6 stores · curated ORBIS register
Korte Gasthuisstraat, Antwerp (historic centre)
Ann and her son Maxim have made biscuits by hand at this Korte Gasthuisstraat workshop since 1991. Everything carries a 'Made in Antwerp' stamp.
Best for Handmade artisan biscuits and cookies
Koekelberg, Brussels
Frédéric Blondeel roasts cacao and makes chocolate at an atelier in Koekelberg, Brussels. His range includes single-origin tablets and pralines, with chocolate-coated biscuits among the other creations. The Rue de Ganshoren shop also serves coffee and hot chocolate, alongside its ice-cream offer.
Best for Bean-to-bar chocolate, pralines and a coffee or ice-cream stop
Frédéric Blondeel combines cacao roasting with chocolate making at his Koekelberg address in Brussels. Coming from a family of coffee roasters, he applied that roasting background to cacao, working with beans from South Asia and Latin America. The process begins before the chocolate is shaped into a finished gift.
His account describes low-temperature roasting adjusted to the character of the beans. Single-origin tablets sit alongside pralines and chocolate-coated biscuits, with ingredients such as Japanese tea or Sicilian nuts used in different creations. The origin of a cacao bean and the place where the chocolate is made therefore describe separate parts of the product.
The shop at Rue de Ganshoren 39 also has a coffee and ice-cream bar. Hot chocolate offers another way to try the maker's work without choosing a boxed assortment first. The ice creams are made by Blondeel, with several flavours listed by the shop. Choose between a gift to take away and something to enjoy at the bar, checking the actual assortment rather than assuming every flavour is always available.
Brussels
Pierre Marcolini makes chocolates, pralines, biscuits and seasonal gift boxes with strong attention to cacao sourcing. The Brussels house is especially useful for tasting single-origin bars beside filled confections. Established in 1995, the house also offers truffles and macarons; praline ingredients include Piedmont hazelnuts and Moroccan pink berries.
Best for Bean-to-bar sculptural chocolate éclats from the Brussels haute chocolaterie
Kraanlei 79
This shop on the Kraanlei has sold Ghent's purple, cone-shaped cuberdons — the raspberry-gummy 'neuzekes', or little noses — since 1904, alongside gingerbread, pralines and old-fashioned boiled sweets. Hand-labelled jars and wood panelling mark four generations of the Temmerman family's confectionery.
Best for Cuberdons and traditional Belgian sweets
Leuven, Belgium
Barbóék opened in 2015 in a renovated former printing works on Schrijnmakersstraat, pouring Blanche Dael coffee and tea alongside pastries. A second site inside M Leuven museum, added in 2022, hosts author talks and weekend brunch.
Best for Books, Blanche Dael coffee, pastries and author events
Barbóék opened in 2015 on Schrijnmakersstraat, in a tastefully renovated former printing works, combining an independent bookshop with a coffee bar rather than treating either as an add-on to the other. The shop pours coffee and tea from Blanche Dael, a local roastery, alongside espresso drinks and specialty lattes, wines from Convento, and food built around soup and bread plus pastries made in-house or sourced locally - described by the owners as running the place like a second living room, somewhere to browse and linger rather than move through quickly. Staff are self-described book enthusiasts who give personal recommendations, and any title not in stock typically arrives within two days. In summer 2022 the concept expanded to a second site, Barbóék in M, a museum shop and café inside M Leuven, the city's museum for contemporary and classical art on Savoyestraat. That location leans its book selection toward art titles tied to the museum's exhibitions, hosts author talks and reading-club evenings on Thursdays, and runs a seasonal weekend brunch - a plate of quiche, yogurt and granola, and coffee cakes for twenty euros. Between the two addresses, Barbóék has built a single identity around books and coffee shared in the same room, rather than a café that happens to sell books on the side.
Namur / Belgium
Rooted in a 1946 Namur chocolaterie, this family business opened La Maison des Desserts as a patisserie and tea room in 1993 and is now run by the third generation from a 17th-century building in the Saint-Loup quarter. Its breads, pastries, chocolates and macarons are sold at the Rue Haute Marcelle shop and for online collection.
Best for Third-generation Namur patisserie and chocolaterie in a 17th-century house
The business traces to 1946, when the founding family opened a chocolaterie on Namur's Rue de Fer; the family itself was made up of professional pastry chefs and chocolatiers, and kept that trade going for decades. In 1993 they expanded into La Maison des Desserts, a patisserie and tea room, without giving up the original chocolate business; the two now operate together under one roof, run today by the third generation.
The current shop sits in a 17th-century building in Namur's historic Saint-Loup quarter, at Rue Haute Marcelle 17, a setting as old as some of the recipes the family still uses. Its range spans all three original trades, boulangerie, patisserie and chocolaterie, producing bread, pastries, chocolates and macarons from the same premises.
The tea room adds a fourth element, serving light meals alongside the baked goods, and the shop takes online orders for collection, closing only Sunday and Monday to keep the rest of the week focused on production.
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