What are the most delicious foods, refreshing drinks, coolest cafés and swankiest restaurants in Brussels at the moment?
Harvest
This wine restaurant is a hidden gem: something precious located in an improbable area. Sure, there are dozens of other places in Brussels where you can also find great wines, especially natural ones to match inventive, healthy and tasty food. But here, it’s the other way around: it’s a must-go for wine aficionados who expect a more complete gastronomic experience than in a wine bar.
Harvest has been based at the Place du Samedi for six years now, an unlikely spot behind De Brouckère, but it’s worth the trip. After a career in big pharma, Erwan Mevel, from Brittany, switched to wine and steadily built an incredible cellar. It’s his biggest asset: you can find amazing labels for the same price, or even less, as they are sold on the market. His speciality is Burgundy wines, which he imports directly, but he’s open to the rest of France and Europe (mainly Spain, Portugal, Italy and even Cyprus).
The food is Mediterranean-inspired and very innovative (read: unique bistronomie recipes designed by the excellent chef), with a strong focus on vegetables. Bread, desserts and ice cream are homemade.
The €36 three-course lunch menu is priced at €48 in the evening and the five-course evening menu is at €70. The restaurant proposes wine pairing, of course, from €38 (three wines) to €44 (four wines) and wine by the glass (€9-12). The bulk of the wine list is priced around €40-65/bottle, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg among the 200 references of the cellar. Hence just name a great label, it may be available.
The owner knows his products inside out and provides ample explanations to his guests. After several crises, which led to the current teleworking trend, he has reduced the opening times to Wednesday to Saturday. Harvest is a restaurant for wine connoisseurs, which was chosen as the restaurant of the year by his Flemish fans in its first year of existence. And we can only be happy it still exists.
Harvest 14 Place du Samedi, 1000 Brussels
Nectar & Co
A rule of thumb in the gastronomic sector (read: premium food production) is that behind every product there is a person with passion. That is certainly the case with Xavier Rennotte, whose enthusiasm is contagious. After a few moments of tasting his honey, it feels like the most magical food product ever created by nature.
Rennotte started beekeeping when he was 12, and his honey company, Nectar & Co, is sold in most organic shops in Belgium. Interestingly you can also buy the honey in bulk at Färm and The Barn in Brussels - their dark forest honey is a pure treat. The company produces two tonnes and transforms 50 tonnes of honey each year, equivalent to the daily production of Meli, the biggest honey company in Benelux. But they clearly don’t play in the same category.
Belgium only produces three-quarters of its consumption and traceability is very poor. Rennotte aims to boost the quality of honey in the Belgian market. He knows all his suppliers and has built a network of excellence with 20 or so European beekeepers (including those in Belgium – and himself) who produce organic mono-floral honey, which he conditions and sells under his brand.
This is where his know-how comes into play: Nectar & Co’s signature is a recognisable creaminess and stability which is obtained by playing with the crystallisation process, using no chemicals nor additives, of course. Besides 15 references such as oak tree, bergamot, eucalyptus, sainfoin, lemon tree or thistle, Nectar & Co proposes other honey-derived products: mustard (in cooperation with traditional Belgian brand Bister), vinegar, sesame biscuits, sweets, fruit cream and a mouth-watering hazelnut spread.
Thanks to its low water and high sugar content, honey does not spoil and can even be used in healthcare – which is why Nectar & Co also proposes propolis, royal jelly and pollen-derived healthcare products. However, its most surprising product is hydromel (mead), which Rennotte has made as tasty as white wine, contrary to most meads on the market, which are more a curiosity than a connoisseur beverage.
Le Petit Mercado
This incredible cafe is a one-stop shop, inspired by Latin America’s covered markets, where you can buy food but also meet people and stop for a drink or a snack, be it a natural wine or a homemade lemonade with tapas.
The owners, Pia and Mano, wanted to reproduce in Brussels what they had experienced in Argentina, at a smaller scale, hence a petit mercado. It is therefore also a restaurant – you can even eat at the tiled counter – with tasty food which makes you feel at home.
That could be a one-plate dish of the day, just enough for a good lunch, which you can complement with soup and indulge with a little dessert designed by the pastry chef Juliette. Unless you prefer a delicious and creative sandwich to eat on-site or take away. But the spirit remains from this former local hardware store for plumbers, where you could find vintage or even unique pieces.
The Petit Mercado is now meant to be a superette: a food shop where you can buy vegetables, bread, dairy products and cold cuts, wine by the bottle and a huge range of delicatessen from the whole world, crafted with love, including an impressive collection of spices and preserved food in tins, cans and jars. The shop also sells flowers, books, posters and decorative objects. Launched in late 2019, it survived the lockdowns thanks to its essential goods shop.
From this year on, the counter is open from 9am and serves breakfast: croissants (hot and stuffed with pancetta + gouda or plain), caccio e pepe eggs, peanut butter toasts, etc.
I should mention that their people reflect the spirit of this foodie gem: despite an ever-growing number of fans, the staff remain friendly and smiling, and seem to get as much pleasure from working as their customers.
Le Petit Mercado 82 Rue Hôtel des Monnaies, 1060 Saint Gilles
Bôtan distillery
Demand for non-alcoholic drinks has grown exponentially, but until recently, there was little to offer. Now, however, new drinks, such as low-sugar soft drinks or spirit-like beverages are blossoming everywhere. And a newcomer from Antwerp, Bôtan distillery, is making a huge leap forward.
It took three-and-a-half years of research and development for its four founders to produce Bôtan’s three ranges of drinks for any occasion: four Bôtanical Cocktails to drink on the rocks, six Bôtanical Wynes to pair with food and seven Bôtanical Spirits to blend in cocktails like any spirit. Yes, 16 drinks at once!
They use no chemicals, artificial flavours, or additives – their labels even include a “we don’t use these ingredients” section. Transparency is part of Bôtan’s DNA and their product info includes advice on how to prepare/serve them and how to pair them with food.
But is it good? Yes! And here are three tests that show why.
- Test #1: a party. You can sip Bôtan cocktails all evening long and never get drunk but won’t feel excluded. Not too sweet (4-8g/100ml, no added sugar) but flavoursome, they are everything but boring. My pick: Pomelo asada and its incredible smokiness.
- Test #2: cocktail & chill. Bôtan’s booklet accompanying your zero-alcohol spirit(s) is very precise, but the result is amazing. This is where you feel the difference from distilled botanicals grown in full organic soil, to avoid the use of alcohol as an aroma carrier. Pine haze gave my dry martini a new dimension.
- Test #3: a meal. They don’t intend to mimic the taste of wine, but rather the craft of winemaking from genuine vegetal ingredients. Hence they are all still slightly sweet but complex and offer a wide range of flavours: vegetal, tannic, smoky, sour or fruity. It’s a different experience to drinking wine and it brings more creativity to food pairing. Yes, they’re priced like premium drinks, but they are fully justified, not least by the quality of their botanicals and their taste complexity. The cherry on the cake: these drinks are healthy, of course.
