Dinner in the sky.
During a year-long food festival, John Brunton discovers the best of Brussels aboard a night tram.
Though Brussels is the unofficial capital of Europe, given the European Commission has its headquarters there, the city rarely rates when people speak of gourmet destinations. Instead, down-to-earth Belgians have long been caricatured as dining exclusively on mussels and chips with mugs of their famous beer.
The truth is, Brussels is one of Europe's foodie havens, with young chefs running dazzling Michelin-star restaurants and a lively world cuisine scene that encompasses Moroccan, Congolese and Vietnamese restaurants as well as plenty of Scandinavian dishes inspired by Copenhagen's Noma restaurant.
Food miles... Dining in the tram.Credit: John Brunton
The best of Brussels can be tasted in this year's food festival, irreverently named Brusselicious. Of more than 50 events scheduled, though, one stands out: an haute menu served on a tram as it trundles around the city on a two-hour sightseeing route. The "Tram Experience" runs from Tuesday to Sunday for the rest of the year.
I book the 9.30pm ride and wait at the stop outside the iconic Palais de Justice, whose monumental dome has been wrapped in scaffolding for so many years it resembles a permanent Christo installation. Among commuters waiting to head home is a smartly dressed group of 34 diners.
A gleaming white vintage tram whooshes out of the darkness and a steward steps forward to shepherd us on. The tram's carriages have been transformed into chic dining rooms, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a toilet; there will be no stops for the next two hours.
Michelin-starred chef Lionel Rigolet.Credit: John Brunton
The launch of the Tram Experience was delayed while moulds where installed on tabletops to stop glasses and crockery sliding off. Then the six Michelin-starred chefs selected to create the menus for the year-long program had the complex job of ensuring their recipes could be prepared mostly in advance, to be finished on board in the tiny kitchen.
Each chef is creating four seasonal menus using Belgian produce to be served throughout the year. One of the chefs is Lionel Rigolet, of Brussel's gastronomic temple Comme Chez Soi. "While several of my colleagues chose to reinvent classic Belgian favourites like carbonnade de boeuf, I went in a different direction," he tells me earlier, in his stationary kitchen. "[I'm] offering diners the same dishes they can find on my menu in Comme Chez Soi, a 'partage' of my cuisine. And many have already booked a table here at the restaurant to try the same dishes they experienced on the tram to see the difference."
Rigolet's tram menu includes dishes such as veal cannelloni in a creme de foie gras with green olives; and a Doyenne pear poached in Poire Williams liqueur with citrus fruits, kaffir lime and Calcutta tea.
A waiter at Roi d'Espagne.Credit: Alamy
As my tram cruises the Avenue Louise, a leafy boulevard that Belgians consider their Champs-Elysees, a waiter serves the first drinks - six glasses of wine and three courses are included in the €75 [$95] ticket. Tonight's menu has been composed by Belgian-Korean chef Sang-hoon Degeimbre, an admirer of Spanish celebrity chef Ferran Adria.
None of the name chefs are aboard; they supervise the preparation of their recipes and collaborate with genial chef Denis Roberty, who works in the tram's open galley with one assistant.
Have there been mobile kitchen mishaps? "No. Well, not until this evening," Roberty says. "This evening's earlier Tram Experience had to be cancelled because, en route to pick up passengers, the driver had to make an emergency stop and we lost absolutely everything - all the place settings, crockery and glasses, not to mention all the dishes I was preparing in the kitchen."
He adds, optimistically, "but this has to be a one-in-a-thousand incident."
The dining-room mood moves quickly from a little stiff - well, nobody really knows what to expect - to lively, then to a party-like atmosphere. The food tonight is impressive.
The meal begins with a surprise when the classic Belgian moules-frites appears with plenty of succulent mussels but not a chip in sight. Instead they appear as a mysterious foam that magically has the flavour of crisp frites. The main course is a delicious take on blanquette de veau, followed by a wicked dessert called dame blanche - a vanilla ice-cream sundae with hot chocolate and cream.
The waiters do a terrific job weaving up and down the narrow aisle as the tram shifts from side to side and the city seems to flash past like a silent movie. It's almost midnight when we stop outside the Palais de Justice, elated and well fed.
