What is noise? A hotel of this scale has not opened in Brussels for over a century. Built by order of the then king to attract and accommodate visitors to the 1910 Brussels International Exhibition, the former Grand Hotel Astoria reopened just before Christmas after a 17-year closure, resuming its position as the grandest hotel in Belgium.
It was bought in 2016 by the Malta-based Corinthia Group, which spent €150 million restoring the building and renamed 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 main Gothic and Baroque square, is a 15-minute walk away, as are the Palais Royal and Parc de Bruxelles. The headquarters of the European Commission in Berlaymont is about 25 minutes on foot, or a few metro stops. It’s also very convenient for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (worth the price of admission for Jacque-Louis David’s extraordinary 1793 painting The Death of Marat“) and the Magritte Museum.
recording The elegant reception area leads directly into the Palm Court, a magnificent pilastered lounge filled with palm trees with an 11 meter high stained glass roof. The original glazing was destroyed in the 1940s but has been reconstructed according to black and white photographs, using a palette based on the colors of the stained glass of the lodge at the top of the imposing stone staircase at one end.
Now a cafe and bar, it was buzzing even on a Tuesday in early January when I visited. Passing on the way to breakfast, which is served in another distinguished lounge, a series of business meetings were ongoing, but from lunchtime to late evening the atmosphere is more relaxed, the chatter louder and the diversity demographic.
What about the bedrooms? In contrast to the grandeur of the Beaux Arts-style public rooms, where every ornate door handle and hinge has been preserved in keeping with the building’s listed status, the 126 bedrooms and suites are pleasantly restrained. It’s all very comfortable and contemporary – muted colours, pale marble, brass detailing – if unlikely to inspire an overhaul of what you have at home.
The lights, however, are irritatingly keyboard-operated labeled in a tiny little font that you need the torch on your phone to read. The lamps placed on the high ceiling above the bed are too high to illuminate a book.
The top floor is still a building site, but four penthouses will open in March, one named Brontë in honor of British novelists Charlotte and Emily, who taught at a school near the hotel on what is now Bozar. , or the Center for Fine Arts.
And the food? There are two restaurants. One is a reasonably priced bar, Le Petit bon bon (main courses from €26), overseen by Christophe Hardiquest, something of a celebrity in Belgium, whose now-closed restaurant Bon Bon had two Michelin stars. Here he’s keeping things simple with an enticing menu of Belgian classics: prawn croquettes, eel in a green sauce, cod Ostend style (a mussel and shrimp sauce), meatballs Liège style (a fruit sauce made with Bertinchamps brown beer) and retro dishes like duck with orange and vol-au-vents.
The other, Palais Royal, is the creation of David Martin, whose quintessentially Franco-Belgian cooking is influenced by his time in Japan, and whose restaurant La Paix, in Anderlecht, has two Michelin stars.
There’s a short, very expensive menu, but you’re steered firmly towards the tasting menus: €135 for 10 courses, €175 for 12 (and extra truffles and lobster). Like Palm Court, it was full.
He takes the clientele like oysters: raw under a sabayon of broth on one plate, boiled on another. And the smoked eel appeared twice, first in a croquette, then six courses later, emulsified in a sauce served with beef, umeboshi mushrooms dusted with fermented plum powder and a krapaudine beet puree. It had a sublime taste and the painting method pleased me too. Indeed, bar the odd accompaniment of moist merguez with a fillet of mullet, I enjoyed it all. That said, four desserts felt like three too many, though I’ll fondly remember the zesty, tangy lemon gel that cut through the lemon ice cream and its sweet souffle crown.
Other guests? At the moment, even the overnight guests are mostly Belgian. But Filip Boyen, the hospitality industry veteran brought in as interim managing director to open the property, hopes the hotel will be enough to convince Americans visiting Amsterdam and Paris to add Brussels to their itineraries.
What should be done? There is an underground Sisley bath, nine meter swimming pool and gym. Sessions can be booked with in-house personal trainer Paul Tucker, formerly an instructor with the UK Royal Army Physical Training Corps.
Beyond the hotel, take a tram (one change) to the Wiels Foundation in the Forest, a part of the city about 4 km southwest of the center. It’s a huge exhibition space in what was the Wielemans-Ceuppens Brewery, once the largest in Europe, and a modern industrial masterpiece with a great look. The next exhibition (from February 1) is a survey by Dutch artist Willem Oorebeek.
On a smaller scale, the Boghossian Foundation’s Villa Empain holds exhibitions aimed at promoting “dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures”, currently 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 Art Deco former home of Baron Louis Empain, whose father built the Paris metro, is as captivating as its contents.
Towards the end of the year, the Pompidou Center in Paris will open a satellite, the Canal-Centre Pompidou, in a former Citroen garage built in 1934. In terms of space, it will be the largest cultural institution of Brussels and the first new one since it was created. now the Brussels Design Museum opened in 2015. It is located near the Atomium, the 102-meter molecular landmark built for the 1958 World’s Fair and the city’s most popular tourist attraction for good reason.
DAMAGE From €500, room only. Breakfast adds €60 per person – better to go to one of the city’s many tempting cafes.
Space for elevator A grand dame returned to splendor – and a good base for a classic European city break.
Claire Wrathall was a guest of Corinthia Hotels (corinthia.com) and Eurostar (eurotar.com)
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