What is the rumor? A hotel of this scale has not opened in Brussels for over a century. Built at the behest of the then king to attract and house visitors to the 1910 Brussels International Exhibition, the former Grand Hotel Astoria reopened just before Christmas after a 17-year closure, regaining its position as the grandest hotel from Belgium.
It was acquired in 2016 by Malta-based Corinthia Group, which spent €150 million restoring the building and renaming it Corinthia Brussels.
Location, location, location The hotel is located near the Place du Congrès on rue Royale, which is less distinguished than it seems but very central. The Grand-Place, the city’s grand Gothic and Baroque main square, is a 15-minute walk away, as are the Royal Palace and Brussels Park. The Berlaymont headquarters of the European Commission is about a 25-minute walk away, or a couple of stops on the metro. It’s also very convenient to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts (it’s worth the price of admission to see Jacque-Louis David’s extraordinary 1793 painting, “The Death of Marat”).“) and the Magritte Museum.
Register The elegant reception area leads directly to the Palm Court, a splendid hall with pilasters and palm trees with an 11 meter high stained glass ceiling. The original glazing was destroyed in the 1940s, but has been reconstructed based on black and white photographs, using a palette based on the colors of the stained glass windows in the loggia at the top of the imposing stone staircase at one end.
It is now a cafe and bar and was bustling even on a Tuesday in early January when I visited. On the way to breakfast, served in another distinguished room, several business meetings were held, but from lunchtime until late into the evening, the atmosphere is more relaxed, the chatter louder, and the demographics diverse.
What about the bedrooms? In contrast to the majesty of the Beaux Arts-style public rooms, where every ornate handle and hinge has been preserved in keeping with the building’s protected status, the 126 rooms and suites are pleasantly restrained. It’s all very comfortable and contemporary (muted colors, pale marble, brass details), although it’s unlikely to inspire you to rethink what you have at home.
The lights, however, are infuriating, operated by keyboards labeled in a tiny little font that you need your phone’s flashlight to read. The spotlights placed in the high ceiling above the bed are too high to illuminate a book.
The top floor is still under construction, but four penthouses will open in March, one of them named Brontë after the British novelists Charlotte and Emily, who taught at a school near the hotel on the site of what is now the Bozar. , or Center of Fine Arts.
And the food? There are two restaurants. One is a reasonably priced brasserie, Le Petit bon bon (mains from €26), overseen by Christophe Hardiquest, something of a celebrity in Belgium, whose now-closed Bon Bon restaurant had two Michelin stars. Here he keeps things simple with an appealing menu of Belgian classics: shrimp croquettes, eels in green sauce, cod. to the Ostendaise (a mussel and shrimp sauce), meatballs to Liège (a fruity sauce made with Bertinchamps brown beer) and retro dishes like duck to the orange and volovanes.
The other, Palais Royal, is the creation of David Martin, whose essentially Franco-Belgian cuisine has been influenced by his time in Japan, and whose restaurant La Paix, in Anderlecht, has two Michelin stars.
There is a short and very expensive menu, but you lean firmly towards the tasting menus: 135 euros for 10 dishes, 175 euros for 12 (and also truffle and lobster). Like the Palm Court, it was packed.
He treats the clientele as if they were oysters: raw under a sabayon of meat juices on one plate, poached on another. And the smoked eel made two appearances, first in a croquette, then six plates later, emulsified in a sauce served with beef, umeboshi mushrooms sprinkled with fermented plum powder, and a crapaudine beet puree. It had a sublime flavor and the painterly way it was plated also delighted me. In fact, except for the strangely moist merguez accompaniment to a mullet fillet, I loved everything about it. That said, four desserts seemed like too many, although I will remember with pleasure the bitter and deliciously bracing lemon gel that cut through the lemon ice cream and its sweet soufflé crown.
Other guests? At the moment, even the overnight guests are mostly Belgian. But Filip Boyen, the hotel industry veteran hired as interim general manager to open the property, hopes the hotel will be enough to persuade Americans visiting Amsterdam and Paris to add Brussels to their itineraries.
To do? There’s an underground Sisley spa, a nine-metre pool and a gym. Sessions can be booked with in-house personal trainer, Paul Tucker, a former UK Royal Army Physical Training Corps instructor.
Beyond the hotel, take a tram (a change) to the Wiels Foundation in Forest, a part of the city about 4 km southwest of the center. It’s a huge exhibition space in the former Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery, once the largest in Europe, and a modernist industrial masterpiece with spectacular views. The next exhibition (starting February 1) is a study by Dutch artist Willem Oorebeek.
On a smaller scale, the Boghossian Foundation’s Villa Empain hosts exhibitions aimed at promoting “dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures,” currently by Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, whose work has long been informed by his fascination with Asian calligraphy. Like Wiels, the building, this time the immaculately restored former Art Deco home of Baron Louis Empain, whose father built the Paris metro, is as attractive as its contents.
At the end of the year, the Pompidou Center in Paris will open a satellite, the Kanal-Centre Pompidou, in a former Citroën garage built in 1934. In terms of space, it will be the largest cultural institution in Brussels and the first new one since it is Now the Brussels Design Museum opened its doors in 2015. It is located near the Atomium, the 102-meter molecular landmark built for the 1958 World’s Fair and the most popular tourist attraction in the city for good reason.
the damage From €500, accommodation only. Breakfast costs €60 per person; It is better to go to one of the many tempting cafes in the city.
elevator plot A grand dame returned to her glory and is a good base for a classic European city break.
Claire Wrathall was a guest of Corinthia Hotels (corinthia.com) and Eurostar (eurostar.com)
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