Reportage

Tasty interiors: five restaurant decors that add flavour to your food

Michel Verlinden
© BRUZZ
19/06/2021
© Saskia Vanderstichele | Crab Club in Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis.

While waiting for the unrestricted reopening of the restaurants, the possibility of enjoying a meal indoors is an important step on the road to normality. Here are five eye-opening places.

It is a debate that often erupts between lovers of fine food. Many of them believe decor to be of no importance. In our opinion, it is one of the attractions. “You don’t eat the curtains,” sceptics often argue, and it is true. That said, you understand nothing about gastronomy if you think that going to a restaurant is simply a matter of satisfying your hunger or pleasing your tastebuds. A restaurant is not chosen at random; it carries with it, for the duration of a lunch or dinner, our values. We evaluate ourselves, recognise ourselves, display ourselves, and signal our membership of a sociological group. It would be naive to think otherwise.

Even someone who seeks out greasy spoons with no distinctive visual features reveals something about themselves. Never trust someone who claims to like “simple cooking” and “no-frills decor”. Nothing is ever “simple” when it comes to food; everything is always constructed and it is all a matter of culture, including the decor.

1758 REPO RESTO Amen
© Saskia Vanderstichele | Clean lines, functional furnishings, roughly hewn edges, nothing is left to chance in the two rooms that make up Amen.

When it comes to decor, restaurants in Brussels offer a vast spectrum. It is possible to explore very different horizons and worlds. One of the most remarkable experiences can be had at 165 Franz Merjaystraat/rue Franz Merjay, at the chef from Chalet de la Forêt, Pascal Devalkeneer’s second restaurant. Designed by the jewellery maker Pili Collado, the stylistic elements of Amen are highly original but certainly not innocent. With great talent, the decorator has borrowed them from the Shakers, a group of US Protestants that resulted from a split with the Anglican church. Clean lines, functional furnishings, roughly hewn edges, nothing is left to chance in the two rooms that make up Amen.

The same is true of the lighting: skilfully thought-out, it evokes the halo of religious icons and projects the word “amen” in shadow like an epiphany on the wall of the room. Everything about the way the place is constructed invites contemplation, almost as in a sacred space. This is especially true of the bar, a veritable altar cut from a block of travertine. This sedimentary limestone rock has a history; it is imbued with a powerful significance. Unearthed from karstic regions, this stone, which was originally extracted from quarries near Tivoli, decorates innumerable churches and basilicas. A material that is used to build houses of God.

1758 REPO RESTO Toukoul
© Saskia Vanderstichele | Toukoul: a captivating atmosphere, achieved with great subtlety and modernity.

A devout restaurant
Although according to the two partners’ pledge, the place’s mission is simply to “go against the grain of the fashion in restaurants, which have become a showcase for current trends”, it is impossible to avoid reading it another way. Together, Devalkeneer and Collado have created a “devout” restaurant, in the religious sense of the term, in opposition to the profane, or secular, model that has spread all over the world. That is no accident at a time when gastronomy has become like a new catechism and generated a fervour that is maintained and shared via social media. Perhaps, without being explicitly aware, Amen has added a new formal paradigm to the phenomenon.

To enjoy the experience without breaking the bank, we highly recommend going there for the roast chicken offered at lunchtime on Saturdays for €24.50. The chicken, supplied directly by the excellent Lustin, is beautifully succulent.

Looking for an entirely different kind of atmosphere? Make your way to Toukoul and take off immediately for a trip to Ethiopia. The decor by Serge Anton is particularly well executed; it draws you into the atmosphere of a typical hut in the region. Clad in raw timber (cut straight from logs) and decorated with what we imagine to be objects from everyday life in Ethiopia, the atmosphere of the place is captivating. It is all achieved with great subtlety and modernity; at no point does the decor veer towards ethnic kitsch or resemble a folkloric postcard.

We also love that, in keeping with the cultural traditions of the country, the food is intended for sharing. Each person’s orders are mixed together on a large platter and you use a pancake, which you rip into pieces, to eat the food with your fingers. On our visit, the platter featured diced chicken with fresh spinach and red onions, beef mince with berbere (a delicious mix of spices), and lamb skewers with honey and senafitch (another mixture of condiments), all livened up by little side dishes such as beetroot and potatoes, chickpeas, green lentils, spiced salad, etc.

1758 REPO RESTO barge
© Saskia Vanderstichele | Barge's brutalist decor features a corrugated concrete bar and a ceiling with flocking that resembles a strange mineral mousse that seems to come from a new world.

Something new out of the old
According to the architect Jean Nouvel, the challenge awaiting those who begin new projects is not to build something from scratch but to make something new out of the old. “We need to work with the urban material that we have accumulated. What is crucial these days is to encourage all elements of transformation and recognise that any urban construction that does not help the one that came before it has no place in this world. (…) I think it is Bachelard who says that the most important dimension of a space has to do with the amount of time that it has contained,” Nouvel told L’Express in October 2013.

Brussels possesses a fine example of renovated decor that makes good use of pre-existing spaces and materials: Barge. This place, which is run by Barbara Hoornaert and Grégoire Gillard, exudes a sense of freedom. In several respects. To start with, it made its home in a part of Brussels that is not at all known for fine dining. Furthermore, the duo is notorious for breaking culinary codes and takes real pleasure in lampooning them. That attitude is reflected in the brutalist decor, which features a corrugated concrete bar and a ceiling with flocking that resembles a strange mineral mousse that seems to come from a new world. Finally, that freedom is expressed in a highly individual menu, offering a set four- or five-course meal that changes constantly and makes excellent use of local produce.

1758 REPO RESTO crab club
© Saskia Vanderstichele | Le Cocq: floorings salvaged from a castle.

Another excellent example is Crab Club. The atmosphere in this place, which creates original combinations with fish (such as the delicious Peking octopus, pork, and braised Belgian endive), comes from its magnificent use of the recycled aesthetic. The dining room, for example, has wooden benches made out of old railway sleepers. The decor also includes exquisite tiles by Jules Wabbes, the famous Belgian designer celebrated for the different designs he created in the 1970s for the Société Générale de Banque, acquired through Maarten Gielen’s Rotor collective. Since 2014, Rotor has launched an independent venture, Rotor Deconstruction, which is “devoted to dismantling and reselling architectural elements from buildings destined for demolition.”

Finally, it would be wrong not to mention Frédéric Nicolay, who has created some of the most quintessential places in Brussels. While waiting for him to renovate Kwint (which will be renamed Double Trouble), the reopening of indoor areas in restaurants means it is finally possible to discover the interior of Le Cocq, which has been inaccessible until now. This place, which has offered light street-food since the arrival of the new chef Eléonore Jacquard, is a paragon of the Brussels formal language: a zinc counter from the Ateliers Nectoux, flooring salvaged from a castle in Wallonia, pyramidal cladding inspired by the decor of a “derelict hotel in Cairo”, tables with chess boards burned into the wood, and a gilt ceiling covered with gold leaf.

AMEN
rue Franz Merjaystraat 165, Elsene/Ixelles, 02-217.10.19, www.amen.restaurant

TOUKOUL
Lakensestraat 34 rue de Laeken, Brussel/Bruxelles, 0474-08.39.72, www.toukoul.be

BARGE
Ieperlaan 33 boulevard d’Ypres, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-425.73.60, www.bargerestaurant.be

CRAB CLUB
chaussée de Waterloosesteenweg 7, Sint-Gillis/Saint-Gilles, 0472-55.46.95, www.crabclub.be

LE COCQ
place Fernand Cocqplein 12, Elsene/Ixelles, Instagram: @lecocq_bruxelles

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