Bruges Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Bruges - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Bruges - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Teasers is the ice cube down the back of Bruges's "traditional" dining scene; it's brash and modern, serving a relentlessly inventive menu of French-inspired sharing tapas dishes slanted heavily towards seafood. The growing Rock-Fort empire also encompasses the Glocal shop and take-home service next door, and---above that---the more upmarket Orange District restaurant, which serves fixed-price fine-dining menus.
This fine bistro-style restaurant is a glorious celebration of the simpler things in life---the stars of the show are the less starry meats on offer: the rabbit stew and pigeon fillets justify their slightly inflated prices owing to the quality of the cooking, backed up by a decent wine menu. Space is at a premium, with most tables downstairs in the cozy bunker of a basement (lined with various pigeon knickknacks) and a terrace during summer.
In a plum spot along the route from the Markt to the Burg, this no-frills restaurant is well known among locals---the plain furnishings leave the focus on the fresh seafood for which the establishment is famed. Although eel and steak are available, the restaurant’s biggest draw is mussels—there’s nothing more basically, and deliciously, Belgian than a huge crock heaped high with shiny, blue-black shells.
Set above a quiet canal, with white swans gliding below, this charming restaurant in a step-gabled town house is purely romantic---for the best views, request a window seat next to the water. And yet, while the surroundings drip with history, the food is anything but old-fashioned: cutting-edge head chef Bruno Timperman uses impeccably fresh seasonal ingredients to create beautifully presented plates of food that paint a spectacular picture, both for the eyes and for the palate.
A Bruges institution for more than three decades, this cross-vaulted, medieval crypt has evolved over the years from a lively tavern with loud music at night, into a more genteel restaurant that provides a quiet spot for conversation over a meal and a glass of wine. The menu covers steaks, and Belgian classics such as vispannetje (fish stew), mussels, or rabbit, all at very reasonable prices.
A 15-minute walk from the Markt, this informal Belgian café-restaurant attracts a roaring crowd—a legacy of being just a few doors up from one of the city's busier hostels. The menu changes regularly, although the food inevitably veers toward the comfort variety, with some excellent stews (like its simple but winning pot-au-feu) regularly cropping up. In a city where restaurants don't need to try that hard to find business and aren't afraid to charge for the privilege, Lion Belge is inexpensive, consistent, and friendly.
A 10-minute walk east of central Bruges, this cozy gastrobar serves up modern takes of classic French dishes, but with a twist. Instead of full main courses, the food is delivered tapas style: pick six savory treats of your choice, and they will be served together on a self-styled grand plateau (a large wooden platter).
Attached to Hotel Heritage, the elegant dining room at Le Mystique dates from 1869, and its high ceilings, chandeliers, and linen tablecloths create a refined atmosphere, perfect for quiet conversation. Here, chef Raoul de Koning creates a blend of modern French/Flemish cuisine using the freshest seasonal and local ingredients, served in fixed-price menus of three or four courses.
This canal-house restaurant by the Jan van Eyck statue is a real charmer---from an intimate main dining room, an iron staircase leads to the upper tables; the open kitchen is in back. Here, chef-owners Sam and Vicky Storme cook up rich Burgundian cuisine: fresh game, goose liver, fabulous mussels, pigeon with truffles. Service can be a little on the brusque side, but dinner by candlelight is the ultimate extravagance, with a choice of some 300 wines.
There may be a clue in the name, but there's far more to life than basic ham and cheese croques at this lively and simple-but-hip café---the toast-based dishes here come lavishly spread with a list of ingredients ranging from smoked salmon and asparagus, to chicken korma, or sauerkraut with chipotle mayo. Reservations are not possible and it's a local hot spot, so get here early, or be prepared to queue.
This stylish, redbrick bar and restaurant lies above the old Cinema Liberty in a Gothic-style building that dates from 1482—all wooden beams, iron latticework, and stained glass. The fare is bistro-style comfort food at its finest: Flemish stews, bloody steaks, and the odd exotic meat (kangaroo). This is the full package–the food, great choice of wines, and live jazz and blues combine to make this one of the better nights out in the city.
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