Destination guides > Europe > Belgium > Brussels > Eating & drinking

Brussels

Eating & drinking

Eating

Belgium has given the world french fries, waffles and some of the world's best chocolate. Although this country's cuisine remains one of Europe's most underrated, Belgian restaurants have taken Europe by storm with a number popular restaurants including Belgo in London and Léon de Bruxelles in Paris.

 

Although widely known for brussels sprouts, chicory (chicon in French and witloof in Dutch) is the main vegetable to gain prominence in Belgian cooking. Apart from chicory, brussels sprouts and french fries Belgium's national cuisine revolves around meat and seafood. However there is a large selection of vegetarian restaurants.

 

Mussels (moules in French) are cooked in a variety of different sauces and feature on most Belgian menus. Many places specialise in moules frites (mussels with french fries), often advertising them à la volonté (all you can eat). Other popular seafood includes oysters (huîtres), shrimp (crevettes), eels in green sauce (anguilles au vert) and waterzooi - a creamy stew featuring chicken, fish or scallops.

 

Belgian menus also feature a number of meat dishes where beer is used as a prominent ingredient. Meat and beer dishes include carbonnade flamande (beef cooked with beer, carrots and onions and seasoned with thyme) and lapin à la gueuze (rabbit casserole featuring gueuze beer and onions). Lapin à la kriek is a variation of the above with the gueuze beer substituted with cherry beer.

 

If you order filet à l'américaine, you'll get a plate of steak tartare. In other words, raw beef prepared with raw onion, pepper and tabasco or Worcestershire sauce.

 

The incorrectly named French fries must surely rank among Belgium's most universal contributions to modern culture. Because frites are cheap and filling, they are the staple food of most budget travellers in both Belgium and the neighbouring Netherlands. Fries (frites) are usually served in a paper cone and topped with mayonnaise, but an astonishing variety of other sauces are available varying from curry to satay and mustard.

 

If you're preparing your own food the GB supermarket in the City 2 shopping centre is a good spot to stock up on groceries and it's especially convenient if you're staying at the Sleep Well hostel.

Drinking

Belgium is the home of beer with over 100 breweries and over 500 different beers. Although there are some excellent lager beers such as Stella-Artois, it is the specialty beers for which Belgium is famous. Where else but Belgium could you try raspberry beer?

 

Belgian beer is usually served in a glass produced specifically for that particular type of beer, with some really extravagant designs. If you're the type of person that just has to take home a few beer glasses from the pub, then Brussels (and any other Belgian city) is paradise.

 

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