Barbara Hoornaert is at it again! After four years at the helm of Barge, the Brussels-based restaurant she co-founded with Grégoire Gillard, the sommelier has gone rogue and drifted solo over Schaerbeek way. This bar that’s as neat as a pin (huge floor-to-ceiling windows, wooden tables, suggestions scrawled out on the chalkboard) overflows out onto a terrace facing Josaphat park, the perfect spot for popping open some fuss-free natural wines and spirits for thirsty passersby: Le Pérou, a lively cabernet franc that goes down easy from the Domaine des Frères (€35); Sinfonia di Bianco, a floral skin-contact wine from the Sicilian winemaker Alessandro Viola (€58); or a magnum of Coste, an opulent macabeu from the Danjou-Banessy estate in the Roussillon (€98). Is that a rumbling in the holds we hear? Yo, ho, ho, knock back some bottarga deviled eggs, pickled radish (daikon, green meat, red meat) with labneh, or mackerel rillettes… followed by Granier genepi to chase it all down! // Toni Negroni
THE BULLET-PROOF BOTTLE: The 2023 beaujolais nouveau from Jean Foillard (€35).
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