Brugmann Restaurant — Restaurant in Forest - Vorst

We were a group of four coming for dinner on a Sunday evening. Overall we had a nice evening with some excellent courses, but also a not consistently excellent level and suboptimal service.

Food: We took the terroir taste menu with seven courses. All guests had to choose the same menu, which is not ideal for all guests but I suppose makes it much easier for the kitchen, so fair enough. The first four courses were absolutely perfect, we enjoyed excellent prawns, ravioli, savarin and scallops. We had one vegetarian with us and the according change was taken without any problems. Sadly, after these really, really excellent courses, the level couldn't be maintained. The fifth course was a cheese platter and in a restaurant of this class I would expect a fine selection. We had an alright comté, a rather boring goat cheese and a brie, which was expectedly very boring. It was served with an oily bread which I personally would not serve along cheese. So all in all this course did not contain anything remarkable and left me wondering why to include this into the menu at all. The two desserts were good but without any specific highlights. The wines(house champagne, chablis and languedoc) were fine and accompanied the food well.

Service: While the service made no major mistakes, it was not what I would expect either. The service was all a bit too much rushing through the evening, not really giving the impression to care about the individual guest. No major mistakes as mentioned, but small sloppinesses like splashing the wine into glasses and spilling, very unequally filled glasses when ordering per glass or much noise when opening the champagne bottles etc. - it is all really not major issues but altogether give an impression of not entirely focused service. We also asked for a short break as the courses came in a very swift order. This was obviously creating a challenge and was interrupting the kitchens plan and while eventually possible, I would hope for a bit more of a "guest-centred perspective", maybe also ask if a break before or after the main course is wanted. Very positive was that the chef spent a lot of time on the neighbouring table exchanging with his guests.

Atmosphere: The main room where we were seated was comfortable and nice. All very modern and renovated (maybe to the point that not too much of the old structure was visible). The open kitchen (luckily without great show effects, just a nice open kitchen) is a highlight.

We did have a very pleasant evening, but with a bit of shadow as described. 3,5 stars would be ideal but 4 unfortunately would be a...

We had dinner here for my husband big 30. We were very excited as it was our 1st fine-dining experience. We ordered a 7 courses set menu. Food was amazing. The staff were nice and friendly. They brought out a mini sparkle candle at the end of our meal for my husband which was a lovely touch.

We were sat outside the balcony which was nice when the sun was out, but the table next to us were smoking throughout the evening and that ruined our dining experience as we were not able to taste and smell the food properly. They could have separate the smoking and non-smoking areas for better guest experience.

Also, we booked a 7pm reservation (the earliest time) as we had other evening plan after the dinner, but the food only started serving around 8:15. They missed our cold appetisers, the waitress was very apologetic and was quick to check it after we complained we hadn’t had food for a good 45min after our 1st appetiser. We ended having our mains just after 9:30pm and finished off the dessert around 10:30pm. We noticed the table behind us complained about the slow food serving too, who arrived around the same time as us and they had their mains almost 9:45pm! I noticed the kitchen sent each dish out in batches, probably why each dish wasn't timed nicely when one finish each dish.

They explained each dish, but it’s a shame we do not understand French (which they are well aware of). I was hoping they could at least try…if they are aiming to be Michelin star grade.

I appreciate fine-dining served food slower so that guest can chat and experience the ambience. But it was hard to enjoy the experience with hungry stomach and covering in cigarettes smoke the whole 3.5hours! It would be helpful to know if they only start serving food after 8pm, we would have book a later reservation rather than waiting for more than 1 hour hanging around (and spending a lot more on the drinks...

Should probably be 3.5 stars according to me, but not 4, that is i give it 3 stars as I cannot give half stars. The food was nice the chef is clearly good, nothing to complain about for the food itself. The reason it is two stars are deducted because of the value, the price to quality ratio is not great, they have a business menu that seems decent value, but not available in weekends, for the rest it is overpriced for what it is, it wants to be Michelin star type, but does not hit the mark, except for the price (you can find Michelin star restaurants that offer better value). The second reason and what made me mark them down most is how pretentious our waitress was. This may not be the case for other staff, but our experience was not nice, she clearly thought herself superior and thought that we were not up to the standards she deemed right. The location is nice, modern clean and generally pleasant, nothing wrong there either, but nothing special for the level this place aims to be, the problem is that the food can be nice and the place fine, but if the service is unpleasant and the price quality ratio is off, the overall...