Karen Torosyan, the Georgian-born chef who rose from a dishwasher to one of Belgium's most celebrated culinary figures, has led Brussels restaurant Bozar into the World's 50 Best Restaurants ranking on Thursday.
The Michelin-starred Bozar restaurant, nestled in Rue Baron Horta, has long been considered one of the best in Brussels, if not in the country. Now, the new World’s 50 Best Restaurants places it 42nd worldwide for its “searingly good food,” as the Michelin guide describes it.
“Each dish is a masterpiece of artistry, with no detail left to chance, which is also the case of the interior. This magnificent restaurant is emblematic of Victor Horta’s Art Nouveau architecture. The chef has found his place at Bozar,” the Michelin Guide writes on its website.
Chef of restaurant 'Bozar' in Brussels, Karen Torosyan, pictured during the presentation of the 2025 edition of the Gault&Millau restaurant and hotel guide for the Benelux region, Monday 04 November 2024 in Brussels. Credit: Belga/Dirk Waem
Born to Armenian immigrant parents, Karen Torosyan, now 46, started working in a fast-food restaurant at the age of 13. When his family decided to move to Brussels, he was 18 at the time and barely spoke any local language. The hospitality sector seemed to be the only familiar place he could find work, and he landed a job as a dishwasher in a brasserie.
He recently told Bruzz that he was put under the mentorship of the best Brussels chefs, who taught him the classics of French cuisine as he worked for them. In the early 2000s, the culinary world was witnessing new ideas that mixed chemistry with cuisine and fused different cooking styles, spices, and ingredients from different cultures.
“But I was fascinated by it; I was determined to cook French food,” Torosyan told Bruzz.
Bozar chef Karen Torosyan celebrates his second Michelin star at the presentation of the 2023 Michelin Guide for Belgium and Luxembourg in Mons on 13 March 2023. Credit: Belga / Benoit Doppagne
His love for French food led him to meet his ultimate mentor at the La Paix restaurant in Brussels, French chef David Martin, who asked him to be the head chef of his Brasserie at the Bozar arts centre. Years later, Torosyan took over the brasserie and became what he described to Bruzz as “a chef of a gastronomic restaurant.”
Torosyan, to this day, holds the title of the best pâté en croute: a delicate, intricate and fine French dish, difficult to master. It takes not just meticulous skills, passion, and hard work for the star chef to put the dish on the customer’s plate, but also confidence.
“If a chef is certain of his dish, he needs to add nothing to it,” he told Bruzz.
