Something Delightful Is Brewing in Belgium Restaurants

In bilingual Brussels, where the Flemish and Francophone cultures coincide and sometimes collide, cafes do double duty.

Many are very much in the French style, offering espresso and light meals; others are more like pubs or taverns, and the lists of beers served there--Belgian and otherwise--can go on for pages.

Most importantly, one does not exclude the other. At a typical Brussels cafe, beer and coffee frequently appear at the same table.

For most travelers, a visit to Brussels begins at the Grand Place in the center of downtown. A cobblestone square used as an open-air flower market is flanked on all sides by striking examples of Gothic and Baroque architecture, with much of the latter highlighted in gold leaf.

The l5th-Century Hotel de Ville dominates, its dark visage a contrast to the lighter, more confectionary style of the surrounding buildings. On the far left, facing the Hotel de Ville, is the home of the Brewer’s Guild, which is now, appropriately, a beer museum operated by the Belgian Brewers Confederation.

The Grand Place is lined with cafes, which in warmer months is filled with patrons enjoying the outdoor ambience. The most prominent of these is Au Roy d’Espagne. From a second-floor window seat there, the entire Grand Place is on display.

North of the Grand Place lies the narrow, restaurant-lined Rue des Bouchers. Tight corridors branch off the Rue des Bouchers and lead to inner layers of even more restaurants and cafes.

Originally, Brussels was built like a checkerboard, with each square’s exterior walls concealing a courtyard. As the city grew, it didn’t spread out, but rather filled in. Thus, the inner layer of buildings is younger than those on the outside.

Down one such corridor is Toone, at Impasse Schuddeveld. Toone’s beer list is one of the longest, and includes several Cantillon brews. In winter, the dark, wood-paneled old tavern is warmed by a large fireplace. At night, Toone doubles as a theater; in a back room, marionette plays are performed as they have been for more than a century.

A walk through the shop-lined arcade of Galeries St. Hubert, which begins just outside Grand Place, leads to La Mort Subite on Rue Montagne-aux-Herbes Potageres. This cafe doubles as the home of the Mort Subite lambic beers, including framboise and kriek .

La Mort Subite is literally translated as “sudden death,” not because of any fatal associations with its beers but because dice players on lunch hour at the cafe would switch to “sudden death” to determine a winner before returning to work.

A great hall of a cafe, the ceiling supported by gilded Corinthian columns, Mort Subite has long been popular with Brussels’ students.

Farther out from the center of downtown, past the Parc du Jardin Botanique and its crystal palace greenhouses, lies De Ultieme Hallucinatie, at 316 Rue Royale.

The well-preserved art nouveau interior leads to an outdoor garden cafe. On a warm afternoon, a salad with a Cantillon gueuze makes a refreshing lunch.

And Hallucinatie’s Flemish-speaking crowd reminds one that Brussels is very much a bilingual city. Any order, however, whether for Cantillon or Corsendonk, can be given in English.