207 Best Restaurants in Belgium

Perched atop a huge glass-and-black-metal construction designed by avant-garde architect bOb (his spelling) Van Reeth, this cozy riverside restaurant---with bistro-style food as modern as the surroundings---resembles a docked cruise ship. You're virtually assured a good view, since large windows stretch around the building---boat traffic bustles on the Schedlt River to one side and, on the other, there's a fine view of the cathedral and the Oude Stad.

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.

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.

This simple café is a great place to grab a drink, or a bagel or a baguette, before taking in the Museum of Fine Arts, located just around the corner. Early birds can also breakfast on American-style pancakes, served until 12:30 pm.

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 fine-dining restaurant has long been a fixture on Antwerp's dining scene, dishing up exquisite cooking in the interior courtyard of its elegant dining room since 1975. Longtime chef and local legend Marc Paesbrugghe, who once gave away his two Michelin stars because he was tired of the red tape, has long since hung up his apron, but the torch has been passed on in the kitchen with no drop in standards, and a prix-fixe menu that delicately picks its way through big flavors.

When it comes to picking the more spectacular place to sit, you'll be hard-pressed to choose between the gorgeous high-ceilinged neoclassical dining room and the majestically tranquil garden terrace at the rear. The food, while looking simple on the menu, is equally grand—even the croque monsieur comes in such dimensions that you are unlikely to leave feeling hungry.

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.

One of the endearing eccentricities of Ghent is its number of soup-theme cafés. There are four in the center alone: all cheap, satisfying, and popular with students. This is clearly the local pick; by lunchtime, the queues outside are positively daunting. The menu changes regularly but usually dishes up a half-dozen soups, including the likes of creamy leek and Breydal bacon or tomato and meatball, alongside salads and sandwiches.  

It’s worth visiting here for the location alone, in the Vlaeykensgang (the oldest alley in the city), where time seems to have stood still. The cozy dining room has the look and feel of a private home.

An enticing café-bar with a long history and, many say, the best setting on the Leie. It lies next to the old sas (a hand-cranked drawbridge over the lock), and this was where the bridge controller once lived---try to arrive in fine weather as the terrace is the big draw, and the café is often closed at other times. The café even contains a small museum of maritime paintings and relics of a time when these waters were among the busiest in Belgium. Now it's just a great spot to rest up when strolling the riverbank between Ooidonk and Deinze.

Plant-based burgers, salads, and hot bowls (usually a grain and a curry or veg medley) make this vegan fast-food joint a cheerful spot to rest your feet.

When art historian-turned-chef Matthieu Beudaert handed in Kortrijk's only Michelin star by closing his restaurant, he decided to go back to basics: gastronomic food at a decent price. Table d'Amis has recently reopened and is no less inspired, with dishes such as breaded veal sweetbreads smoked on a tobacco leaf hinting at the daring below the surface.

There may be a clue in the name, but there's far more to life than basic ham and cheese croques at this lively and simple-but-hip café---the toast-based dishes here come lavishly spread with a list of ingredients ranging from smoked salmon and asparagus, to chicken korma, or sauerkraut with chipotle mayo. Reservations are not possible and it's a local hot spot, so get here early, or be prepared to queue.

A patisserie-cum-deli with a Greek twist, where you can sate your appetite on bougatsa (custard pie) or spanakopita (cheese and spinach pie), or just bag a coffee and chocolate croissant.

A spin-off restaurant from the Dubuisson Brewery (the oldest in Wallonia) in Pipaix. As you'd expect, its Cuvée des Trolls and mighty 12% ABV Bush beers feature heavily on draft, but they're also worked into the brasserie-style menu, mingling with beef-stew carbonnades, meatballs, and even worked into a duck confit.  

Just around the corner from the Marché-aux-Herbes bar street lies this haven to all things American and calorific. It's a busy caveat to the city's main student drinking area, but also a rather good burger and hot-dog joint. Heaving brioche buns, mostly named after a Google-scrawl of Americana, spill over with Gallic flourish. Of course, the "Wall Street" burger would have foie gras and truffle mayo. And if you can manage the €30 "Super Bowl" burger, your stomach is as strong as your will. 

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. 

Chef Matthias Speybrouck got his start working under mercurial Belgian chef Kobe Desramaults, and he learned well. His modern riverside restaurant has a rather industrial vibe, but it fits the "rough and refined" ethos of the menu, where he digs deep into local produce to create some surprising combinations.

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.

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 Mexican street food of Social Tacos, 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, in Parc Royal, 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' leafier parks. In the evening, the neighboring Radio Kiosk sees DJs and drinks flow.  

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.

This stylish, redbrick bar and restaurant lies above the old Cinema Liberty in a Gothic-style building that dates from 1482—all wooden beams, iron latticework, and stained glass. The fare is bistro-style comfort food at its finest: Flemish stews, bloody steaks, and the odd exotic meat (kangaroo). This is the full package–the food, great choice of wines, and live jazz and blues combine to make this one of the better nights out in the city.