Brasserie Heysel * Restoration Nouvelle — Restaurant in Grimbergen

As a reviewer, I found it challenging to summarize my dining experience at this restaurant. Although Google Maps refers to it as Nouvelle restaurant, in reality, it is Brasserie Heysel/Heizel. The interior is quite pleasant and warm, and the terrace embraced by greenery is tucked away from traffic, behind the building. We arrived for a late lunch on a Saturday in June. At around 6 pm, only a fourth of the tables were occupied, but by 7:30 pm, there were no seats available on the terrace. The servers greeted us pleasantly, but it was a struggle to get their attention. Even ordering after receiving the menu required a wait of 25 minutes while they were walking around with no apparent task at hand. During our visit, three servers were engaged in a lively discussion in the middle of the terrace, ignoring all the guests while at it.

In all other restaurants I visited in Brussels, an English menu was standard. However, here, we were handed a bilingual Dutch/French menu boasting a limited number of dishes and a wine card. Unfortunately, the server did not offer any help with languages. It's funny that guests will only find one sentence in English in their menu, which offers to organize private events in the restaurant. The waiter also did not bother to warn us that the specials were not available when handing us the menus.

Unlike the serving experience, the food was rather good. We opted for the Filet Américain, Taglioni with tomato and stracciatella, and a Wagyu beef burger with truffle mayonnaise. The tartar-style meat was perfectly fresh and seasoned, all the fries were hot, pasta was cooked al-dente, and the beef burger was delicious, as was the homemade truffle mayonnaise. We finished our dining experience with a Le Café gourmand, which boasted a nicely presented selection of desserts, including creme caramel, waffles with ice-cream, and macaroon. Sadly, the coffee, which should be an essential part of this dessert, came separately, with a significant delay, and only after managing to catch a waiter and reminding her that it was still missing.

The toilets are in the basement level, with children's playing area right in front of them. Even though there were not many guests when we arrived, the toilets had wet floors, with used paper towels discarded everywhere. One female booth had a broken lock.

The terrace is in a beautifully maintained garden, including open air playground area for children. However, right at the end of the garden, a paved way will lead you through high bushes to the huge Expo parking lot, but through what appears to be an appalling dumping ground of disposed kitchen equipment, garden tools, broken terrace heaters, and similar waste that did not find its way to the recycling lot. Although the terrace has an abundance of sun shades, they are wrongly positioned. So, at the time of day when we visited, more than half of the tables were in the sun with no or only partial shade.

The restaurant has a private parking right next door.

Overall, my experience at this restaurant was frustrating and tasty. It seems that this restaurant has loads of potential for a memorable dining experience (I can especially imagine pleasant evening indoors as well), if only the serving staff would be more attentive. The food certainly merits a repeated visit, but the prices are too high for a less than desirable overall...

I had an extremely disappointing experience at this restaurant. I ordered the salmon tartare, which was completely unseasoned—just bland and tasteless. To make things worse, it was served with three blackened toasts that smelled overwhelmingly of charcoal.

When I pointed this out to the staff, their reaction made it seem like this was not the first time they had received such feedback, yet they chose to ignore it instead of addressing the issue properly. The attitude of the personnel was quite hautain, which only added to the frustration.

On top of that, I was charged €20 for the dish and an additional €6 because I ordered an "entrée" as a main plate—so €26 for something that wasn’t even seasoned. Though they eventually offered a small rebate, it didn’t make up for the poor experience.

We’ve always had a weird feeling about this place, and to be honest, we’ve never really been satisfied with our visits. The only reason we’ve gone back is that it’s one of the rare restaurants open on Mondays.

I strongly recommend avoiding this place—there are much better options in the area where you can actually enjoy a well-prepared meal with...

Une première pour moi, alors que je connais bien cette bâtiment avec la façade qui m'a intrigue beaucoup, pendant des années ! En fin, nous y sommes allés ! Le bâtiment m'a pas déçu ! Un grand potentiel, avec une belle terasse, à l'arrière, petit espace de jeux, pour les enfants, location très calme, malgré la proximité avec la chaussée Romaine devant et l'autoroute à l'arrière. Le restaurant possède son propre parking, un peux étroite pour deux rangées de voiture mais, des places de parking sont disponibles devant, n'oubliez pas de regarder bien de quel côté vous y êtes, côté Wemmel rien de spécial, côté opposé il faut utiliser le disque bleu. Espace intérieur généreux, belle déco, des toilettes bien propres. Accueil professionnel, rapide et souriant, je suggère juste un peu de patience pour prendre la commande, laisser le ⌛️ au client de regarder la carte, sans demander 5 fois en deux minutes si on a décidé quoi choisir. Pourquoi je dis ça ? Parce que, si on te laisse pas respirer avant de passer la commande, après, c'est tout une l'autre histoire, tu auras beaucoup de temp a respirer avant de recevoir ta commande! La carte est bien, pas trop chargé, rien à voir avec la carte sur internet ! Le problème ? Tout n'est pas disponible, mais, avec le sourire des serveurs, ça passe ! Ça ne change rien, il faut avoir l'esprit libre et réfléchir vite, pour remplacer ton premier choix, si la chance n'est pas au RDV! Les tables sont numérotées, malgré cela, 5-6 fois les serveurs sont venus avec des commandes qui n'étaient pas pour notre table. La crise Covid à laissé de traces, je crois qu'il manque l'expérience, on leur donne leur donne le temps, la base est bonne, gardez le sourire 😃 ! Les aperitifs arrivées, il manquait un! Les entrées arrivées, il manquait un! Les plats, impeccable ! Les déserts, franchement, si on allait les chercher ailleurs et revenir les manger sur place, ça aurait été plus vite ! Ils se sont excusée, toujours avec le grand 😃 et ça, franchement, ça touche ! Moi, personnellement, ça me donne l'envie de revenir ! Pour finir : super location ! aperitifs, plats, desserts super bonnes et bien présentes , félicitations au cuisinier ! service déficitaire, trop de confusion, trop du temp après avoir passé la commande mais professionnel et courtois. A...