Weekend in Brussels

By the greatest of coincidences, we managed to book reservations at two restaurants next door to each other in the Sablon area of Brussels. We booked one and our friends booked Toscana 21.

Both are small family run restaurants which have great authenticity. Toscana 21 is run by a family originally from Florence. The 21 refers to the street address.

The colours of the restaurant are warm terra cotta and evoke an Italian ambiance. The not quite fluent English of the servers and chef at the back add to the feeling that we were in Tuscany.

The menu was listed on bits of paper stuck to a painters palette and we needed the server to explain how to sort the starters from the mains. It turned out, we can order how we want and adjust the portion sizes for most of the dishes. We ordered a number of antipasti including some excellent ravioli gnudi, salad, and salumi with lots of bread, followed by pasta for some and the evening’s fowl special for others. We overdid the antipasti so I did not manage to finish my pasta and dessert was completely impossible.

Again, we received good service but soon learned the family history from the son who was serving us. Turned out he was about to get married to the female server then honeymoon near our hometown. Life can be so full of coincidences.

We are amazed this tiny place produces such good food at such reasonable prices. It formed a wonderful finale to our last night in Brussels.

This is a small family run Belgian French bistro in the Sablon area of Brussels where a number of small restaurants are located. On the edge of the main tourist area, the restaurants along the street seem to be savvy about having a tourist clientele yet feel very much like small local gems.

We were able to make reservations online and this tiny place has its own website: www.clefdeschamps.be.

The restaurant has an authentic bistro feel and the menu also reflects this. Our group of five all had excellent meals and enjoyed some good yet reasonably priced French wine from a particularly good wine list for a restaurant this small. The menu includes classics like escargot, beef steak, fresh fish and braised lamb. Desserts were equally classic and delicious.

The service started out very good but soon became down right friendly as we spoke French to the chef when he appeared and then to one of the owners, who sat and chatted with us for a while then left us with a round of post-dinner drinks. From her we learned that while the name of the restaurant literally translates as Key to the Fields, it is the equivalent to the English expression "Gone Fishing". With food this good and prices this reasonable, we hope they do not go fishing too often.

Some consider this the most beautiful square in the world. The wide open square which sometimes houses a flower market as well as small street vendors is surrounded by Flemish Renaissance-baroque guild houses from the 17th century, the neo-Gothic King’s House, and the 15th-century Gothic Town Hall. On the spire of the tower of the Town Hall perches the Archangel Michael, patron saint of the city.


A UNESCO world heritage site, the architecture of the square is described as providing a vivid illustration of the level of social and cultural life of the period in this important political and commercial centre.Writer Victor Hugo once made his home in a building on this square.

We returned to the Grand Place a number of times in our sight seeing and each time we paused to look around. It would be hard to get tired of looking at the intricate details and appreciate the unified architecture.

We were warned that the numerous cafés ringing the square were some of the worst places to eat. Nevertheless we wanted to enjoy a sunny day so stopped for some breakfast in the outdoor patio of one of the cafés. The coffee, croissants, bread, ham and cheese were more than adequate but expensive and the service incredibly surly.

The Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique is a collection of four museums with the two most important being the Musée d’Art Ancien and the Musée d’Art Moderne in the museum filled area near the Palais Royal and the Parc de Bruxelles. You can buy tickets to both or one. Too much museum going at one time makes my head hurt so we opted for the Ancien. Admission is €8 for adults, €2 for students – the best deal for students I have ever seen.

Ancien or Ancient is misleading. The museum contains 15th to 18th century art, mostly paintings, from the region. The building was built as an art museum in the early 1800s by Napoleon to house the many works (which had been confiscated during the French revolution) and could not fit into the Louvre in Paris. Because it was intended for viewing, the design works very well as you start on the upper story entrance and work you way around in a loop. No back tracking or dead ends like you get in many museums, including the Louvre.

The circuit starts with early Flemish artists such as Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch, culminating in the Bruegel room. Later centuries include paintings of Pieter-Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacques Louis David.

The main floor contains special exhibits, Rembrandt when we were there, as well as a café and gift shop. The museum café offers beverages and light meals. We enjoyed some refreshments on the outside balcony overlooking a small botanical garden. The adjacent gift shop has a large collection of art books and is worth a visit just to look at the Art Deco design of the building itself.

This was a great stay in a luxury boutique hotel. The building design borrows from the fifteenth-century abbey that originally occupied the site. The location was perfect on a quiet street near the Grand Place, Brussels central city square. The design uses jewel-tone colors to evoke medieval stained glass, a motif repeated in the carpeting of the guest rooms. The hotel is relatively new but retains the nineteenth-century stone facade of a building which was once the home of the French neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David. His painting features in some of the hotel advertising. Soaring ceilings echoing gothic arches divide the handsome bar, restaurant, and lobby that surround the central atrium. There are repeated motifs of the monastery in the decor and furniture.

We stayed in standard rooms, which are compact, but well designed and full of useful amenities, such as a Nespresso machine, free Internet access, and a plasma-screen television on an adjustable arm that enables viewing from anywhere in the room. Down pillows and a thick mattress pad made for a comfortable sleep in the very quiet room. I particularly liked the bathroom with its black granite sinks and spacious walk-in showers with ceiling-mounted rain showerheads.

We enjoyed drinks in the bar and another time drinks and tasty tapas in the area by the atrium, but skipped the breakfast buffet and restaurant dinner offerings during our stay. We did not use many of the facilities, a health club, a sauna, a steam room, and a fitness room. Nor did we try the spa or use room service. However, the small business centre was useful for printing boarding passes. All the staff we encountered were agreeable and even tolerated my French.

Cannot think of any complaints except the ice machine was rather slow.