Town and Country in Belgium

La Feuille D’Or and Brussels

by Janice Rossen

It is always magical to stay at a fabulous hotel out in the countryside.  The journey becomes like a fairy-tale, or an adventure story, where you travel further and further away from civilization (in this case, fifteen minutes by taxi from Genk Rail Station in Belgium) and suddenly end up in the middle of the woods at a stunningly artistic building.

When we pulled up last weekend to the front door of the Hostellerie La Feuille D’Or and saw both Gault Millault and Michelin stickers adorning the entrance plus a Romantik Hotel sign (these are all very high European honours indeed), I became instantly excited.  By the time the first luncheon dish was set before us—we’d been on the train from Holland all morning, and were starving—I knew that we had landed.  It was an improbable combination of cod with carrots (both pureed underneath and finely chopped, in a light curry sauce), and you could see the steam rising from the plate.

To look around at the dining room, which was absolutely pristine, with white tablecloths, full complement of wine glasses, silverware, and flowers, you would have thought yourself in the most elegant dining room of a major city.  At La Feuille D’Or it is still better than this, because all the tables are set very far apart from each other, so you can have a cozy conversation over dinner—not overhearing the chatter at the next table—but there is a delicious hum of cheerful diners. 

This is a rare combination, I think:  infinitely refined, totally relaxed.

I have not said the best part of the setting, yet.  (I will come back to the brilliant cuisine in a moment.)  The Romantik Hotel Hostellerie La Feuille D’Or, to give it its full title, is set in the Nationaal Park Hoge Kempen, an enormous nature preserve.  You can walk or cycle for miles through the trees, starting right outside the front door.  Astonishingly—for such an elegant hotel—the structure was originally the farm outbuildings for a 19th Century chateau that was destroyed in World War II.  In Belgium, as in most of Europe, there is uncomfortable history underlying every spot.  A local antiquarian has written a history of the chateau and its surroundings, in which you can see old photographs of it.

The buildings have been exquisitely redone, with an enclosed garden and a glass front door and conservatory letting light into the building.

It also has a pleasing sort of hodge-podge of flooring—wooden planks set at a diagonal, tiles (both antique and new), and just inside the front door to greet you, as you walk in, lies a fantastical carpet, woven in a design made by Koen Vanmechelen, the reigning artist at La Feuille D’Or.  I was so entranced with his subtle shapes and rich colours—each piece, you must understand, taking its inspiration from chickens—that I asked the chef about this.  Mr. Vanmechelen is, in fact, a friend of Mr. Martens, and works in several different media.  (Yes, chickens.  That is his theme.)  It was surprising how restful and warm it seemed, to have work from the same artist throughout the building.

The food at La Feuille D’Or is something that I don’t think I can explain very well, because I myself would describe it as being ‘simple,’ and the chef characterized it as being ‘light.’   Both of these terms are misleading.  If you imagine a shallow white bowl with a sort of layering of delicious tastes and textures on it, that will come closest to conjuring up the sort of dishes which come from the kitchen.  Usually a vegetable puree as a base, and then exquisite slices of beef or duck or fish (all perfectly cooked and succulent), and a subtle, delicious sauce.  If there are roasted potatoes surrounding a concoction, they will be carefully cut, and they will taste of the rosemary with which they are seasoned. 

Everything is harmonious—no sort of fiddling about with stacking things in little towers, or frantically bedecking a plate with sprays of herbs. It is just lovely food.  You could feel that everyone in the dining room was very happy to be there. The chef uses seasonal produce, and I would describe his approach as intuitive:  he seems to create dishes as he is inspired to do so.  The hotel describes its own style as ‘klassieke Franse keuken met eigentijdse accenten,’ which sums it up well:  classic French cuisine with seasonal accents.

While I was walking around, one afternoon, taking photographs, I peeked into the kitchen (I love to see behind the scenes!) and asked if I could photograph Mr. Martens while he was engaged in the homely task of cutting up vegetables.  In this you can see it is a definitely ‘hands-on’ approach—a chef who will stand in the kitchen of an afternoon, cutting his own cauliflower for the evening’s vegetable puree is committed.

