What are the Chez Clément Thursday disco nights?

The Thursday disco nights are one of four signature events that punctuate the brasserie's year, alongside the September Pétanque tournament, the October Raclette season and the Apéros rendezvous around the permanent bar. The format is delightfully simple. Diners arrive for the evening service in the restaurant, which runs from 19:00 to 22:30 like any other day, and then settle into the bar, which on Thursdays extends its musical programme well beyond the usual closing time. A DJ takes the decks later in the evening, the volume creeps up, and what began as a brasserie meal slides into a low-key dance floor. It is on these evenings that the venue can welcome up to 500 people in bar atmosphere, this is the venue's total reception capacity in standing/circulating bar mode, not a bookable group format.

The ritual was born under France Clément, the fourth generation of the family, who launched the Thursday-night DJ slot in the mid-1990s. Three decades on, the rhythm has not budged: Thursday remains the evening when regulars from Genval, La Hulpe, Rixensart, Wavre and the wider sud-est of Brussels know they will find a familiar crowd, familiar music, and a familiar feeling of starting the weekend a day early. Under Marie and Gilles Verleyen, the fifth generation in charge since 2021, the Thursday disco nights have been kept exactly as they were, a gentle act of fidelity to a piece of the house's living memory.

What distinguishes the Thursday disco nights from a generic pub-disco evening is the layering. The kitchen, headed by Vincent Frédéric De Laloy, chef in the house since 1996, with a brigade of thirty-two, continues its full brasserie service throughout. You can sit down to a vol-au-vent or a cabillaud florentine while the music warms up. Once the dining room finishes its second seating, the action shifts to the bar, distinct from the restaurant room, where the DJ keeps the dance floor going. The brasserie's bar is open continuously from noon until 1 AM seven days a week; on Thursdays, the activity is extended until 4-5 AM, the only night of the week where the bar stretches that late.

For visitors driving in, the gigantic free car park directly opposite the brasserie, ten metres from the door, makes the Thursday evening especially convenient. Brussels city centre is about a twenty-five-minute drive via the Ring R0; the south-east of Brussels is fifteen to eighteen minutes away. Train arrivals at Genval station on SNCB line 161 are about a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk from the door, perfect for the outbound trip; for the return, given that the night extends until 4-5 AM, a taxi or ride-share is the safest option.