Bia Mara — Restaurant in Brussels

Bia Mara is a fish-and-chip specialist shop on Rue du Marche Aux Poulets in the city centre. Opening hours are 12-2.30 (lunch) 5.30-10.30pm (dinner) during the week and 12pm-12.30am on weekends.

In rare fashion, we ended up having lunch here twice during our visit to Brussels. In short, the fish and chips were special, probably the best we have tried in a decade or so.

Bia Mara focuses on sustainability, which means their fish changes from day to day. When you arrive just look up on the board and see what sort of catch has been brought in for the day. Then, you have 5 different options for how to have your fish and chips prepared. The type of fish is assigned to particular options based on the ingredient and spice combinations.

During our two visits, we tried the #1 Traditional fish and chips with cod, #2 lemon & basil with sea bream, #3 Turkish Baharat Panko with Coalfish and #5 Cuban with salmon. The traditional was good and the other three each outstanding. Fish fillets were fresh, well seasoned and fried. Served with a generous amount of seasoned chips, these were great orders.

In the end, we left twice with full bellies and big smiles. This was a surprising and much enjoyed find in Brussels. We would love to have a place like Bia Mara in Hong Kong. Would be more than happy to return for another go around with their delicious fish and chips next time we are...

Quintessence:

The fish was good, but a little overcooked and hence not as juicy as it could have been. We got a very big portion of fries but the sauce was not enough for the amount of fries. The service was really good.

In detail:

My friends and I each had one of the fish and chips dishes with a dip. The fish was a little overcooked that day by maybe a minute or something, otherwise the fish would have been juicier. The fries were really well seasoned, a little salty though, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The best thing about this dish was the dip though, as it was very flavourful. It's a pitty though that their sauce is served in a comparatively tiny container. In my opinion the sauce is not enough for the amount of fries that you get. After finishing the dishes my friends and I were extremely full. At the same time my mouth felt really dry though, as I had finished my sauce when I just finished eating half the amount of fries.

If you haven't tried their homemade lemonade yet, you should! It was really refreshing, not too sweet but not too sour either.

The service was really good. They were friendly, customer-oriented and would explain to us that the type of fish may vary on a daily basis in each dish. So just have a look at their board where they point out which dish comes with which...

Finest Fish Chips since a long time! The hype about this place, the tiny, tiny queue that we needed to stand in to get inside, they are all right. Bia Mara offers really simple but well prepared dining. I've ended up with Lebanese Style Coalfish with homemade chips, the fish had a super crunchy crust, really playing with your taste buds. On the inside perfectly done piece of coalfish, not dry, not dripping in oil like many places, but actually done the right way, still rich, full of aroma and its own flavour. After the fish and most of the chips I was really full, so were my companions, no one could actually finish the whole meal...

so maybe they portions could be a notch smaller, to prevent waste and keep the regular portion as the XL option. But on the other hand, the more , the merrier, right?

The atmosphere is very lively inside, it's a small place with a bunch of tables pretty much cramped together, not leaving much space to get the with a bigger group. More of a stop, eat & go, but that's what fish&chips are, hence all in all, you get what you pay. In Bia Mara's case it's...