5 Best Restaurants in Tournai, Western Wallonia

Set in a pretty, stone-fronted town house, this elegant mainstay on the city's fine-dining scene rarely disappoints. A sunlit terrace garden offers a break from the dark, sensible interior, but the food is the joy here, concocted with wit and imagination. The likes of scallops and mandarin sorbet or smoked eel with a confit of Iberian ham are past triumphs, but the menu is forever changing.  

Among the sprawl of terraced bars and restaurants encircling the Grand Place, this down-to-earth brasserie is among the finer options. Its menu is packed with hearty Belgian brasserie classics, including beer stews, local-style tartare, and meatballs. But spare room to try Tournaisien favorite rabbit with prunes, a dish so enamored by locals that it has seeped into custom and is traditionally served on the Monday after Epiphany. Whenever you try it, this version is a more than passable example. It also runs a decent burger restaurant, Comptoir 17, next door. 

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. 

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.  

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.