2 Best Restaurants in Lower Town, Brussels

With superb cuisine, excellent wines, and attentive service, this one-star Michelin restaurant remains a regal choice, with an interior (and prices) to match. Lionel Rigolet, who took over the reins as chef from his father-in-law Pierre Wynants in 2006, is a ceaselessly inventive character with one foot in tradition, dishing up elegant racks of veal dashed with sweetbreads or cockerel breasts crowned with crayfish. Earlier creations have been relegated to the back of the menu, but one favorite remains: fillet of sole with a white wine mousseline and shrimp. Book weeks in advance to guarantee a table.

The bottom of Rue Antoine Dansaert, where the street greets the canal, has become a hot spot in recent years for ambitious restaurateurs and bar owners. Aster is one of the latest to catch the eye, with its fish- and veg-heavy five- and seven-course tasting menus that change with the days. The exposed-brick interior—converted from an old pizzeria—offers glimpses of the chefs busied over a charcoal fire pit while you delve into a menu that often threads single ingredients through multiple dishes in myriad creative ways. A restaurant at the forefront of a new wave of eateries in the city.