Is Chez Clément a good choice for a romantic dinner?

A romantic dinner asks for a particular blend: a setting with character, a measured tempo, food that does not demand explanation, and a sense that the evening can stretch as long as it wants to. A Belgian brasserie is not the first cliche of romantic dining, that prize usually goes to a candlelit bistro, but Chez Clément manages the register surprisingly well, for reasons that come from the building and the family history rather than from any deliberate “romantic” staging.

The conservatory is the first quiet weapon. A glass-roofed room where Marie and Gilles Verleyen, the fifth generation of the Clément family, were themselves married, it has the kind of soft, daylight-then-dusk atmosphere that suits a long evening. The bar, distinct from the main dining room, is open continuously from noon until 1 a.m., which gives the couple a natural place to start the evening with a glass before the table is ready, or to end it with a slow nightcap. The dining room itself absorbs 200 to 300 covers per service without ever feeling industrial, partly because the chef Vincent Frédéric De Laloy has run the kitchen since 1996 with a brigade of thirty-two and a tempo that respects every table.

The carte does its part. Vol-au-vent, sole meunière, steak tartare prepared at the table, gibier in season, grey shrimp croquettes, these are the kind of dishes you can share, linger over, and pair with wine that the bar can suggest without being precious about it. “Tout fait maison”, everything cooked from scratch on site, is the working philosophy. The wine list draws on a tradition that goes back to 1976, when Marcel and Andrée Clément, the third generation, opened the wine bar that still shapes the bar room today.

Geography rounds out the setting. The brasserie sits in the green corner of Walloon Brabant ten metres from La Hulpe, with the regional Solvay Estate, the Fondation Folon and the Lac de Genval within a seven-minute radius. A short walk through the Solvay grounds before dinner, or along the lakeside after, gives the evening a beginning and an end without ever needing to leave the immediate area. Twenty-five minutes by car from central Brussels, with free parking opposite the door, the practical side of the date stays painless.