Le Vieux Pannenhuis

The ‘Vieux’ bit in the name isn’t put on for effect, like some PR-engineered feelgood brand. The building, dating from the 17th century, really is vieux. Napoleon counts among erstwhile patrons, and so does Leopold I. It was here that the ‘fake’ edition of Le Soir was devised by the Resistance.

There is something endearing about Le Vieux Pannenhuis that makes you want to like it immediately. Maybe it was the cold snap and the snow that made the interior – all dark wood, exposed beams, dim lighting and copper pans – even more welcoming. We might as well have come in a stagecoach.

First things first: the house cocktail packs a punch. But then again, with white rum, Mandarine Napoléon (him again) and champagne, it would. 

The menu of the month (€35.90) beckoned, and what an inspired decision it turned out to be. If my companion’s opening cream of endive – bizarrely served in a tall glass – was pretty forgettable and my Ardennes game pâté en croute landed on the table fridge-cold, it was all uphill from there.

My skewer of snails in a herby crust was – praise be – non-rubbery, and demonstrated that garlic butter doesn’t have to be the default method for cooking escargots. My wife, deprived of oysters (the blasted weather), went for the goat’s cheese and king prawn tails wrapped in pastry. The first mouthful may have tasted as unusual as this particular food combination sounds (I am reliably told it creates the taste sensation known to Guardianistas as umami), but she soon found herself scraping the plate clean.

The same happened with her main of slow-cooked pig’s cheek in a citrus reduction. Having been raised on the no-nonsense notion that pork goes with apple, period, she was taken aback by the first forkful… then polished off the whole plate, save for the potato croquettes, which were slightly on the greasy side. For my part I had chosen the none-too-original option of the entrecote, grilled to perfection (it’s hard to get a 1.5cm-thick piece of beef exactly rare), served with sauce Pannenhuis – mustard, cognac and cream. By then, we were well and truly full… with one more course to go.

Madam’s cheese selection (you try resisting a well-stocked cheese trolley) came with sirop de Liège and toasted nuts, and my ordering of the crêpe Pannenhuis, flambéd in Mandarine you-know-who and served with ice cream, was an act of sheer gluttony.

Our bill, which also included a 2009 Haut-Médoc, two coffees and a bottle of sparkling water, came to €122.

The food at Le Vieux Pannenhuis is classic and generous by nature, yet open to a few modern touches. Which is all very well, but it doesn’t answer the question: where did we park the stagecoach?

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317 Rue Léopold Ier, 1090 Brussels (Jette), 02.425.83.73, www.levieuxpannenhuis.be