Chez Bobonne

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UPDATE: Closed permanently…

“Restaurant – Shop – Bar – Brewery” it says in the logo of Chez Bobonne, and at first I thought that last word was just a wrong translation of the French word ‘brasserie‘, the type of restaurant. But lo and behold: on one of their Facebook photos, there was a real — albeit small — brewing installation! Not only that, but they displayed a great love for beer as well, and even before the official opening, we could see a couple of bottles of Dochter van de Korenaar pictured. A visit was inevitable…

On opening night, we had a first taste of Chez Bobonne. Right after entering, you pass a cupboard filled with bottles of beer and closed off with chicken wire: the shop. Basically everything they serve here to drink, is for sale to take home as well.

Passing the first seating area, and up a couple of steps, we found the bar, with two taps. La Houppe, a nice dry-hopped blonde ale, was available on draught, as was Lefebvre‘s Manneken Pils. The exclusively Belgian bottle list is quite long, and full of beers from rather unfamiliar breweries, which is quite an audacious choice. At first sight — and taste — quite a few of those beers are just ‘boring’ Belgian blondes, dubbels and tripels, but there are a couple of modern IPA’s as well, and of course the beers from Dochter van de Korenaar.

Don’t expect the beer offer to remain the same, however: on one of the walls, patrons can vote for their favourite beer — tally on a blackboard in chalk —  and the owners are happy to receive feedback and tips about the beers they should serve. At the moment, there are no Brussels beers available at all, but that should be remedied soon enough.

We went back for dinner in the ‘garden’ another night. On the menu there are a couple of wraps, quiches, and vol-au-vent and Liège meatballs in two sizes. The dishes are somehow provided by Pick Eat, so there obviously is some reheating involved, and in this area the kitchen clearly still needs some finetuning… However, once everything was properly heated, it was quite tasty and filling.

As far as the brewery part goes: the mash tun, lauter tun, and brew kettle stood there very temptingly, as were the bags of malt, but during our two visits, there was no brewing going on. It turns out the installation is actually the brewery Beer My Friend, a very small scale (100l) brewery-with-brewer for hire. It’s not quite clear yet how it works exactly, but we’d love to see at least a small keg of each brew being served in-house, basically turning Chez Bobonne into a brewpub that way!

     

tl;dr

Beers

  • 2 beers on draught
    • Manneken Pils
    • La Houppe
  • Belgian beers from small breweries
    • Dochter van de Korenaar

Bites

  • Wraps
  • Vol-au-vent & Liège meatballs in two sizes
  • Quiches

 

Chez Bobonne
Schuitenkaai 4 Quai aux Barques
1000 Brussel
+32 488 93 00 05
http://chezbobonne.be

 

What have people been drinking here recently?