From its medieval culinary origins to an innovative restaurant scene, Belgium.

My fondness for Belgian cuisine stems from some of my dearest friends being Belgian. While as of 2025, Belgium boasts more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than France (the birthplace of the Michelin guide), some of my most beloved Belgian meals have actually been around a family kitchen table or fresh from the stalls of the Saturday Market a the Theaterplein in Antwerp. While haute cuisine reigns supreme in the country today, Belgians are also particularly passionate about their comfort food, their beer and, most importantly, their potatoes. The carby delights are consumed in almost every avatar, and any Belgian you meet will be sure to reiterate the specious nature of the name ‘French’ fry, a dish which, according to common lore, is unequivocally Belgian. As the legend goes, the famous fry traces its origins back to Namur in francophone Belgium, where villagers living in the Meuse Valley were accustomed to frying small river fish. One a celebrity carb.

Waterzooi is a traditional Belgian dish originating from Flanders. It's a rich and creamy stew that can be made with either fish or chicken, along with vegetables, cream, and egg yolks. The name "waterzooi" comes from the Dutch words for "water" and "to boil," reflecting its preparation method.

Besides beer and carbs, Belgian cuisine is vast and varied, with medieval influences still finding their way onto the modern dinner plate. The country also boasts a bustling, evolving restaurant scene with an unslakable desire for culinary creativity, spotlighting local ingredients and sustainable cuisine – a refreshing change from the stuffy, sombre French bistros and old-fashioned cafes that once dominated its landscape. When in Belgium, here’s what to eat and drink to ensure you’ll be merry.

Belgian cuisine: local food & drink

Spices and olives at a local market in Antwerp, Belgium

Belgian cuisine is deeply rooted in medieval practices, illustrated in its use of fresh and dried fruits, nuts, vinegar and mustard – all common across medieval Europe to preserve and season foods. Spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, peppercorns, saffron, ginger and bay leaves that were widely used through the Middle Ages are still used today, as well as herbs like thyme, sage, chervil, parsley, tarragon and chives traditionally grown in the gardens of medieval monasteries.

One of the best meals I’ve had in Antwerp was at the home of two of my favourite Belgians, Jeremie and Doudou. We started the morning at the Saturday Market – a centuries-long Antwerp tradition – buying impossibly fresh mussels, charcuterie and saucisson (my fave), wine (obvs), and many delightful Belgian cheeses. Later that evening, we gathered around the kitchen table to graze upon our fresh market finds as Doudou whipped up his speciality moules-frites, swimming in a boiling sea of white wine, garlic, butter, shallots and parsley. Let’s look at some of the most popular local food and drinks …

• As we’ve already established, Belgians love their fries (frieten in Flemish, or frites in Belgian French) — especially served up with velvety dollops of mayonnaise or as ½ of the power couple moules-frites (mussels with fries). The secret to the perfect Belgian fry is that it’s double-fried, allowing for a perfectly crisp exterior and succulently moist core.

• While moules-frites has established itself as Belgium’s national dish, beer is the country’s liquid pride and joy — a beloved brew in a rainbow of hues, from dark chestnut to reddish amber, golden yellow to pale copper.

• Belgian beer is intimately intertwined with Belgium’s cultural heritage, so much so that it was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2016, brewing traditions dating back to the Middle Ages. It comes in a variety of styles, from spontaneously fermented Lambics – an ancient wheat beer brewed in the Pajottenland region of Belgium – to traditional pastoral ales like the Saisons, beers that originated in the farmhouses of Wallonia where they were first brewed for farmers to quench their thirst.

• The Trappist beers are a must-try, brewed by Trappist monks in six abbeys across Belgium, often served at monastic breweries in chalice and goblet-style glassware. Stoofvlees with fries

• Belgians are also meat lovers and masters of cosy comfort food, with hearty, carnivorous creations like stoofvlees, or carbonnade flamande as it’s called in French-speaking Wallonia – a Flemish beef stew slow-cooked with onions and bay leaves in malty Belgian beer, with regional variations depending on whose grandma is cooking it.

