Over the past year, anonymous inspectors have visited and judged over 1,400 restaurants in Belgium and Luxembourg for the 16th edition of the culinary guide Gault&Millau Belux 2019. 1,327 establishments were considered good enough for the guide. Brussels comes top of the list with 198, closely followed by East and West Flanders, each with 189. No less than 240 new addresses were added, which is an absolute record.
Peter Goossens' Hof van Cleve (Kruishoutem) and Christophe Hardiquest's Bon Bon (Brussels) kept hold of their scores of 19.5 out of 20. For Peter Goossens this was already the 16th consecutive year. For the first time a Walloon chef also gained the maximum number of five chef's hats: Sang-Hoon Degeimbre's L’Air du Temps (Liernu) increased to 19. Others rising to the top are Yves Mattagne's Sea Grill (Brussels) with 18.5, Nick Bril's The Jane (Antwerp) and Kobe Desramaults' Chambre Séparée (Ghent) each with 18. This year's newcomer is Icelandic chef Vilhjalmur Sigurdarson's Souvenir (Ghent), which immediately received a score of 15.5.
Maxime Maziers of Bruneau by Maxime Maziers (Brussels) earned the title of Brussels Young Chef of the Year. Similarly, his colleagues Thijs Vervloet of Colette (Westerlo) and Maxime Zimmer of Un Max de Goût (Comblain-au-Pont) earned the title for Flanders and Wallonia respectively. Other big news was the nomination of David Martin of La Paix (Anderlecht) as Chef of the Year 2019. This choice reflects a personality who demonstrates vision, expertise, creativity and courage, taking inspiration from French, Belgian as well as Japanese cookery.
