Brussels, Belgium

Eat your way through Brussels

January 20, 2020

Brussels is a food lover’s paradise. Known for its gastronomy and signature dishes, Brussels is the ideal place to visit if you want to indulge in good food while taking in historical and beautiful architecture.

Here are the four dishes that Brussels is most famous for and the dishes you MUST try when you visit.

Chocolate

Belgian chocolate, need I say more? Belgium is famous for its chocolate, and especially its truffles. Alex and I went on a chocolate tour through the town and learned so much about the history of chocolate making in Brussels (and indulged in plenty of chocolate, of course).

We learned that the truffle was invented in Brussels when a pharmacist started coating his pills in chocolate and his son subsequently replaced the pills with cream. We got to tour the very shop where this happened! We learned that dark chocolate is not supposed to be bitter. It is only bitter if the chocolate is made from beans from different places and then over-roasted. Good chocolate is single-sourced, e.g. Indian chocolate, Mexican chocolate, etc. Oh, and don’t buy chocolate that has palm oil in it. That’s bad. We also toured the shop started by the first female chocolatier! It’s one of the official chocolate shops of the Belgium Royal Family. Girl power!

We tried so many amazing flavors: passion fruit chocolate truffles, champagne rose truffles, rose and black pepper chocolate, and lemongrass and cayenne pepper chocolate (as well as more traditional dark, milk, white, and caramel chocolates)

I highly recommend this tour. It costs €39 and you spend an hour and a half touring five different chocolate shops – starting at the more affordable shops and ending at the most high-end. Our tour guide was friendly and crazy knowledgable about chocolate. We, of course, sampled plenty of chocolate, but you also get a 10% discount at three of the chocolate shops that you tour.

Cadbury and Hershey’s will never taste the same.

Waffles

Belgian Waffle, maybe you’ve heard of it? Belgian waffles are famous for being extra think with deep “pockets”. Belgian waffles are sold all over the city – in restaurants but also in small almost “fast food” style shops and from carts on the side of the road.

I’ve learned that there are two types of waffles… Belgian-style and Brussels-style. Basically, Belgian waffles are the wonky circle shape and Brussels waffles are square and yeast-leavened. I tried the Belgian-style and it was so so delicious. The chocolate on top was good, but in my opinion, the waffle by itself was amazing and did not need the chocolate.

My waffle cost about €5.

Fries

Before trying Belgian fries, I assumed that all fries taste relatively the same. They do not. I’ve since learned that Belgian fries taste different because they are double fried and they are made from a specific Belgian potato and thick-cut. And obviously, they are served in a paper cone (for aesthetic purposes I’m sure, but I swear it makes them taste better haha).

The Belgian fries were really good. Were they better than McDonald’s fries? Maybe, but honestly, to me, they tasted too different to compare.

The fries cost about €2.50 each.

Beer

I am not going to pretend that I am a beer expert by any means, so take my advice with a grain of salt. All I know is that Belgian beer is famous for some reason. There are beer shops all over the city as well as Belgian beer tours. If we had more time in Brussels, we probably would have gone on the tour, but alas, we chose chocolate.

However, we did try some Belgian beer from one of the beer shops and I can attest, it tastes like beer.