24 Best Restaurants in Brussels, Belgium

What was once just a friendly fishmongers has evolved into one of the city's best, and most unexpected, street-food stops. It's set on place Sainte-Catherine, which has been revitalized as the home of all things seafood, and visitors queue up at the counter outside, place an order, then grab it from the window when called. You eat at tables standing in the square (be careful of pickpockets), prodding with your fingers at sumptuous salt 'n' pepper calamari, scampi drenched in garlic butter, and fresh North Sea crab. A true gem rightly lorded by those in the know. It closes at 6:30 pm, though, so get there early. 

True Flemish cooking flourishes in this reliable old favorite. The low ceilings and benches around the walls remain from its days as a coaching inn during the 18th century, and little has changed since---including the menu. Its drinks selection is equally single-minded, with a choice of some 100 artisanal beers. The specialty here is the sour lambic variety, which is also used in the cooking, such as lapin à gueuze (rabbit stewed in fruit beer). Go with an appetite, because portions are huge. The knowledgeable waiters can recommend beers to go with your food but can be on the brusque side.

Even when neighboring restaurants on Grand Sablon are empty, this one is always full. It's run by the Niels family, who have been restaurateurs in Brussels since 1915, and its short menu emphasizes local specialties. Its filet Americain—a popular local take on steak tartare (packed with pickles and capers) —was even invented by grandfather Joseph Niels. Ownership has passed to the next generation, but standards remain high and it still serves unusually good wine (the family also has a wine import business) for the price, by the glass, or bottle. It also has a sister restaurant, Au Savoy, located in Ixelles.

The novelty of this Italian pizza and food-sharing restaurant is proving pretty enduring. Set on the busy food street of Tiensestraat, this is one of few restaurants here not part of the usual Belgian chains (Wasbar, Balls & Glory, Bavet, etc.). Instead, you'll find good drinks, an array of tapas ranging from stuffed baos to pizza bites and oysters, as well as pastas, risottos, salads, and, of course, decent pizza. The food is served on wooden boards, steamer baskets, and on paper. It's fun, and it probably won't be long before they're found all over Belgium.

Moules (mussels), pastas, and steaks, along with a small handful of the usual Belgian standbys, set the pace at this much-adored brasserie. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks—it's pretty much all things to the large contingent of expats who have made this a popular local spot. There are plenty of burgers to keep the kids happy, too.

Café Belga, in an ocean-liner-like Art Deco building, is a favorite among Brussels's beautiful people. Sip a cocktail or mint tea at the zinc bar, or sit outside on a deck chair and gaze at the swans on the Ixelles ponds.

A much-revered Italian restaurant that has been remodeled in recent years to be more of a meal out. There's a nice garden terrace, the wine selection is proficient, and the cooking is never less than spot on. It's been a local favorite for years, and you can see why: a good choice of seafood (particularly lobster) accompanies pasta that reliably conjures the scents and tastes of Italy.

This beautiful mid-18th-century town house was redone in the Art Nouveau style in 1904, adding an elegant bow window and balcony. It's been a brasserie since the early '80s, but remained empty for years after the previous owners went bankrupt. Mercifully, it's been resurrected and restored to its former glory. The menu is solidly Belgian, with not an ounce of desire to add anything to the classics. Well-made beer stews, moules, américains, and Liège-style meatballs accompany the one international caveat: an array of tagliatelle dishes.

This sprawling brewpub-restaurant is pretty much the city's old standby for when you've run out of ideas. It's particularly good for families, it's always packed, the menu is littered with Flemish favorites (carbonnade, meatballs, vol-au-vent), and the service is impossibly quick no matter how full it is. A lot of the food is slathered in the house beer (typically Con Domus and Nostra Domus), which funnels directly from the neighboring brewery into the restaurant. You can even get guided tours and tastings for €11. If you're there for the food, stick to the Flemish classics for a solid meal.

Despite its minimal signage, Fin de Siècle holds to that peculiarly obstinate breed of restaurant that flourishes despite itself. Its brown interior, big communal tables, and hearty cooking---stews smothered in beer-infused gravy, sausages atop heaving mountains of stoempe mash, and the odd North African influence---has ensured a healthy popularity and lively spirit. Covid finally forced them to get a reservation system, but in a city of old-school estaminets trying to out-tradition each other, Fin de Siècle is the eccentric granddaddy of them all.

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.

