The antique dealers of rue Blaes and rue Haute, the maritime street-food of Nordzee, your best dinner of the year at La Buvette, the Kanal – Centre Pompidou, the Wiels, and cherry on the cake, an exhibition dedicated to light in art, cleverly entitled “The Light House”, at the Villa Empain… In short, Brussels has been elected a compulsory destination for this autumn 2020.
Let’s sleep in Brussels
Monsieur Bernard has selected 2 hotels for you, the Jam, gently crazy, and the Hôtel des Galeries, sober and tasteful, and 3 bed and breakfast’s, La Maison Haute, all in mosaic and wallpaper (except an immaculate room), Maison Flagey, Art Nouveau and cozy, and The Bed to Be, under a strong sixties-seventies influence.
Jam
Housed in a modern building previously home to an art school, the Jam is one of the coolest and more arty addresses in the Belgian capital. Designed by artist Lionel Jadot, the decor consists of concrete, motorcycle parts and abstract sculptures in the lobby, to which are added bricks and light pine in the bedrooms. Rooftop bar with swimming lane. From € 108 per night for 2, and € 183 for 4, breakfasts included.
Hotel des Galeries
Hotel des Galeries is, as your clever brain might have guessed, located in a gallery. And not just an anonymous one since we are talking about the King’s Gallery. Full of tourists during the day, but totally deserted when night falls. Hence the very special atmosphere when, in the evening, you open your window overlooking the gallery. Simple and pretty double rooms at € 195 and suites from € 213, breakfasts included.
La Maison Haute
Built at the beginning of the 19th century, in the heart of the historic Marolles district, a former Brussels trading house has been transformed into a guest house. La Maison Haute has kept its volumes, its staircase, its old joinery, and its mosaic and granite floors weathered by time. Three bedrooms with vibrant wallpaper and the fourth, the duplex, immaculate, under the roof. A Marseille soap shop occupies the ground floor, hence the good smell wafting through the house. 115 € per night for 2 people including breakfast.
Maison Flagey
Maison Flagey is what you can call a charming guesthouse. Located a stone’s throw from Place Flagey (hence the name), this beautiful Art Nouveau building has 5 bedrooms with very pretty antique bathrooms, from € 145 per night for 2 (+ € 10 per person for the breakfast).
The Bed to Be
Fans of the sixties and lovers of the seventies, The Bed to Be is made for you. A (small) cozy room of 14m2 at 95 € per night, a 28m2 suite at 105 €, a large 33m2 suite at 115 €, and a 40m2 apartment at 105 €, breakfasts included.
Friday evening’s dinner
No hesitation, Friday evening, dine at La Buvette. The Alsatian Nicolas Scheidt, ex Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, who has lived in Brussels for fifteen years, has transformed this former horse butcher’s shop into a restaurant that is worth the trip to Brussels on its own. 5-course menu at € 55. Unmissable.
The alternative is Le Café des Spores, Nicolas Scheidt’s other address, entirely devoted to mushrooms. You can therefore enjoy a stew of enryngii accompanied by an oat waffle, a grilled confit chicken served with artichoke and pan-fried… mushrooms, and a porcini cheesecake that you will tell us about. Around 30 euros à la carte.
Saturday in Brussels
Bozar
After its success at the LAM in Villeneuve d´Ascq, France, “Danser Brut” is at the Bozar Brussels until January 10, 2021 (doors open at 10 a.m.). A mix of brut, modern and contemporary art, medical archive documents and films, the exhibition features works by Charlie Chaplin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rebecca Horn, Henri Michaux, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mary Wigman, among others.
You are now ready to go to lunch. Lovers of fish and other seafood, head to the Nordzee place Sainte-Catherine. Otherwise, close by, you can go and taste the best fries in the world at Frites Atelier.
Nordzee
Nordzee-Mer du Nord is a Brussels institution. The recipe is simple. You choose your victim on the fishmonger’s stall, the cooking method, and you will taste the result on the high tables in front of the fishmonger. A delight.
Frites Atelier
Fries lovers, Sergio Herman, the Michelin-starred chef who opened The Jane in Antwerp, and who has just inaugurated his new restaurant Le Pristine, launched his first Frites Atelier in The Hague in 2016. Branches then opened in Ghent, Antwerp and therefore, Brussels. And at Frites Atelier, we do not laugh with the fries. Eighteen months of research to select the best potato, find the perfect doneness, the perfect salt (in this case ‘Samphire Salt’, salicornia salt), and sauces to die for. Latest creation, the “Pulled Pork & Piccalilli”. But you can also taste the croquettes (delicious) or the burgers (divine).
