207 Best Restaurants in Belgium

The discreet redbrick basement setting makes this one of the cozier candlelit meals in town. The name (Noah's Ark) has little to do with the menu except you will find such oddities as kangaroo steaks, albeit not by the pair. The rest of the menu falls into spiced-up brasserie territory, with its Cajun-style chicken and a coconut curry risotto jazzing up the usual sauce-drenched steaks, alongside a good selection of fish dishes. 

Enjoying a prime riverside spot below the castle, L'Aristide stands out immediately for its bold and bright red color scheme. Food, on the other hand, is more a story of restrained elegance, with a simple but very tasty French-inspired menu that reflects the town's proximity to the border.

Located just above the place de Jeu de Balle in the heart of the Marolles area, this café is a local institution—legend has it that residents would come to fill their buckets full of hot water in times of need, hence the name. In 2014, its closure was imminent, but locals stepped in and reopened it as a social cooperative (open 11–4) with a kitchen dishing up hearty, organic, vegetarian lunches (coconut curry, lasagne) and a dish of the day for a decent price. It also boasts a well-curated list of bottled beers (many of them organic) from lesser-known artisanal Belgian breweries.

Just steps from the opera house, this stylish joint is the place in Liège to come for Italian fine dining. Choose from the two-, three- or four-course fixed-price menu (five-course tasting menu only on Friday evening and Saturday). Everything is prepared in the open kitchen at the back, so you can watch the chefs at work as you salivate over the enticing smells.

A L'Envers is French for "inverted," and the name reflects this modern restaurant's simple but effective concept: to present dishes with edgy new flavor combinations, and old-school traditional fare, all on the same menu. The house specialties include beef carpaccio, and scampi cooked half a dozen ways, the latter served both as a starter and as a main, but it is on the three-course "surprise" menu that the chef really lets his imagination run wild.

A friendly lunch spot with a good menu of busy spiced-up salads and pastas. On Friday and Saturday, lunchtime servings later bleed into the evening. The homemade crème de salidou (a salted-butter caramel typically made in Brittany) is worth the visit in itself.  

It's a 13-km (8-mile) drive out of town, but the area's most accomplished fine-dining spot is worth the hassle. It piles headfirst into French-style gastronomy, producing dishes as finely tuned as their flavors. A choice of small set menus offers good value, with the €40 three-course meal belying the skill, freshness, and imagination of what arrives on the plate. 

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.

Old brick walls, tiled floors, and wooden beams overhead set the mood for this discreet Upper Town French bistro with a menu heavy on the meat. Hefty steaks smothered in sauce, sauerkraut-laden choucroute royale, and Brabant guinea fowl dominate. It's been a reliable staple on the city's dining scene for years, and will undoubtedly go on to be for many more 

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.  

Candlelit tables and rustic touches characterize the welcoming little bistro, which serves a regularly changing menu of French food with global influences, in homey surrounds. To really soak up Durbuy's enchanting atmosphere, try to snag a table on the front terrace, beside a lovely cobbled lane.

This cozy hideaway on place Froissart has a great garden terrace to its rear, which offers a wonderfully discreet escape. The classics of French cooking fill chef Vincent Gilbert's small blackboard menus, packed with foie gras, kidneys in beery sauces, and muscley-but-tender "spider" steaks. There isn't much choice, but that's how you know everything is fresh that day.  

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.

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.

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).

Settle into a booth at this bakery and tearoom for waffles, crepes, homemade ice cream, or a fresh-baked tart.

A Brussels institution named after a card game called "Sudden Death," A la Mort Subite is practically unchanged since its 1920s heyday; and with its distinctive high ceilings, wooden tables, and mirrored walls, it remains a favorite of beer lovers from all over the world. Balancing a vast drinks menu with a choice of simple snacks (sandwiches and omelets), it still brews its own traditional Brussels beers (Lambik, Gueuze, and Faro). These sour potent drafts may be an acquired taste, but, like singer Jacques Brel, who came here often, you'll find it hard to resist the bar's gruff charm.