Kline's concrete, brutalist interior reflects the shock-and-awe spirit of its location on fashionable Rue Antoine Dansaert. It's certainly a palate cleanser for the often delicate fare that arrives on your plate. Offering a refined locavore's take on old-school comfort food, its open kitchen and back-to-basics design is more of a clue to chef Nico Corbesier's zero-waste approach, squeezing everything out of his ingredients. Simply named dishes such as glazed slow-cooked bacon and pickles, or the poetically named "The first of the mushrooms—the last tomatoes" move with the seasons and belie the skill with which they're crafted.

A new restaurant that elevates the more traditional brasserie fare, proving there is a life beyond carbonnades and meatballs (though they do a highly passable version of both). Chef Alex Cardoso, who made his name with the equally impressive Caves des Alex in Ixelles, embraces the kind of dishes that La Roue d'Or made its name on: here you'll find ox tongue in Madeira sauce and veal kidney in mustard sauce alongside the usual stewy Belgian hits. A fine selection of wines accompanies a reasonably small menu that knows what it does best.  

This family-run Tunisian restaurant is as delightful as it is unexpected. The blackboard menu is never huge, but that's no bad thing; it just means they do a few things extremely well, and that's more than most manage. A few Belgian beers and Tunisian wines accompany vast portions of tagines (fish, meat, and veggie) and buttery couscous.

From Magritte to Hergé, this convent-turned-estaminet was once a regular meeting point for Brussels's art elite—photos and doodles (traded for booze) are found everywhere. It went out of business in 2006, only to be rescued by the community regulars that adore it, and little has changed. Its nicotine-yellow walls are still bedecked in all manner of clutter from ages gone by, with antiques (and junk) scattered on almost every surface. The tiny menu focuses on local favorites such as ballekes in tomatensaus (meatballs in tomato sauce) and stoempe, pottekeis et bloempanch (cream cheese mash and blood sausage).

A really solid and reliable Belgian brasserie that rarely lets you down. One thing you are guaranteed: all food will be slathered in creamy, beery, or mustardy sauces and frites will fall from the air like raindrops on the battlefield this restaurant is named after. All the classic Belgian dishes are here, they're cheap, and they're well made. It might not be all that hip, but it's popular, and who needs a cellar of natural wines when you have squeezy sauce and friendly staff.

Salads packed with flavor, great hunks of quiches, and homemade lemonades are what keeps locals healthy at this popular lunch spot. 

The definition of on-trend Brussels dining. It's not flashy, it's not too expensive, but this Taiwanese-inspired, plant-based street food restaurant, run by a pair of sisters, has certainly captured a mood. It's always packed with mostly younger diners, huddled over their noodle soups, coconut curries, and rice bowls of crispy "chicken," bright lights bouncing off the plain white interior.   

This modest, well-executed Flemish restaurant comes with a superb beer menu and is named after the Dutch phrase for those who "can't get enough." Diners clearly share that sentiment, and queue dutifully alongside its Art Nouveau facade, clutching beers from the bar for warmth—the restaurant's brief dalliance with a booking system has ended. The food leans into the best of Belgian comfort food: stews slow-cooked in fruity beers and meat flaking off in gravy-soaked, hop-flavored chunks onto crisp frites and chicory. It's simple food executed well, and its selection of local lambic beers is a connoisseur's dream.

This family-run restaurant on shopping mecca has won admirers aplenty for its blend of Belgian favorites filtered through a Vietnamese lens. Sticky rice and pork croquettes, beef tai chanh (the Vietnamese take on tartare), and curried mussels hint as to why it's been so successful. The mix of winning sharing plates and a sleek, minimalist interior in one of the hipper parts of the city point to a rising star.

Some brewery restaurants tend to be slightly chaotic affairs, relying on their draft brews to pick up where the food falls short. Not so this dining offshoot from the local 3 Fonteinen lambic brewery. The menu and cooking here are spot on and embrace more than the usual carbonnades, with a good selection of mussels in various sauces accompanying some interesting game options. Afterwards, visit its nearby Lambik-O-Droom brewpub, which has a tasting room and garden terrace. Brewery tours are on Friday and Saturday at  3 pm, and on Sunday at 2 pm, with no reservation required.

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.

St-Gilles has become a real haven for creative chefs wanting to stamp down on their food miles. The leafy yard and rustic-meets-industrial interior of Smala offers not only a peaceful retreat from the street outside, but a field-to-fork menu fueled largely by the restaurant's own 1.2-hectare (3-acre) market garden in nearby Anderlecht, which opens up to visitors in the summer and autumn. Well-priced prix fixe (€48) and a la carte menus change up every few weeks to meet the seasons and are not short on flair. It's a real breath of fresh air in the heart of the city.

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.