge des Moules
Seafood French
A bar shaped like a ship's bow sets the tone for this lively French shellfish restaurant in the small fishing village of Philippine. The house mussels are the draw, prepared from family recipes that have been around forever, alongside Zeeland lobster and oysters so briny they taste like the North Sea smells. Shrimp croquettes and Zeeland lamb keep things honest for anyone not on the seafood program.
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A restored farmstead tucked into the Kontich countryside is not where you'd expect to find a Michelin-starred tasting menu, which is partly the point. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the fields, old beams frame the room, and the kitchen frames each dish around a single clean flavor rather than a crowd of them. The wine pairings are taken seriously enough to interest people who take wine seriously.
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Rank 88. Misera
Modern French
An open kitchen and counter take up most of the room at this modern French restaurant in Antwerp's Nieuw Zuid, so you watch every plate being built whether you planned to or not. Nicolas Misera holds a Michelin star for cooking that leans hard on fish and shellfish, with classical bones and sauces that quietly steal the show. Everything is à la carte, which feels almost radical at this level.
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Rank 90. Nebo
Modern French
The name means "sky" in Croatian, a quiet nod to the chef's father and his own Michelin-starred restaurant. This is a polished fine-dining room in Antwerp's Nieuw Zuid district, where an à la carte menu leans on classical French technique with enough unconventional turns to keep things interesting. The sommelier holds a master credential, and the wine list shows it. Nebo holds a Michelin star.
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Rank 91. Hertog Jan at Botanic
Asian New American
Concrete walls and muted grey tones set the scene for this intimate two-Michelin-star creative restaurant inside Antwerp's Botanic Sanctuary Hotel. The chef's Asian obsessions run through everything, and the kitchen asks guests not to post photos, which somehow makes the meal feel more like a secret. The cooking follows the motto "simplicity isn't simple," which is either profound or a warning that dinner will take a while, probably both.
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Soft colours, tailored furniture, and a room full of regulars who know better than to look at the menu sum up this modern fine dining spot outside Antwerp. The chef holds a Michelin star, and the kitchen leans into light, quietly inventive cooking where flavours arrive in unexpected combinations without any fuss. The sommelier is worth leaning on, especially if you want something unusual or a well-chosen non-alcoholic option.
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Rank 93. Le Cirque
Modern New American
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Brutalist concrete and a casual room that makes no apologies for either. Kline is a modern neighborhood restaurant where the menu leans on local sourcing, vegetables, and seasonal instincts, with global flavors folded in wherever they fit. The à la carte lineup skews well toward vegetarian and is designed to share. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place where the food does the talking without the room dressing up for it.
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San Degeimbre's contemporary brasserie sits inside Brussels' converted rail freight terminus, a post-industrial complex that still feels faintly surprised to be hosting dinner. The menu roams Belgium, Peru, and Asia without asking permission, so waterzooi turns up with a jolt of yuzu and duck magret finds itself alongside soy and garlic in an orange sauce. The mezzanine counter overlooking the open kitchen is the seat to ask for.
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Rank 96. À Table
Modern French
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Tucked near the old fish market, this Greek taverna runs through a long modern corridor before opening into a brick-walled, wood-tabled room that feels lifted from a quieter part of Athens. The menu leans into mezzes and the kind of full-flavored cooking that makes a meal stretch pleasantly long. The wine list pulls from Greece and skews affordable. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 98. BORIS & MAURICE
Bistro French
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Rank 99. Atelier Gist
Barbecue Japanese
Fire and fermentation run the show at this converted barn outside Geraardsbergen, where picture windows frame open countryside and a counter seats you directly in front of the charcoal oven. The cooking pulls Japanese seasoning and citrus into big barbecue flavors, with fermented touches adding a quiet, persistent depth. Natural wines and house-made kombucha complete the picture. A Michelin Selected restaurant that smells like woodsmoke before you even sit down.
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The Art Nouveau interior by Horta, all stained glass and sinuous ironwork, sets the scene before anyone's opened a menu. This is classic fine dining in the old Brussels sense, the kind of room where sauces are taken seriously and the fourth generation of the same family is still running the pass. A Michelin star. The wine cellar doubles as a private dining room for those who want something a shade more contemporary.