The National weekend
plan
Friday, July 17, 2015 www.thenational.ae
15
your visit to Bruges and Ghent by visiting the websites
https://bezoekers.brugge.com and www.visitghent.be for
events, accommodation and sightseeing information
Bruges and Ghent in Belgium are wonderful places to stay for a few days, but Bruges is arguably the more popular destination. Above, a view of the the Bruges Canal. Getty Images
Food for thought
Belgium’s Bruges and Ghent are more than tourist spots. John Brunton discovers a culinary revolution
There is a food revolution taking the kingdom of Belgium
by storm, and it is not so much
happening in the swish restaurants of the cosmopolitan capital, Brussels, but rather in Bruges and Ghent, two picturesque
cities known for their romantic
tourist venues rather than gourmet pilgrimages.
It certainly comes as a shock to
learn that the restaurants of Bruges boast a dozen Michelin stars,
including two chefs who have attained the gastronomic pinnacle of three Michelin stars. And
just 30 minutes away, Ghent has
become the unofficial headquarters of the hip Flemish Foodies
movement, a much more unconventional gang of talented young
chefs who are pushing culinary
boundaries.
Both cities are wonderful places to spend a few days for spectacular cultural sightseeing,
and now the added attraction of
discovering chefs who are totally committed to a new modern
Belgian cuisine that relies essentially on local and seasonal organic products. So to begin this
foodie investigation, I head first
to Bruges, probably the most
popular destination in Belgium.
A perfectly preserved medieval city built around a maze of
idyllic canals, Bruges can sometimes seem too beautiful for its
own good, a must-see on a European tour, but too often the
perfect day trip, with everyone
rushing off at the end of the afternoon to the next destination.
On this visit back, I discover a
very different city, rejuvenated
by its reinvention as the culinary
capital of Belgium, with many
more travellers staying on for a
few nights.
I check in at La Suite Sans Cravate (www.sanscravate.be, double room €180/Dh750), the perfect mix of luxury accommodation and fine dining, a sublime
designer B&B run by the wife
of chef Henk Van Oudenhove,
who cooks across the road at
his Michelin-starred Sans Cravate (Langestraat 158, call 050
678310, four-course tasting
menu, €60/Dh243).
Like most of their guests, I
have reserved a room with dinner, and set out immediately to
see some of the less well-known
sights in Bruges. In the bustling Market Square, only the
brave walk up the 366 steps of
the iconic 13th-century Belfry
Tower, and I prefer to escape the
crowds and wander the quiet
backstreets to the Church of Our
Lady, where there is an exquisite
white marble sculpture of the
Madonna and Child by none other than Michelangelo.
The city’s best-kept secrets are
the numerous “Beguinhofs”
– hidden courtyards of doll’shouse cottages ringed around
fragrant flower gardens. Built
in the 17th century to house the
poor, it is easy to walk straight
past the deceptive street entrances. The most beautiful to
visit is De Wijngaard, marked by
a grand arch just by the Minnewater, the fairy-tale Lake of Love.
Sitting down for dinner in the
cosy Sans Cravate, it is lucky that
my sightseeing has built up an
appetite, as a host of irresistible
appetisers immediately appear
– plump squid on creamed potatoes, beetroot chips on a bed
of goat’s cheese and a delicate
asparag us veloute. The chef
Henk, a Bruges boy, cooks in an
open kitchen, and explains that,
“I have always been inspired by
the wonderful local products
that come from the surrounding
countryside here”.
A delicious North Sea crab is accompanied by artichoke and fennel, young herrings are served
with traditional sour cream but
also organic peas, beans and edible wild flowers, and the high-
light of the evening is a succulent
roast duck with pureed celeriac,
crispy root vegetables and tangy
homemade pickles.
The next day a taxi whisks me
10 minutes out of the town centre for lunch at De Jonkmann
(Ma a lsest eenweg 438, 050
360767, three-course “market”
menu, €45/Dh190, w w w.dejonkman.be), and to meet Filip
Claeys. This shy, disarming chef
is seriously engaged in sustainable cooking and his cuisine is
a revelation. De Jonkmann is
housed in an 18th-century hunting lodge, seemingly a classic
chic two-star Michelin restaurant. So I’m totally surprised to

Both cities are
wonderful places
to spend a few
days ... there are
enough tempting
restaurants to stay
in Bruges for a week
The Naturell restaurant is Ghent’s latest foodie hotspot. It is located
opposite the Design Musuem. Photo by John Brunton
taste dishes with what Filip calls
“poor” products that would never normally be featured on the
menu of such a temple of gastronomy.
Imagine sushi using hake, a
tender slice of flounder cooked
with lemon zest and ginger, an
intense consommé made from
tiny crabs that most chefs would
just throw away. You will never
see cod or tuna served here, nor
anything bred on fish farms, because as Claeys says, “there are
always alternatives”.
