Is Chez Clément a good choice for a first date?

Question

Lorenzo Eeman · Accepted Answer

Chez Clément is a relaxed and reassuring setting for a first date: a warm Belgian brasserie, no social pressure, an easy bar to fall back on, and a lively dining room that fills any awkward silence. Ten metres from the boundary between Genval and La Hulpe, twenty-five minutes from Brussels.

A first date is a peculiar test of a restaurant. You want a setting that is nice enough to feel like an effort but not so formal that it heightens the tension. You want a place that allows for two outcomes, an immediate connection or a polite goodbye, without making either of them uncomfortable. A Belgian brasserie is, by tradition, exactly this kind of forgiving environment, and Chez Clément, founded in 1858 by Henri and Sidonie Clément and run today by the fifth generation of the same family, fits the brief in several specific ways.

The first useful feature is that Chez Clément has a separate bar area, open continuously from noon until 1 a.m. You can meet for an aperitif first, see how the conversation is going, and decide whether to stay for dinner or whether one drink is enough. This kind of escape valve is rarer than it sounds. The second is the lively background: with 200 to 300 covers per service in the dining room, there is always enough ambient sound to take the edge off a silence, without ever crossing into noise that makes conversation hard. The third is the carte: traditional Belgian brasserie dishes, sole meunière, steak tartare, vol-au-vent, croquettes, that are recognisable, comforting and let you talk rather than parse a menu.

The geography helps too. Twenty-five minutes from central Brussels, with a huge free car park opposite the front door, the brasserie removes a great deal of practical friction from the evening. The conservatory and the bar zone offer two distinct atmospheres within the same building, which is useful if you want a quieter corner. The setting itself, a green pocket of Walloon Brabant ten metres from La Hulpe, with the regional Solvay Estate, the Fondation Folon and the Lac de Genval within a five-to-seven-minute radius, gives a natural pretext for a walk before or after dinner if the date is going well.

For a first date, the safer rule is to favour a place that has hosted thousands of similar evenings before. Chez Clément has been doing exactly that for almost five generations of local couples. It will not stage your evening for you, but it will not get in the way.