Recommendations: Bruges
Is there a more chic way to travel than by EUROSTAR? Going under the actual sea in order to reach the continent!? (I mean, yes, yacht or something probably. But I love it.)
I came back from Bruges yesterday, and not even the TWO screaming babies on my train between Brussels and London could bring down my mood. The three Belgian beers I had enjoyed with my brother the night before were handling that on their own.
So here we go: the places I loved and would recommend!
Onslow
I love it when I am travelling with people, we end up on a street with barely any shops or bars, and people start to panic that we have taken a wrong turn. Arriving right outside Onslow on Saturday, after a long winding sunny walk, absolutely starving, you could forgive my travel companions — mum, dad, brother — for thinking it was all a big happy coincidence. But I had “flagged” Onslow weeks before, so of course I steered us there.
A Belgian version of St John, IMHO, Onslow delivered on gorgeous aesthetic (beautiful art, delicate mismatched china, stripped back furniture choices) and delicious food, matched with delicious wine. We had the smoked sardines (I kept going back to dip bread in the onion-y dressing), fried chicken (sublime; 5 small pieces between 4 though!); aubergine (something special about that tomato sauce); habachi (think ceviche: avocado and pickled onion, and a sort of taco); pate (nobody but me was excited for this but everyone raved about how great it was: a simple, rough-but-smooth ham-and-fennel delight) and extra bread (seeded).
I had two glasses of the orange wine: it was too yummy to stick with just one.
Read more on the Michelin Guide.
Pigeon House
This was another example of “oh look where Kirsty has managed to find for a Sunday night dinner!” They don’t know how lucky they are, honestly. This place only gets 4.5 stars on Google Maps, but I can only assume people go in and order badly — or are disappointed it is not quite as casual as the photos make it seem. (Also, I suppose 4.5 is pretty good. We are spoiled!)
This is a proper dining room, and something quite WILD happened when my family ordered: we all got the same thing. Everyone chose the “steak maison”, a smoked steak that is cooked medium rare and is served under a misty cloche. There’s a tasty side salad, a TON of pine nuts (are they cheaper in Europe!?) and you can add fries, mash, or the Belgian fave, croquettes. You can also add a sauce for 5 euros. I tried all of them (one area where my family obligingly decided to go back to our NORM of ordering different things).
We had a FANTASTIC Pouilly-Fuissé to start and then I have no idea what the red wine was, but it was also excellent. We really smashed it.
Three of the four of us fancied our waiter, but he would not have surprised us if he said he was studying for whatever the Belgian equivalent of A-levels are.
Bar Bulles Speakeasy
The very first place we went on arrival in Bruges? The bar at my parents’ boujie hotel, of course! While I was slumming it in a single bed in an attic (actually, a very charming and characterful Airbnb above a very nice cafe), they were of course living it up at the beautiful Boutique Hotel Le Foulage — a hotel with its own stunning little terrace bar, serving up impressive cocktails and vibes.
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I only had wine (both times we went there: Friday before dinner, and Friday after dinner) but the “Not A Manhattan” and whatever my dad had (clarified with milk!?) looked ACCOMPLISHED and received rave reviews.
If you don’t mind sitting amongst smoking couples, and maybe waiting a while to be served, you should seek this out — it’s open to people who are not guests at the hotel. I will also say, people were VERY good at offering up their bigger tables when the four of us traipsed in: that’s the sort of societal DUTY that I wish we saw more of, frankly.
ONE Restaurant
The intention of booking this (well-reviewed) place for our first night in Bruges was to ease ourselves in gently: some low pressure, casual dining; no need to iron a shirt. The sunny terrace was a perfect spot, if a little quiet when we arrived — we had an ongoing chat all weekend, actually, about the ideal playlist for a dinner. Anyway, the menu was simple: it’s croquettes for starters, and you’ll be wanting the stew or the meatballs for mains. I wanted both, so my brother and I shared/swapped after eating half of each.
Homemade chips: GREAT. Weird salad: loved it.
The sauces were INSANELY good: they do a thing with cherry beer in Belgium, it seems, that makes for an excellent sauce (it appeared on rabbit somewhere else we ate). The service was very polite and quiet (my dad kept getting a fright every time the waitress appeared over his shoulder, in actual fact) and we all agreed it had been absolutely the right thing.
De Garre
We sheltered from the rain in this fab little pub down an alleyway, much to my mother’s disappointment (it was very beer focused, and she is not). I copied my brother and just ordered the “house beer” as the menu was insanely long. We didn’t see the whole place, but we could tell it was cute and interesting in terms of architecture. Every beer is served with a tiny dish of cheese (somewhere between actual cheddar and cheese string — presumably Edam?) but tonic waters didn’t come with a snack (nae luck, maw.)
Service was actually very quick, considering the room had the slightly chaotic feeling of the end of a stag do. A lot of English being spoken, but we told ourselves it did feel like locals would go and drink there. Important!
Zet’joe
You probably don’t need a blog post on Medium to tell you where in Bruges has a Michelin star, but we did actually eat here and you know what? None of us ADORED the food. It was all really good, really well cooked, thoughtful, well presented and so on. It just wasn’t the most interesting thing about this charming little place, a bit off the beaten track and clearly run by the people who own it. The Santa-coded chef came out and spoke to us after our meal; an older woman served the cheese with an air of dinner party hostess; an older gent explained and poured the wine with flair but not too much jargon; another older gent said very little but made sure we got our sauce allocations with every dish: some fantastic langoustine, salmon and leek and smoked eel, lamb done 839 ways, a VERY good dessert of strawberry and rhubarb.
I wish I could tell you more, but I was absolutely hooned on the wine pairings, all of which completely stole the show. Madeira with our cheese course was a firm favourite, despite the fact my family has been declining a cheese course since the 1990s.