In an unassuming redbrick house on a quiet street off the place du Marché-aux-Légumes, this classy restaurant with quietly understated modern decor lives up to its name—in addition to being a musical term, le petit fugue also means “the little escape.” The regularly changing menu promises haute cuisine emphasizing regional ingredients, such as locally caught trout and locally raised lamb.

The modest red-painted brick facade of this popular restaurant gives little away about what lies within: a smart tiled-floor dining room with a ship-shape bar that leads back to a rear garden terrace, opened up in fine weather. The food is distinctly Belgian with French influences, and it sticks to seasonal, locally sourced produce where possible, but scallops also feature regularly and never disappoint.

Meat is the order of the day here, rumored to be sourced from the same supplier as the celebrated French chef Joël Robuchon. Pounds of fresh, sweet cuts adorn the menu of this chic brasserie, whose specialty is beef, whether in the form of entrecôte, fillet, boulettes (meatballs), or tartare (raw). The decor is accordingly charming, with a beamed ceiling overhanging dark-wood tables. It's a local favorite for good reason. 

Food really can't get any fresher than at this friendly family-run inn on the southeast edge of town—order one of the several trout options on offer and fish will be taken directly from the restaurant's own ponds, located steps away in the rear garden. It's a 15-minute walk from the center of Malmedy, but worth it for great food in lovely surrounds.

The rather scruffy exterior hides a budget jewel in Mons's dining scene. This is home-cooked Belgian food at its most grandmotherly, with huge portions of sauce-swamped meats ranging from meatballs and rabbit to great mounds of chateaubriand. Service is cheery and the setting café-like in its briskness, but it's great value and always worth a look. 

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.

Organic, plant-based vegan food and natural wines are the specialty of this canteen with the air of an apothecary. It couldn't be more on trend if it tried—and it has, hard! Blackboard menus spell out what lies inside the eight colorful Le Crueset pots that sit warming over (typically vegan chillies, coconut curries and the like), while a pick 'n' mix of accoutrements (grains, sauces, and raw veggies) let you create your own dish, or "prescription" as they like to say, continuing the whole botanical vibe. Even if the marketing spin is a little irksome, the wholesome, home-cooking-style food really hits the mark.

Another excellent French-theme establishment that sets its cap at Lyonnaise-style cooking, meaning plenty of rustic cuts and offal on the menu, from roasted bone marrow and veal kidneys to Lyon-style herring. If your tastes veer toward meatier, classic Gallic cooking, then this is your heaven. 

Although this 17th-century home in the heart of Durbuy is all low ceilings and oak beams, the off-white color scheme in the candlelit dining room keeps things light and airy. The food is exquisite modern Belgian, using mostly local, seasonal produce, but the seafood is truly special—unsurprising as chef Frédéric Bruneel learned his trade at the SAS Sea Grill in Brussels.

This recently renovated café on the main square is pretty much the heart of the town. Every local comes here, usually in search of its famous burgers, overflowing with melted Chimay cheese. You'll also find a few unique tastes of the region, including escavèche, a dish whose origins likely date back to the arrival of Spanish in the 1500s, and is essentially trout or eel preserved in vinegar. Try the assiette, which includes this along with some local cheeses, cold sausage, and frites. On Friday and Saturday evening, local bands also play on the square outside. 

An unassuming gray facade belies the elegant interior of this restaurant in a sprawling old house, with its sharp modern furnishings offset by original features such as fireplaces and tiled floors, and a pretty garden terrace if weather permits. The menu features some apparently simple European dishes such as quiche, elevated to fine-dining levels.

Named after the famous garden in Marrakech, the setting here—among a colorful walled courtyard—is as much the star as the food. It certainly makes it popular in summer, when climate and cuisine combine to offer a real taste of Morocco with a menu that spans a litany of cheap tagines, pastilla (meat-filled pies beneath sweetened pastry), and couscous dishes with spicy merguez sausages or grilled meats. 

For those who can't quite make up their mind whether they want to eat Italian or Belgian, this informal place in the center of town covers both bases, and more besides, with North African dishes and burgers also making it onto a wide-ranging menu. Despite this apparent scatter-gun approach, everything is prepared with care and love, so you can't go wrong whichever route you choose.