• Another cuisine favourite is rabbit braised in Kriek cherry beer, traditional gueze sour beer from Brussels, or slow-cooked with prunes and dark Belgian ale.

• Wild boar and various wild birds frequently find their way onto an evening dinner table reminiscent of Asterix’s village banquet, alongside dishes like eel cooked in green chervil and sorrel sauce and delicious waterzooi stew cooked with chicken or seafood. Belgian Liège waffles

• Of course, there are the famous (or infamous, if you’re counting calories) Belgian Liège waffles and equally sinful Belgian chocolate, renowned for its use of exceptionally high-quality cocoa beans that are ground ultra-fine to between 15 and 18 microns, resulting in its characteristically silky texture.

• My favourite naughty Belgian treat is Speculoos, traditional shortcrust Belgian biscuits spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and white pepper (try them at Maison Dandoy, a bakery first opened by Jean-Baptiste Dandoy in 1829).

Best restaurants in Belgium

Belgium’s restaurant scene today has evolved to be less stiff upper-lipped and more of an epicurean playground, with experimental, playful chefs adding a certain ‘sparkle’ to the country’s gastronomic landscape.

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Zilte in Antwerp is a masterclass in outstandingly fresh ingredients, helmed by the imaginative, self-taught chef Viki Geunes. Imagine bright cherry red deep sea carabinero, served crudo; scallop paired with the bittersweet, floral notes of Buddha’s Hand, earthy alba truffle and nutty Jerusalem artichoke; and lobster served up with bold, tart bursts of wild sea buckthorn berries. The restaurant is one of the few in Belgium to boast three Michelin stars.

Imagine bright cherry red deep sea carabinero, served crudo; scallop paired with the bittersweet, floral notes of Buddha’s Hand, earthy alba truffle and nutty Jerusalem artichoke; and lobster served up with bold, tart bursts of wild sea buckthorn berries.

The restaurant is one of the few in Belgium to boast three Michelin stars.

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In the same category, proudly adorned with three Michelin stars, is the beautiful Boury restaurant in Roeselare, housed in a charming 1950s villa in the suburbs which doubles up as the family home of owners Chef Tim Boury and his wife Inge Waeles. The menu is firmly in the zeitgeist, emphasising sustainable cuisine and deep reverence for the sheer bounty of local produce, with herbs straight from the restaurant’s garden and vegetables sourced directly from surrounding farmers. The flavours Chef Boury weaves are deeply complex and layered, harmonising striking textures with fragrant, umami-rich seasonings that blend a classical approach to good food and wine with creative culinary brushstrokes that awaken your palate with a jolt. The dishes change with the season, and this time round Boury was plating line-caught wild sea bass salted with anchovies and served with Tuscan lardo di colonnata and bouncy barba di frate; scallop with roasted chervil root and bone marrow; and succulently sweet langoustine tartare with buckwheat noodles and decadent oscietre prestige caviar. Saturday Market at Theaterplein, Antwerp

The Saturday Market at Theaterplein is a bon vivant’s dream come true for its buzzy atmosphere and fresh produce straight from the source — the locally made saucisson is to die for, as are the scintillatingly fresh oysters paired with bright, bubbly champagne, making for the perfect midday pick-me-up.

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Aster in the painfully hip Dansaert district of Brussels is another personal favourite – the small urban eatery echoes its neighbourhood’s artsy charm with a chic, casual atmosphere, exposed brick walls and an Insta handle updated just enough to keep up its enigmatic allure that reads “set menu based on fish from small boats and local vegetables”. The small team is sommelier Ydris Gryson helming the drinks and chef Túbo⁣⁣ Logier handling the kitchen, with a delectably adventurous 7-course tasting menu filled with culinary showstoppers that change with the seasons and are only cooked over an open fire; caramel and asparagus flan with caviar, rock salmon glazed in chestnut miso, braised wild garlic root, sunflower seed-based risotto with sake kasu. The restaurant has traded in the stuffy, formal decor of fine dining restaurants of yore for a more current, laid-back energy and an emphasis on its culinary craft – it is modern Belgian gastronomy at its very finest.

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