Romantik Hotel Hostellerie La Feuille D’Or is modeled on the excellent European plan of being essentially a restaurant with rooms.  The dining room seemed to be filled, both nights we were there, with merry local diners who had come by car.  A quiet and well-mannered breakfast was served, the following mornings, for those of us who stayed overnight.  There are only six rooms (all of great tranquility), so you must book ahead. 

As it happens, we were at La Feuille D’Or in the spring, and have made a plan to return in the autumn, in order to see the forest at a different season.  The trees, in March, were yet without leaves. It is only recently returned to its natural state: until a century and a half ago, the land was used for farming, but the forest has now been allowed to reclaim its territory.  The paths are marked by signposts for either cycling (picture of bicycle!) or walking (a curiously appealing paw footprint, along with an arrow to point the direction).

I must admit, we took our cell phones along, which was a bit ridiculous, but we knew we could ring up if we got lost!  La Feuille D’Or rents bicycles for 12 euros a day, so that will be our next adventure through the national park.

Partly by way of experiment, in terms of travel logistics, and partly because I love it there, we spent a night in Brussels (also in Belgium) on the way back to Delft in Holland.  I find it fascinating—indeed, I love Belgium, and have spent several holidays there, over the years.  In the center of Brussels, the Grand Place has enormously ornate buildings, and the Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts contains a stunning collection of Flemish art—all that 15th C. religious painting, chock-a-block with symbolism, depicting people wearing voluminous, jewel-toned clothes, pointed shoes, while sitting in impossibly pristine gardens.  The first time I went there it was a pilgrimage in honour of W.H. Auden’s poem of that title:  ‘Musee des Beaux Arts.’ (‘About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old Masters:  how well they understood / Its human position;  how it takes place / While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. . . . ‘).  And you can see the Brueghel painting of Icarus (to quote Auden’s poem again:  ‘and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen / Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, / Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.’)  The museum also has an entire wing of modern works, especially by Magritte (‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’—that artist). 

But in truth, in Brussels lies the most perfect bistro du monde:  Aux Armes de Bruxelles, which was also a favorite haunt of the famous song-writer, Jacques Brel.  Everyone loves Aux Armes de Bruxelles—it is packed constantly with a wide variety of customers.  The dashing pair of young lovers (speaking rapid French), the chatty tourists from America who were in Brussels for business or for academic conferences, the group of local men friends who met for a meal and a bottle of wine.

It has the elegance of a high-class establishment, and the buzz of a neighbourhood restaurant.  You can order boeuf carbonade—a typical Belgian beef stew—or grilled salmon with béarnaise sauce.  Since moving to Holland a couple of years ago, I have struggled to master this dish (it is de rigueur with white asparagus, a Dutch national obsession each spring) . . . and I am thrilled to have someone else make it for me.  If you order the grilled salmon, the chef sends you out an entire little copper pot of it, with the freshest of tarragon flavouring it.  The waiters are at the top of their profession—and in Belgium, food is taken seriously.  It is a form of theatre to watch them at their work.

Next time, I am determined to order these sort of flaming crepes where the flambé fire leaps up several feet high into the air.

I like Brussels so much that I have gone down and back on the train in one day, to dine there, and also to browse in the shops in the Galleries St. Hubert, the oldest (and possibly the most beautiful) shopping mall in Europe, dating from the 19th century.  There is a captivating bookshop filled with art books, and a very chic high-fashion clothing store selling exotic pieces by Kaat Tilley, a famous designer.  The Mokafe has a glorious array of cakes, and I also love Café Vaudeville (a restaurant attached to the marionette theatre in the arcade).  This time, wanting to stay overnight (and thus to dine at Aux Armes de Bruxelles twice!) we stayed at the Ibis Hotel, which is right around the corner from the Grand Place, and also from the museum, the shopping arcade, the beloved restaurant and the Central Train Station.

Our weekend was a quixotic mix of big-city bustle in Brussels and of serene, floating, timeless countryside at La Feuille D’Or.  That is part of the delight of European travel:  you can pack in an extraordinary amount of wildly different experiences, all by jumping on a train.  I must add that all the Europeans I know think we are mad, not to go on holiday by car!  But for us, getting there is half the fun.  And the best of it all is when you are hosted by highly original and artistic people—one feels this instinctively at La Feuille D’Or—and by people who care about what they are doing.

