Brusselicious restaurant label awards best local cuisine

A new label of quality for Brussels restaurants has been launched, with the aim of helping tourists and locals find the best of the city's 3,000 eateries.

The Brusselicious label is awarded to restaurants that are considered the best for traditional Brussels cuisine. The initial list comprises 21 restaurants, three snackhouses and 12 chip stands - and will be reviewed and added to each year.

The selection was compiled from a list of about 100 places, with certain objective criteria including presenting a local beer list and serving emblematic dishes.

Visit Brussels then established a judging panel of food journalists who sampled the restaurants, coming up with the final 21. Additionally they spent a couple of marathon tasting days at numerous chip stands before agreeing on 12.

This new list comes at a time when more local chefs have gone back to buying mostly from local suppliers and using those local goods to dust off Grandma's recipes as well as taking traditional dishes and interpreting them.

"This is about good quality restaurants offering mainly Belgian or Brussels specialities," says Olivier Marette of Visit Brussels. "We're not aiming at at the top gastronomic restaurants, not the three-star restaurants, just good restaurants."

The choice is still wide, from the Brasserie Ploegmans in the Marolles, originally a café from the late 1920s, to the Belga Queen and its grandiose 18th-century setting.

There's Viva M'Boma (which means Hurray for Grandma in Brusseleir) and its special emphasis on the traditional offal dishes offered in a modern setting and in counterpoint the tiny Le Petit Palais hidden away on a street halfway between uptown and downtown with its very relaxed service and its very festive ends-of-evenings.

The chip stands are represented by a number of old favourites but the list also includes the Saint-Josse stand which often does not get the attention it deserves. The Brusselicious map is available at tourist offices and hotels.