68 Best Restaurants in Brussels, Belgium

This sturdy Belgian chain nestles on the pedestrianized Chaussée de Wavre, just opposite place Jourdan, where you'll find slightly better dining options than around the square. It's as reliable as its gravy-soaked meats are tasty, dishing up the classics (meatballs, beery beef stews, ham and mustard sauce) amid walls plastered with old advertising posters from the '50s and '60s. It's one of a half-dozen in the city, but still worth a go. 

This popular spot among health-conscious office workers lets you fill your bowl with healthy veggies, grains, meats, and berries (or just take one of the standard blends). Everything is tasty, good for you, and the word "superfood" crops up endlessly.

Power food, in all its acai glory. Wild Lab is the kind of place you get chia jam on your chocolate-banana pancakes or can find a "Goodness Bowl" brimming with lentils, roasted parsnip, and za'atar. It's a great spot for brunch, and the juices and smoothies leave you glowing. 

Despite its name, this is not really a wine bar (though they run a roof terrace in summer where you can go for a drink) and it's just on the edge of the Marolles. Owners Vincent Thomaes and Joël Vandenhoudt relocated to rue Haute from Sablon in 2013, back when this was a popular bar. Since then, it's evolved into very much a grande-dame-style restaurant where haughty paintings hang in thick frames, the service is likeably fastidious, and wine is very much at the center of most meals. It's decadent in the best way possible, with an emphasis on classic French cooking and natural wines.

Choice is the appeal here. Set in a 1940s bank building famed for its bronze doors, this dizzying food court brings together some of the better street food joints and former pop-ups in the city, ranging from the excellent Syrian restaurant My Tannour (all flatbreads, falafel, and veggies), to the healthy bowls of Hygge, and the Vietnamese-style noodle soups of Hanoi Station. Special mention goes to the mousses at Chocolate Station and the beers of microbrewery Flow. It's one giant canteen, so just grab an empty chair and pick what you like the look of. You pay upfront at the counter, whereupon most places will give you a buzzer for when the food is ready to pick up. 

Woodpecker cafés are strewn across the city, including a few kiosks (like this). But it's the setting that wins the day here. Sure, it does decent coffees, ice cream, and the odd burger, but you come to sit beneath the trees and watch locals shuffle by in one of Brussels' prettier parks. In the evening, the neighboring Radio Kiosk sees DJs and drinks flow.  

Leuven has a good reputation for its dining, with a couple of Michelin stars knocking about its streets. This isn't one of them, but it's not far off. A little cluster of high-end restaurants scatter Bondgenotenlaan, leading up from the station. The setting here is rather unique, with a long, narrow dining hall below a beamed ceiling made entirely of skylights, leading to a small walled terrace. It couldn't be lighter, and the same goes for its food, where it almost seems to float off the plate it's so dainty and wistful. Dishes are an experience, with its collection of ingredients arriving in ever more inventive ways.