Romantik Hotel Hostellerie La Feuille D’Or is not at all difficult to get to, even if you are not renting a car.  The rail station of Genk is about an hour and a half from Brussels, with no changes of train required, and the hotel will arrange for a taxi to meet you and drive the fifteen or so minutes to the hotel.  You must, however, be prepared for European taxi prices, as the drive will cost around 30 euros (the train fare will be much less than this!).  Also, keep in mind that the hotel is closed for lunch on a Saturday—we brought along a picnic, and since the bedrooms are so wonderful, we very much enjoyed it.  The hotel is at Hoeveweg 145, 3650 Dilsen-Stokkem, tel. +32(0)89659712, www.lafeuilledor.be, and if you want to write to them directly, info@lafeuilledor.be

The Nationaal Park Hoge Kempen has its own website:  www.nationaalpark.be

Ibis Hotel (the particular one we stayed at) is Ibis Brussels off Grand’Place, Grasmarkt 100, rue du Marche aux Herbes, 1000 Bruxelles, +32 (0)25144040, www.ibishotel.com

Aux Armes de Bruxelles can be found along the little street that runs perpendicular to the Galleries, and you will have to run the gauntlet of a rapacious crowd of maitre-d’s each trying to pull you into their restaurants along the way . . . . resist!  Hold firm!  You will soon reach Aux Armes de Bruxelles at 13 rue de Bouchers, 1000 Bruxelles, tel. +32 (0)25115598, www.armesdebruxelles.be or arbrux@beon.be.  The restaurant is open every day from 12 noon until 11:15 p.m.—I’d guess it is probably best to book ahead, if you go at a busy time, though we once showed up with some friends to ask for a table for dinner, feeling very apprehensive, and they simply told us to go away for an hour or so and gave us a table on our return.

Kaat Tilley must be mentioned!  She is a famous Belgian designer, with a very quirky and romantic artistic sense.  The shop in the gallery which carries her clothes is called Escape, and you can see her work on www.kaattilley.com

Koen Vanmechelen (speaking of artists) also has a website where you can see his work:  www.koenvanmechelen.be

For those readers who love vintage films, I want to add that I recently discovered an old favorite available on youtube, with Suzanne Pleshette and a stellar comic cast in (what else?) the classic travel film:  ‘If it’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium.’  What can I say?  It is a fabulous place to visit, even if just for the day!

Postscript  December 2009

This is just an update . . . for we did, as planned, visit the charming La Feuille D’Or again in the autumn.  The forest was just as quiet—this time with leaves starting to fall off the trees—and we actually saw those red mushrooms with white spots, which appear on the pages of all books of fairy tales, or in illustrations that depict gnomes in the garden.

The cuisine of Jan Martens was as understated and utterly delicious as we had remembered it, and the whole ambiance enfolded us in immense peace and restfulness.  We went away much lighter of heart.

We spent only one night in Brussels, this time, on our way to Bruges (of which I shall write more in a separate article), and found it a bit dispiriting.  At the moment, the extensive road works which they are doing in front of the central rail station mean that everything is torn up (even the sidewalks).  We went again to the Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts (I always like to follow my own advice in travel articles I’ve written, to see if I agree with myself), and it was disappointing to find that ‘improvements’ are still going on at the museum.  That is, they have selected a few major works to display, but these are only a fraction of the enormous collection which the museum possesses, and I was longing to stroll through endless rooms of works by Flemish masters, which I remember from a previous visit.  To my deep disappointment, the Kaat Tilley dress shop in the arcade was closed.  Aux Armes de Bruxelles still gave us a very fine meal—this time I tried the steak tartare—but we realized that the train from Genk to Brussels goes straight on through to Bruges . . .  and next time, I think, we will rush on to La Nuit Blanche, David de Graef’s fabulous guest house in the center of Bruges (which is exactly where we went next).

Photographs by Janice Rossen