2 Best Restaurants in Meise, Day Trips from Brussels

This elegant dining spot has a charming terrace surrounded by a grassy lawn and trees. The menu is grandiose but not afraid of the more interesting rural delights of French cooking, from saddle of hare to fillet of fawn via a number of interesting pheasant dishes. Just as exciting is its food-sharing menu, as it tries to capture the post-garden walk-in crowd, where baked sweetbreads, caviar, and Duroc pork belly offer a more classically French take on the format.

While tours of the Grimbergen Abbey brewery aren't possible, you can taste the fruits of its labor at its brasserie in town, which is slightly more upmarket than you'd imagine. A pretty terrace overlooks the abbey, while the food served is unrepentantly Flemish: beery stews, grey-shrimp croquettes, Oostend-style fish stew. Everything on the menu, unsurprisingly, has a suggested beer pairing, as if you needed an excuse to try any of the nine varieties on offer. The quadruple weighs in at a hefty 10% ABV, so it may be a sleepy bus journey back.