Be it day or night, Le Wine Bar des Marolles is buzzing with life. Every night you can find great wines being poured into the glasses of a lively clientele, who are enjoying elegant comfort food in a traditional setting. The restaurant is something that food lovers in Brussels cannot miss and wine lovers even more so.
Le Wine Bar des Marolles got its name in 2007, when it moved just a few hundred metres from Sablon to Rue Haute. It’s here where Vincent Thomaes, the warm and friendly owner of the restaurant, speaks passionately to his guests while walking energetically in and out of the kitchen. Before opening the restaurant, he worked together with his brothers at their star restaurant South of Brussels. He has trained famous sommeliers around the world and Vincent’s knowledge of wines permeates the entire experience.
On two floors, dark wooden tables take up most of the space in the large dining rooms. The tables are placed close together, but just far enough so you avoid overhearing the conversations of your neighbours. The warm, dark orange lamps hanging from the ceiling, illuminate the place just enough to shed light on the old, golden-framed paintings that decorate the walls.
Vincent opens the restaurant only from Thursday until Sunday with lunch being served on weekends exclusively. This timetable allows for him to travel through Belgium and France to look for high quality produce, as the ingredients used at the restaurant are mainly locally sourced and carefully picked by Vincent himself. The meat and seafood served come from well-treated animals that were held under good conditions and most of the vegetables grow in proximity to Brussels.
On the menu you’ll find a lot of traditional recipes that belong to Vincent’s family, like the very soft, intensively-tasting butter that’s been cooked several times. There’s a lot of comforting food, like the homemade Foie Gras with an apple reduction and apple slices cooked in syrup made from the peels; or the Joue de Boeuf, slow cooked beef cheek that is served with a puree of seasonal vegetables and grilled roots. It’s so soft that you could easily tear it apart with a spoon in one hand while holding a glass of one of the marvelous wines in the other. Recommended dishes are also the creamy, soft burrata, served with seasonal grilled vegetables or any type of terrines, sausages or the tastefully prepared seafood like oysters, mackerel or scallops.
Price: A bottle of wine is around 25-200+€ (extraordinary wines), starters around 11-20€ and mains 18-35€
Address: Rue Haute 198, 1000 Brussels