This food philosophy is immediately apparent in his appetisers
– unfashionable sea whelks presented like an abstract painting,
quail eggs slow-cooked over hay.
He is the founder of North Sea
Chefs, which has grown from
just himself to 300 chefs across
Belgium, and explained that
“fishermen here in our North
Sea throw away far too much of
their catch every day, only keeping the elements they can sell
expensively – turbot, sole, highly
prized shrimps. So I am trying
to educate fishermen and chefs
that non-commercial fish and
shellfish can aways be used in
the kitchen, and then convince
our customers to stop ordering
turbot or sole and try these other
fish instead”.
There are enough tempting
restaurants to stay in Bruges
for a week. In the heart of the
old town, Geert Van Hecke’s
three-star Michelin De Karmeliet (Langestraat 19, 050 338259,
tasting menus from €85/Dh350,
www.dekarmeliet.be) is one of
Belgium’s most-renowned restaurants, the ultimate fine-dining experience where waiters
hover around each table, diners
speak in hushed tones while eating off precious porcelain.
While a completely different
experience awaits food lovers who head into the nearby countryside to Hertog Jan
(Loppemstraat 52, Zedelgem,
050 673446, w w w.hertog-jan.
com), where Gert de Mangeleer,
a 37-year-old rock’n’roll threestar Michelin chef cooks in a
17th-century farmhouse surrounded by vegetable gardens
that go direct to his kitchen,
and disciples of his provocative
cuisine reserve well in advance
Belgium
North
Sea
NETHERLANDS
Bruges
Ghent
Brussels
50km
BELGIUM
FRANCE
LUXEMBOURG
Source: Google
to be served the unforgettable
€195/Dh810 Discovery Menu.
But is time for me to jump on
the train for Ghent, and less
than an hour later, I am standing on the Korenlei quayside in
front of the magnificent Gothic
Guild Houses that are the symbol of this still under-the-radar
city. Ghent has a great choice of
B&B accommodation, and I am
staying at Chambre Plus (www.
chambreplus.be, Hoog por t
31, double room €120/Dh500),
which has the added attraction of its own cooking school.
I decide to skip the queues at St
Bavo’s cathedral for a glimpse of
Ghent’s most famous painting,
Van Dyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, and opt to visit the innovative Design Museum (www.
designmuseumghent.be). Right
opposite is Ghent’s latest foodie hotspot, Naturell (Jan Breydelstraat 10, 09 2790708, www.
naturell-gent.be), where the cuisine is all about vegetables.
A six-course seasonal tasting
menu (€69/Dh190) proposes
dishes such as flaky cod with ras
el Hanout and eggplant, or a creation of white asparagus, broccoli, wild garlic and ponzu. The
enthusiastic brigade of young
chefs is almost theatrical when
dressing the plates in their open
kitchen, using so many vegetables and pickles that it almost
resembles a planted garden.
There are several chefs from
the irreverent Flemish Foodies
movement cooking in Ghent.
Their restaurants are the antithesis to the conventional concepts of fine dining. At Jef (Lange
Steenstraat 10, 09 3368058, set
lunch €25/Dh100, www.j-e-f.be),
I sit at a rustic wooden communal table, the waiter wears jeans
and a T-shirt, and the menu is
hand-written. But the creativity and quality of the dishes are
equal to anything I have eaten
in the Michelin-starred dining
rooms in Bruges.
Working directly with producers from the surrounding countryside, the ever-changing menu
features unpredictable recipes
such as his signature beef marrow bone, sliced length-wise
and topped with juicy snails,
warm parsley puree and smoked
bread, or raw marinated haddock with eggplant, cucumber
and fennel.
A n even more bohemian
locale is De Superette (Guldennspoorstraat 29, 09 2780808,
pizza and main dishes from
€14/Dh60, w w w.indewulf.be/
desuperette), one of the restaurants overseen by Kobe Desramaults, who cooks with the
same “earthy cuisine” philosophy as Noma’s Rene Redzepi.
The design is seriously hip –
battered leather armchairs and
velvet sofas, raw brick walls,
and arty photo-collages. During
the day, the food is wholesome
soups and salads, while the
evening menu is more complex
and includes gourmet pizzas.
After lunch at De Superette,
I t ake a romantic boat tour
through the city’s narrow canals, which rival even those of
Venice. The backstreets of Patershol, the medieval artisan neighbourhood, are a gold mine of art
galleries, trend-setting fashion
and design boutiques, while
there is a host of bargains at the
brilliant weekend flea market
that spreads out over the cobbled stones of St-Jacob square.
And as the sun sets, I wander
back to the quayside of the Korenlei where locals and tourists
alike pack the cafe terraces that
line the waterfront, enjoying an
aperitif before deciding which
of the innovative Flemish Foodie chefs to book for dinner.
Emirates (www.emirates.com)
and Etihad (www.etihad.com)
both fly direct to Brussels from
Dh3,695 return including taxes.