10 Best Restaurants in Brussels, Belgium

There are a cluster of bars and restaurants around the Cirque Royal. This "brassonomie" experiment is a cut above the rest, taking the usual brasserie fare and elevating it to a fine-dining bistro experience, and throwing in its own brewery for good measure. A beef-cheek carbonnade arrives drizzled in a silken gravy made from its house Santana beer. The small menu rotates frequently.

A restaurant with a firm eye on seasonal cooking, slow food, and organic produce. No surprise, then, that it's from the same people behind the Titulus wine bar, and that its selection of natural wines is among the finest in any restaurant in the city. The food isn't half bad either, and impresses with its often pared-down simplicity: from chicken with a lemon confit to a comforting chou farci (stuffed cabbage rolls). Dishes are not over fussed but presented simply and with confidence.

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.

Finally, the mushroom-themed restaurant of your dreams—well, someone's dreams. And while diners might discover that it isn't quite as eccentric as they'd expect (mushrooms feature in all dishes but often as side ingredients), it is nonetheless quite out there, particularly the desserts: try the cheesecake with cèpes and blueberries! The owners also run the impressive fine-dining French restaurant La Buvette and the excellent bakery Hopla Geiss, whose cinnamon rolls are utterly delicious, on the same street.

This split-level restaurant, on a side alley off the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, has all the trappings of an old-time bistro: green-shaded lamps over marble-top tables, a forest's worth of dark wood paneling, and laid-back waiters. There's nothing casual about the French-style cuisine, however: grilled sweetbreads with baked courgettes, mille-feuille of crayfish and salmon with a puree of langoustines, and saddle of lamb with spring vegetables and potato gratin. The selection of Beaujolais is particularly good.

Paella is the prime reason to come here. It dominates the menu and holds to the old-school Valencian style, with rabbit and snails added to the usual chicken, pork, and fruits of the sea. Certainly, classics like the arroz negro (cuttlefish and blackened squid-ink rice) more than live up to their East-coast Spanish roots. A little piece of Spain in Schaerbeek.

While COVID-19 forced a lot of Brussels restaurants to embrace reservation policies, 203 has gone for the first-come, first-served approach, and recommends turning up at 7 (we'd argue 10 minutes beforehand) to guarantee a spot at dinner. It's certainly worth the effort. Set menus at this charming bistro change every week, according to the whims of the season, and there's a fine selection of natural wines, which are, by now, almost mandatory in all modern Brussels restaurants.

In and among the pricey antiques and jewelry shops of the Sablon, you'll find a fair amount of stylish dining. Among these establishments comfortably snuggles Lola, an undeniably charming brasserie of black-leather booths and a bar counter for those grabbing a quick lunch. The menu is rotundly French but with a small exclave of Belgian and house dishes, such as cod and peeled gray shrimp or Holstein carpaccio. 

Only a 10-minute walk from the castle, in the village of Gaasbeek, lies this pleasant country restaurant with a pretty courtyard. Its building dates back to the late 18th century, and it has been a brewery, a tavern, and a farm in its day. Expect dishes such as horse steaks, venison tornados, and goose-liver pie with fig jam, all of which offer a more rustic take on the usual brasserie fare. A few dishes even make ample use of the local lambic beer made in these parts.

Umā's "bistronomic" approach is geared around food without borders. In reality, this often boils down to chef Aurélie Kluyskens's own spin on Nikkei, the Peruvian-Japanese fusion cuisine. The open kitchen lets you see her working out its angles in a sublime space amid the high-end boutiques of Boulevard de Waterloo. The €100 tasting menu is a symphony of subtle flavors, though the a la carte is every bit as enticing, seducing diners through hamachi ceviche or red tuna udon taki finished with black truffle.