36 Hours in BRUSSELS
Give the Belgian capital a second look, and you will find plenty of avant-garde art, vintage wares and daring cuisine
“There is literally nothing to do here,” the Br it ish music ian Noel Gallagher once said of Brussels, that hotbed of pol icy directives. He was hardly the first. Around Europe, the Belgian capital and headquarters of many European Union institutions is not especially known for its rock ’n’ roll spirit. But Gallagher – and many of us – should give Brussels a closer look. Clearly he didn’t have a chance to admire the graffiti, avant-garde installations or conceptual creations in the city’s new art spaces. Or shop for vintage items in the many retro and antique boutiques. Or taste the innovative dishes in the city’s neo-Belgian and Belgian-fusion restaurants. Or knock back fine-tuned cocktails at one of the upstart liquor bars.
The Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015 – which were plotted in
Brussels – and the suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and subway station in March 2016 were a tragedy for the city. But Brussels has rebounded.
FRIDAY 4PM Kitschy, Yet Cool
New York has Lady Liberty, Paris has the Eiffel Tower and Brussels boasts a soaring silvery structure modelled on an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, known as Atom
ium. Built in the 1950s, the roughly 102-metre-tall lattice of spheres and tubes is kitschy, yet cool, especially the views from the retro-futurist cafe at its summit. More fascinating 20th- century relics await around the corner in the ADAM, Brussels
Design Museum, which opened in 2015. Walk through the entrance – designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel – into the Plasticarium, a sprawling permanent collection of some 2000 candy-coloured plastic
furnishings, appliances, interiors and artworks. From bubble chairs to a recreated 1960s discotheque, the works are a fascinating time capsule and design showcase.
8PM Star treatment
Designed by the celebrated Belgian architect Victor Horta, the Palais
des Beaux-Arts (a.k.a. Bozar) is best known for international art exhibitions, films and concerts. Now it’s a gastronomic destination, too, thanks to Bozar Restaurant, which earned its first Michelin star in 2016. Within the Art Deco interior, the chef Karen Torosyan creates ever-changing multicourse menus and an à la carte selection of seasonal neo-Belgian dishes. The bread-crusted pâtés might include a collage of duck, goose and black pig, accompanied by a spiral of colourful vegetables like carrots and beets, while traditional rabbit stew becomes slow-cooked, stuffed meat rolls with a citric sauce made from Kriek cherry beer.
10PM Curious Cures
Is sobriety a sickness? If so, La Phar
macie Anglaise (The English Pharmacy) prescribes boozy remedies in an environment suggesting the 19th-century salon of a debauched British lord. Panelled with wood, the cocktail bar is decorated with Oriental rugs, armchairs, antiquated lab equipment and – most notably – bones, jaws and jars of preserved rodents, reptiles and other creatures. Tastier science occurs behind the bar, where bartenders concoct house cocktails like Sunny G&T (Hendrick’s gin, hibiscus- cucumber cordial, tonic) and Honeymoon (whiskey, pear-honey cordial, Amaro Montenegro and black walnut bitters).
SATURDAY 10AM Natural Habitats
Victor Horta and his contemporaries pioneered Art Nouveau – which infused colours and forms from nature into furniture, art and architecture
– and their work is visible on townhouse façades around the neighbouring Saint-Gilles and Châtelain neighbourhoods. Admire Horta’s own vine-and-tendril decorations at 25, rue Américaine (which houses the Horta Museum) before heading to 92, rue Africaine, notable for its big circular window. The building at
13, rue de Florence is a sober, stony specimen, while 83, rue Faider sports a wondrous top-floor mural of women in a sea of flowers and stars. Two edifices beckon from Rue Defacqz. Number 48 is adorned with goldtinged mythological images, while number 72 incorporates green plantlike ironwork.