A 15 minute’s walk and you have arrived at Kanal – Center Pompidou.
John M Armleder at Kanal – Centre Pompidou
The Kanal reopened on September 24, 2020 with the exhibition “It never ends – John M Armleder & guests” on view until April 25, 2021. Painter, sculptor, installation designer, performer, archivist, curator, collector, publisher, bookseller, gallery owner and more, John M Armleder is one of the major figures of art of the last fifty years. The Swiss artist was invited to invest for seven months the spaces of the Showroom of the former Citroën garage: on the six raw stages, Armleder offers, in dialogue with a series of monumental installations, which he has specifically designed for the place, a constellation of exhibitions, events and meetings offering the opportunity to dive into his world and that of those he loves.
Then visit Au Chien du chien and Tissus du Chien vert. These two cult shops on the Quai des Charbonnages are an Ali-Baba’s cavern of fabrics.
Then go back down to the center to treat yourself to a waffle. For the more classic among you, stop at Maison Dandoy, from which you will also buy a box of speculoos (the recipe from their great-great-great-grandfather).
And for the adventurers of taste, it is at Gaufres & Waffles that it happens with a creative choice of savory and sweet waffles.
You are now ready for the deco & vintage marathon of rue Blaes and rue Haute. So, rue Blaes, stained glass windows, paintings, crystal, furniture, in short, everything on 1200m2 at Passage 125 (n°125), Spanish textiles and Belgian ceramics at Jinzu (n°122), industrial furniture at K Loan (n°101), design furniture from the 20th century with a fine selection of Italian masters (Gio Ponti, Ettore Sottsass, Joe Colombo…) at D+ (n°83), chic design (Knoll, Willy Rizzo, Cees Braackman…) at Via Antica (n°40), then you go up to the Place de la Chapelle at Stef Antiek.
You then begin your descent from rue Haute with Fins de Siècles (n°184), lights at Dokidok (n°186), Haute Antiques (n°207).
To end the day in style, go to 69 rue Jules Lejeune to admire the Glass House designed in 1935 by the architect Paul-Amaury Michel. Inspired by Rietveld, Le Corbusier and Pierre Chareau (designer of the Maison de Verre, rue Saint-Guillaume in Paris), Paul-Amaury Michel combines glass bricks, load-bearing pillars, large windows and a roof terrace to create a living machine archetype of modernist architecture.
Saturday evening’s dinner
A nice decor, perfect gyozas, sashimis, sushis and other first-rate chirashis, restorative ramen, black sesame ice cream and green tea to die for, in short, on Saturday night, you dine Japanese at Kokuban.
Sunday in Brussels
Risquons-tout at Wiels
11am, opening of the Wiels doors. Risquons-Tout is an ambitious program that explores the potential of transgression, risk and the unpredictable. Through an exhibition, performances and an Open School, Wiels examines how art can challenge the homogenization of thought.
Sunday’s lunch
Le garage à manger
In 2013, El Camion, the first food-truck in Brussels, opened a rear base in the Pêle-Mêle garage in Ixelles. Le Garage à Manger was born. Sofas and armchairs for adults, caravan and books for children, in direct communication with the Pêle-Mêle bookstore. The people of Brussels in search of an organic, local and artisanal Sunday brunch come to feast there with their family. Do the same.
The Light House at Villa Empain
Villa Empain, home of the Boghossian Foundation, explores the manifestations of light in art and the sensations it provokes. From October 22, 2020 to January 31, 2021, The Light House exhibition invites the public to live a succession of personal and collective experiences with light, most of them immersive, through the works of 21 major contemporary artists, covering nearly 60 years of artistic performances. Among the artists: Jean-Michel Alberola, Shezad Dawood, Róza El-Hassan, Mounir Fatmi, Mona Hatoum, Ann Veronica Janssens, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Kimsooja, Joseph Kosuth, Adrien Lucca, Iván Navarro, Dennis Parren, Martial Raysse, Erwin Redl, Charles Sandison, Thomas Schütte, Kaz Shirane, James Turrell, Franz West…
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