The Surrealist painter René Magritte liked to visit the creaky old Brussels bar Le Greenwich in Rue des Chartreux. He would join the local men to play chess and try unsuccessfully to sell one of his paintings.
The café closed in 2009 to allow the Ghent architects Robbrecht & Daem to renovate the beautiful Art Nouveau interior dating from 1907. It relaunched two years later as an upmarket brasserie. The chess players were politely asked to leave. And so it lost much of its old charm.
The new plan didn’t work out and Le Greenwich went bankrupt in 2021. It recently reopened under its new name – Greenwich Modern.
The mood is more upbeat with DJ sessions, live concerts by Belgian bands and even a few chess sets scattered around the place. It might be enough to bring the locals back.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
