Bookworm and I recently travelled to Brussels (aka chocolate heaven) for a girls weekend. Here's our favourites...
BS40*, Rue au Beurre 40
A contemporary find, started by chocolatier Jitsk Heyninck and offering you the traditional and unusal. Try blackcurrant and black pepper, rosemary and sea salt flakes or a gin tonic. They are very reasonably priced.
You must try the macrons here, the best we have ever tasted, somehow softer than the usual suspects but packed with flavour.
*BS40 stands for No.40 Butter Street, if you’re interested.
Herman Van Dender, Rue au Beurre 32
Now, this is our kind of shop. One that has a chocolate waterfall at the entrance! Once you get past the mesmerizing flow, try out some of these. They have bars too and even milk chocolate bars, which is rare to find. Our top taste was the Kir praline, and I’m sorry after that we forgot all the rest. What we can say is that they have been Purveyors to the royal court of Belgium since 2008…
Until we were leaving and spotted the warming hot chocolate stand. Do not miss this!
Galler Chocolaterie, Rue au Beurre 44
These are more like you would see on our highstreet, simple but catchy packaging but straight from their factory in Liege. We loved the mini-tablet bars for gifts but they specialise in fillings again, from curry to speculoos. Well worth an exploration.
Chocolaterie Mary, Grand Place
An absolute picture perfect store on the Grand Place, it feels magical as soon as you walk through the door. An artisan chocolatier that is an institution in Brussels, also holding the Belgian Royal Warrant. The champagne truffles are to die for but we fell in love with the packaging. Yes, we are suckers, but happy ones at that.
Maison Dandoy
Not a chocolate shop but full of treats. They create the best biscuits, speculoos, crunchy brown sugar biscuits a bit like coffee biscuits but better and othe baked goodies. They have shops all over the city as well as a tea room in the Galerie du Roi, where you can sample one of their super-light waffles, so light that the calories don’t count!
