Brasserie Bijgaarden

Located just outside the ring road that surrounds Brussels, De Bijegaarden is a trek to get to and dauntingly expensive, but is a superb restaurant in the traditional mould. In the spacious dining room, where oak panelling glows softly in the light cast by chandeliers, you'll experience service of a kind rarely encountered today. The cuisine achieves a form of synthesis of the traditional and the modern. Specialities include baked turbot with a lobster-flavoured Béarnaise sauce and saddle of lamb with truffles. The best way to get a real feel of the cuisine (and to keep the cost within reasonable bounds) is to select one of the prix-fixe menus