I ask the chef what his plans are. He's hungry. "But enough gourmet dining," he says, grinning. "The waiters, the driver and I will be stopping off at one of the most famous frites stands in town for a cornet of chips accompanied, of course, by a dollop of mayonnaise."
The best of Brusselicious
This inaugural food festival, organised in the city of Brussels, is a year-long celebration of not just the surprising cuisine and local produce used by chefs in the Belgian capital and the surrounding Flemish and Walloon countryside, but also the multicultural influences that make this a cosmopolitan metropolis. And in the home town of Rene Magritte, you can expect a touch of the surreal. For all details, see brusselicious.be.
- Brusselicious XXL About 30 monumental surrealist sculptures are on display across the city, including a stork delivering a giant brussels sprout inside an even bigger mussel shell, and two brilliant interpretations of a cornet de frites — one filled with legs instead of chips, the other painted purple and laced up like a dominatrix boot. Until September 21.
- Picnic in the Parks Brussels is a surprisingly green city with some beautiful parks and each Sunday one will become a venue for a mega-picnic, with organic picnic hampers accompanied by free classical music. On May 1-September 30.
- Themed dinners Throughout the year, Brusselicious hosts spectacular dinners in iconic venues — in the Natural Science Museum's dinosaur chamber and the historic Galerie du Roi, for example — and each dinner will explore an intriguing theme: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, for example; Belgian wine; and moules frites.
- Dinner in the Sky Definitely the most dazzling event of the year, a floating restaurant is suspended 40 metres above the ground from a crane, with 22 diners inside served a gourmet meal cooked in front of them by a star chef. On June 4-July 1.
- Belgian Beer Weekend Brusselicious without beer would be unthinkable and for one weekend the Grand Place (aka Brussels City Hall) becomes a bar, with brewers, musicians and food. On August 30- September 2.
- Savouring Brussels! The slow-food movement is taking over the city for a week. The theme is carbon-zero "potagere": think vegetable gardens, street markets and more than 70 restaurants presenting slow-food menus. On September 17-23.
- Chocolate Week Brussels has irresistible chocolate boutiques on many street corners. Demonstrations of the art of le chocolatier and, of course, tastings are to be held during the week. On November 1-4.
- Chip festival Chip stalls are known as a fritkot and even sophisticated Belgian diners can't resist them. Follow a "frites walk" though the city and vote for your favourite chippy. On November 1-30.
- Winter wonders Brussels has one of Europe's biggest Christmas markets. This year's version will close the Brusselicious festivities with a Ferris wheel and ice rink on the old fish market site in Sainte-Catherine. There will be oysters, foie gras, champagne and mulled wine. On November 30-January 6.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Lufthansa has a fare to Brussels from Sydney and Melbourne for about $2395 low-season return including tax. Fly Singapore Airlines to Singapore (about 8hr), then Lufthansa to Munich (about 13hr), then to Brussels (1hr 25min); see lufthansa.com. This fare allows travel via several Asian cities and return flight from another European city.
Eating there
The Tram Experience departs from Place Poelaert on Tuesday to Thursday at 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 7pm and again at 9.30pm; and on Sunday at noon. All-inclusive tickets cost €75 ($95) a person. Reservations essential, see brusselicious.be.
Staying there
The Amigo, by the Grand Place, has double rooms from €279 a night. See hotelamigo.com.
The fabulous and funky Vintage Hotel, 46 Rue Dejoncker, is a must for anyone interested in kitsch 1960s-'70s interior design. Double rooms from €120, see vintagehotel.be.
The Esperance on Rue du Finistere is a beautifully preserved art deco hotel with a saucy past — it was once a notorious "hotel de passe" for illicit liaisons. Double rooms from €100 a night, see hotel-esperance.be.
Hooy Kaye Lodge, on Quai aux Pierres de Taille, is a spacious three-room B&B in an imposing 17th-century mansion in hip Sainte-Catherine. Double rooms from €100, see hooykayelodge.com.
The Art de la Fugue, 38 rue de Suede, has five hip guestrooms in a rambling townhouse. Each room is named after a movie or TV show and decorated accordingly, from "Indochine" to "Absolutely Fabulous". Doubles from €96, see lartdelafugue.com.
More information
Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter
Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.