Let’s Fly Away~Ghent The Food

Last but not least, I’m sharing our dining adventures in Ghent, make sure you don’t miss my prior two posts on Ghent:
The Views
The Booze

De Vitrine

This was one of the best meals of the whole trip. De Vitrine is a very small, restaurant with 1 set menu for the night, your only choices were additional courses and drinks. You could choose if you wanted 4 or 5 courses but there is no choice of dishes. It is not for picky eaters. The food was executed superbly, everything was perfection and all the ingredients worked together to elevate the dishes to a new level. The waitstaff made the evening even better being efficient and beyond friendly. Our waitress gave me several shop recommendations for Antwerp and gave us a nice narrative on the neighborhood and the restaurant. We did not go, but the Ghent’s red light district is only a block from the restaurant. The food and drinks are sourced primarily from Belgium, so you are getting Belgium food. Every single one of the courses exceeded expectations, I can not stress to you how good this meal was. Every dish was perfection;  the best prepared mussels I’ve ever had, the chicken was so much more than chicken, and the butter beans were simply amazing…I’m sure I will not have a dish of butter beans that will ever compare. The laying of flavors for these dishes is something rarely experienced. I cannot recommend this restaurant enough, do not go to Ghent without getting a reservation here.

1st course: Steak tartar spring roll with a wasabi cream
2nd course: Mussels-seriously the most perfectly cooked mussels
3rd course: Butter beans-I can’t describe how much flavor was in such a simple dish
4th course: Chicken-again so much flavor for a boring looking dish
5th course: not pictured…sorry guys I think I ate it before I remembered the picture-the wine could be to blame 😉

Julie’s House~Breakfast

Just the cutest of breakfast places…look at that tea set and they had a great menu with plenty to choose from. It was crowded, so I recommend you get there early. The Ghent bagels were flat and more like a pastry, but very good. The interior had a lot of character, and it made for a very enjoyable, relaxing breakfast.

Brasserie T’Klokhuis
We went here based on the recommendation of our hotel for traditional Belgium fare. The staff was friendly, and the restaurant had local, homey feel. The mussels were delicious and it was all you can eat but the initial serving is so large I can’t imagine anyone ordering more than one.

Koffie 3, 14 Thee

A coffee cafe that also served waffles. I was very happy with our quick little breakfast here. It was nice and quiet, with great service.

Groot Vleeshuis

This is where you can see the famous Ghent hams. This is also where we bought some really fantastic mustard to take back with us. I read of another mustard shop in town but you have to keep the mustard refrigerated so that was not going to work for us. The mustard we brought back was purchased in the gift shop of this building. Another, Ghent specialty is the cuberdons “priest hats” , which we did try and I was not a fan of, way, way too sweet.

Recommended not tested:

J.E.F~this place looked fantastic, very small and supposed to be a place focusing on local ingredients. Make sure to make a reservation in advance as we did not…hence why we did not try it 🙂