NOON The Daily Dish
If you don’t have a cool Belgian aunty to cook for you, you always have Magalie Boutemy. Tucked away on trendy rue du Page, her restaurant,
L’épicerie, feels more like a home, thanks to its plank floor, farmhouse tables and simple Old World kitchen. Regulars stop in to enjoy the friendly vibe and healthy daily special – there is just one, and no menu – which might be pork in miso sauce with shiso leaves or rice, honey- and tamari-glazed cod with crunchy vegetables. Follow with the daily dessert, which was recently a spongy cherry cake.
2PM The Paper Trail
Let’s say you wanted to strap on ice skates, pop on a hard rock CD and tinkle along at an upright piano while sipping from a vintage beer glass. Such dreams can be realised at Les Petits Riens, a nearby multistorey emporium of used goods, ranging from African drums to vintage suitcases. The neighbourhood also attracts the literary set, thanks to Peinture Fraiche, a gallery-like bookstore selling impeccably chosen art, design and architecture tomes, and Le Typographe, a paper-lover’s Eden of handmade notebooks, diaries, stationery and other goods printed on site.
4PM Urban Studies
Cool things are brewing at the new Millennium Iconoclast Museum of
Art (MIMA), a former brewery whose renovated industrial expanses now bubble with contemporary art. The museum’s permanent collect ion leans towards street art, graffiti, graphic design and pop works full of colour, irreverence and mischief. Just witness the Dutch artist Parra’s
large sculptural red tomato with legs, which lies helplessly on the f loor. Multiple temporary exhibitions also fill the agenda.
7PM A Culinary Journey
Ready to fly? Names of international destinations – Kyoto, Berlin, Mexico – are stencilled on the colourful walls of San, a cosy spot opened by the Belgian-Korean chef Sang-Hoon Degeimbre in 2015. They also adorn the menu, where each of the five nightly courses is named after and inspired by some spot on Earth. My itinerary started in Murringen, Belgium (velvety beef tartare mixed with savoury razor clams in a floral Bergamot broth), moved to Deshaies, in the French overseas region of Guadaloupe in the Caribbean (fritters filled with cod in a spicy red pepper pesto), returned to Liernu, Belgium (seasonal vegetables in a sweet onion broth), before heading off to the South Korean island of Jeju (succulent pork cubes with toasted buckwheat and cabbage) and Dublin (whiskey-infused panna cotta with chocolate sorbet and burned chips of Gruyère cheese). Neck pillow not provided.
9PM Beer and Botanicals
“Leave the abbey, join the playground” is the motto at Brussels
Beer Project, a microbrewer y angling to bring Belgium’s legendary brewing tradition into the 21st century. Relax on a grain sack and order from an ever-changing roster of more than 40 beers that might include Delta IPA (crisp, hoppy and floral). Nearby at Life Is Beau
tiful, cactuses hang from the ceiling and potted plants dot the candlelit room. Opened in 2016, the f lora-filled cocktail bar transports you to the Caribbean with a rumbased Storm in the Caribbean or a chestnut- cream-based Grandpa is Going Nuts.
SUNDAY 11AM Bruegel’s Brussels
When it comes to art, this is Magritte’s town. Two museums are devoted entirely to the master of the strange, and images of his man in the bowler hat fill the city. But Pieter Bruegel the Elder was also a Brussels resident, and the Renaissance painter’s stock is rising these days as this year celebrates the 450th anniversary of his death.
At the Old Masters Museum, there’s a cinematic room and numerous interactive tutorials devoted to his masterpieces, including The Fall of the Rebel Angels, an apocalyptic fever dream with archangel Michael f ighting a seven- headed dragon.
Rubens, Rembrandt and Bosch are among the collection’s other heavy hitters.
1PM Buy Belgian
Belgian pride suffuses rue Haute, where hip boutiques are championing local design and products, some of it handmade on site. Atelier en
Ville, a vast hangar-like space, is a combination cafe, clothes shop and furniture studio that builds and sells everything from neo- industrial
shelving to arty lightboxes. Belge
Une Fois concentrates on clothing, jewellery, art and more from scores of Belgian designers and brands, including lamps in the shape of crocodile clips and bold-printed tote bags. And if you still haven’t fully uncovered the city, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Brussels is among the many books, posters and postcards depict ing Brussels at Vanclever.