8 Best Restaurants in Brussels, Belgium

A couple of miles west of Gaasbeek is the rather bijou little town of Lennik, home to a fair number of high-priced dining options. One of the finer is August, a wineshop-cum-restaurant that oozes class and is set in an 18th-century wine merchant's premises. Paired set menus aren't cheap, but they pack a lot of flavor in, arriving immaculately presented.

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.

A short walk from place Jourdan reveals this elegant, modern French restaurant, its pared-down, neat decor broken up with colorful prints of animals and the bustle of the open kitchen. The choice of food is equally sparse but to the point: its four-course set menus deliver with imagination and no little amount of skill, letting you mix and match from your pick of cold, warm, hot, and sweet dishes on the blackboard. Lunch is a great deal at €28 for a starter and main.

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. 

It's a bit of a walk from the center (about 20 minutes) to get there, but it's worth it not just for the food, which lies at the more educated end of traditional Belgian comfort food (think thick cuts of meat slow-cooked for 24 hours, flaking off the bone into beery sauces), but for the setting. Located in the Vaartcom area, a once run-down industrial and brewing site resurrected into a trendy dining and shopping area that spills into the neighboring park, Gastrobar Hop lies in part of the old Stella Artois brewery. Its vast collection of craft beers powers a seasonal set menu that cherishes the simpler things and relies on local brewers and producers.

A self-declared "vegetable rotisserie," the imaginative prix-fixe menu dangles a mostly pescatarian collection of disparate ingredients, spanning fruit, veg, and fish that somehow come together on the plate to create tiny edible jewels. Yes, they might spit-roast the odd cauliflower, but the ethos here is as much about market-garden ingredients awash in lacy foams and flavorsome sauces. The stylish red-brick interior, hidden away on an otherwise nondescript street, makes it feel all the more like you discovered a secret in St-Gilles.

The kind of authentic southern Japanese cooking little-seen in the capital. While it can be tricky to get a table at this tiny eatery, it's worth putting in the legwork, even this deep in Schaerbeek. An open-plan kitchen, set behind a long bar, puts chef Tomoyuki Ohara skills on full display as you grab a stool and tuck into a menu unafraid to stick grilled chicken hearts and gizzards alongside crowd-pleasing curries, tempuras, and crispy karaage (fried chicken), or introduce you to something you've never tried before. You don't often find Ohara's specialty, chawanmushi (a savory custard), on menus in the capital, and that's something to be cherished.

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.