Why is Chez Clément an institution in Genval and La Hulpe?

The word “institution” gets thrown around loosely in hospitality. At Chez Clément it earns its place. The brasserie was founded in 1858 by Henri and Sidonie Clément as the coaching inn “Bruyère à la Croix”, at a moment when Genval and La Hulpe were still rural villages on the road south of Brussels. From that opening to today, the address has never closed its doors as a single thread of continuity, and the same family name has run it for one hundred and sixty-eight years.

The lineage runs through five generations. Henri and Sidonie Clément opened the inn in 1858 and ran it until 1923. Jules Clément and Marie-Lidwina, the second generation, took it over until 1954, working as brasseur and limonadier, brewer and lemonade maker. Marcel and Andrée Clément, the third generation, led the brasserie from 1954 to 1996 and opened the wine bar in 1976, the move that defined the modern shape of the venue. France Clément, the fourth generation, expanded the offer from 1996 and launched the Thursday-night “Thursday disco nights”. Since 2021, Marie and Gilles Verleyen, the fifth generation, lead the brasserie under J and JJ Brasserie SA, with their daughter June quietly woven into the next chapter.

The status of institution is reinforced by the geography. Chez Clément is in Genval, ten metres from the communal boundary with La Hulpe, in practice, a single anchor that both villages have claimed and shared for almost two centuries. Local families from Genval, La Hulpe, Rixensart, Lasne and Waterloo treat the brasserie as a recurring point in their year: communions, christenings, anniversaries, weddings, Sunday family lunches, Thursday-night gatherings, christmas dinners, the annual Pétanque tournament in September with around fifty teams, the Raclette evenings in October and November with invited Swiss cheesemongers. None of this was engineered as a marketing identity; it accumulated over generations.

The institutional weight has practical dimensions as well. The seated capacity is 230, scaling to 250 guests for cocktail events. The kitchen brigade is thirty-two, led by chef Vincent Frédéric De Laloy since 1996. The brasserie serves between 200 and 300 covers per service, more than 1,400 covers a week, seven days a week. The bar runs continuously from noon until 1 a.m. These figures describe an operation that is woven into the daily life of two communes, not a destination restaurant for special occasions, but a recurring local reflex. That is what makes Chez Clément a Genval / La Hulpe institution rather than a brasserie that happens to be there.