Berlin cool, Liège soul. Bon vivants and serious drinkers gather at Viveur, where Pol Oeyen (an architect by training who previously worked at Chambre Noire in Paris) has assembled nearly 400 wines spanning every corner of France for Liège’s thirsty intelligentsia – Guy Breton in Beaujolais, Olivier Cohen in Roussillon, Terra Vita Vinum in the Loire Valley, Maison des Saules in the Jura, Bonnet-Ponson in Champagne… Beneath neo-surrealist posters by British artist David Shrigley, the owner pairs bottles by instinct with chef Mélia Van Gysegem’s (ex-Pépouz Café) spontaneous small plates (€4-18), happily uncorking by-the-glass pours along the way: pâté de campagne, lemon and garlic marinated anchovies, vitello tonnato dusted with black olive powder, monkfish polpette al sugo… · Célestin Champion