La Fin de Siecle, Brussels

Fin de Siecle is located on Brussels' famous Avenue Louise and looks very grand from the outside. It's a beautiful old building with high ceilings and you enter into a great looking lobby with some spectacular theatre-style curtains made from luxurious fabric. On the table in the corridor is a visitors' book signed by the king and queen of Belgium and the restaurant wants to make sure you know that they have friends in high places.

...
...the bar directly in front and then the dining area runs the depth of the building before high doors open onto the garden terrace - or at least they would if we hadn't turned up in the middle of an October downpour. The restaurant is a visual feast of old original features, gorgeous plaster work on the ceilings, old paintings and more lovely floor to ceiling curtains. The floors are worth a look, mostly parquet (though as my colleague pointed out ... more

Fin de Siecle is located on Brussels' famous Avenue Louise and looks very grand from the outside. It's a beautiful old building with high ceilings and you enter into a great looking lobby with some spectacular theatre-style curtains made from luxurious fabric. On the table in the corridor is a visitors' book signed by the king and queen of Belgium and the restaurant wants to make sure you know that they have friends in high places.

Passing into the main dining room, you are confronted by the bar directly in front and then the dining area runs the depth of the building before high doors open onto the garden terrace - or at least they would if we hadn't turned up in the middle of an October downpour. The restaurant is a visual feast of old original features, gorgeous plaster work on the ceilings, old paintings and more lovely floor to ceiling curtains. The floors are worth a look, mostly parquet (though as my colleague pointed out badly damaged) with some spectacular mosaic flooring in the back of the room.

We took a table at the back of the room near the doors to the garden. The waiter took our coats and we moved the table to stop it wobbling and to leave space to actually get the chairs in. All the tables were wooden with deep red runners and candlesticks. We were the first to arrive just before 8 pm and I really didn't get the impression that the two gentlemen who run the place were ready for us as they were rather less than affable. The older of the two came over to bring us menus and despite my colleague greeting him in Flemish, he refused to respond in anything other than French. I wonder what the royal family thought of that.

As we looked at the menus, the other waiter brought over a small amuse bouche of a crisp biscuit with a herby cream piped on top and a pink prawn perched on top. The cream was lighter than it looked but a bit too rich on the whole.

We weren't offered drinks until he came to take the food orders. The two guys seemed more interested in polishing off the bottle of sparkling wine whose cork they'd popped about ten minutes after we arrived. Rather than serving us, they were having a good guzzle at the bar and doing their best to pretend we weren't really there.

The menu was a bit of a muddle with a range of cold or hot starters, a large selection of different salads, a selection of pastas and a few meat and fish dishes. We'd been out at a trade show all day and weren't particularly hungry and the prices were high enough to put me off having two courses. I really don't think starters should be in the €12 to 15 range unless they are something really spectacular.

We queried a few of the dishes on the French menu. It wasn't my vocabulary that was at fault because my colleagues speaks fluent French but didn't know some of the terms. My colleague chose a ravioli dish with lobster filling and crab sauce and I decided to take a gamble on a dish of linguine in what was described as a 'Petras' curry sauce. It was not a term I've ever heard of and Petra is of course in Jordan, but I was fascinated to see how a Belgian chef would interpret our British national dish. We were told that the 'Petras' referred to a tomato-based curry and I was willing to take their word for it.

The waiter went away and returned with two beers and a basket of bread and a small dish of butter. Bizarrely there were no side plates or butter knives for the bread which I found a bit odd. Whilst we waited for our food we had a good look at the paintings on the wall, the state of the mosaic flooring and peered through the rain at the garden. We had a bit of a giggle when we noticed that every time we looked back at the counter one of the staff was knocking back another glass of fizzy wine.

When the food arrived, Joep's dish was tiddly – barely the size of a starter. By contrast mine was enormous and a bit of a challenge. The sauce was a joke. How anyone could call that a curry sauce was beyond me as it had no heat, no spice and was really little more than a tomato cream sauce. The crayfish were a bit too chewy and I spent half the evening trying to get the bits out of my teeth. Getting through the whole thing was not an easy task whereas poor Joep was having to top up on the bread just to feel he'd eaten something. Considering his dish was €16.50 and mine €15 the food and the service really didn't live up to the prices.

Disappointed with the savoury dishes, we took a pass on the desserts, partly because we'd spent half the afternoon testing some outstanding chilled desserts at the trade show. I really didn't think that Fin de Siecle was going to have anything to compete with that quality so we both ordered teas. These were really nicely presented with a tray of little pyramid boxes being brought to the table so we could choose our flavours. We both went for a lemon and peppermint flavour and the waiter brought large cups of hot water with a cover to keep the heat in whilst the infusions 'steeped'. A small almond speculaas biscuit came with each cup.

When we wanted to pay we couldn't get the attention of the staff so we went direct to the counter to get the bill. The bill came to €44 for two beers, two pasta dishes and two teas – not great value at all considering how little we'd had and how poor the service was. Paying took an age and at no point did the guy make any effort to explain if there was a problem with my card or not. There were a few grunts but nothing that would pass for conversation. We had to go and find our own coats and we left feeling rather let down. I'd asked my colleague should I tip or not and he shook his head and then explained when we got outside that he didn't want me to leave a tip because he was annoyed at the rudeness of the staff.

In summary, the restaurant is poor value for unimaginative food that was poorly served by indifferent staff. Not one I'll rush back to, for sure and one that's slipped right off my colleague's list of local favourites.
 

...less