On our trip to Leuven, after our great meal at Fragma we went to EssenCiel for lunch, which has one-star Michelin. 

EssenCiel belongs to the young chef Niels Brants and his partner Romina Charels, both were formed at Nuance, the two stars Michelin in Duffel, Belgium under the chef Thierry Theys. 

The restaurant is small with maximum 20 seats, but it has an elegant design with open kitchen where we can see the chef and his team at work. On the basement, there is a private room with a view on the wine cellar for groups. 

The menu for lunch was quite reasonable, for three courses menu are 45 euros, four courses are 66 euros and five courses are 88 euros. 

We started our lunch with a beautiful and delicious cocktail bases on citrus and bergamot and three delicacies as amuse-bouche. There were three types of bread served for our lunch a mini olive focaccia, a brioche and a mini baguette, all perfectly baked. 

Our entrée was a small scallop, otoro and bergamot which was conceived like tapas where we can swallow in bite and our main dish was a haddock fish cooked with seasonal vegetables like yellow carrots and Jerusalem artichoke, it was so good that we forgot to take a picture of the dish. The dessert, the chocolate from Madagascar, hibiscus and equinox was a beautiful treat to end our meal.

Our hostess and sommelier were very pertinence in her suggestion of wines by glass, the Spanish wine “Y tu de quien eres?” 2019 and the Italien wine Trej from Grasso family 

The service by our hostess was very nice, casual and relax. 

EssenCiel was an excellent choice for lunch, the food, the service and the wines are top notch.

EssenCiel

Naamsestraat 47,

3000 Leuven, Belgium

Téléphone :+32 16 29 06 00

www.essenciel.be

Fragma restaurant is a real find and we have a huge “coup de Coeur” because it got everything we love. First the setting in an old historic building located in the Bondgenotenlaan in Leuven. A building with a lot of character and a beautiful large garden. The interior has a sober design with a Scandinavian feel. Two, the location which is ten minutes’ walk from the central train station of Leuven and most of all the food by Kevin Gijsembergt, a young and very talented chef.

The menu entitled Fragments from the season was a great introduction to Kevin Gijsembergt culinary universe. The meal was served in seven steps plus the usual amuse-bouche and sweets.

Every dish was a delicacy and a work of art, the composition of the dish, the flavors and the quality of its ingredients, all perfectly cooked. From the raw oyster with carrot and sesame’s structure to the smoked eel with pumpkin and onion dashi and the deer from the Ardennes slowly cooked with eggplant & game sauce with tonka bean to the tarte tatin with parsnip & hazelnut ice cream.

The wine list was amazing but for our dinner, we chose to pair with our meal five non-alcoholic drinks which were very original and stunningly good. 

The service by our hostess and sommelier was very kind, professional and very attentive to our Littleboboon Junior.

Fragma restaurant is a must when visiting Leuven and it is only 28 minutes by train from Brussels.

Fragma

Bondgenotenlaan 114,

3000 Leuven, Belgium

Telephone:+32 16 90 66 12

www.restaurantfragma.be

Ziya restaurant in Mumbai is a modern Indian restaurant, with menus by the Michelin star chef Vineet Bhatia. The restaurant is located in the elegant Oberoi hotel in Mumbai with breathtaking panoramic views of the Mumbai bay and the Arabian sea.

Ziya got great reviews in the press everywhere in India and we had high expectations when we went there for dinner on Sunday November 3rd 2019. Probably too high in respect to the reputation of Vineet Bhatia, but our dinner fell a little bit short: every bite was good, tasty but compared to our lunch earlier at Ishaara, the cooking was less refined and one notch below. Our Ziya Tasting menu was not well balanced and a little too copious to our taste.

The wine list was excellent, especially for Indian wines. All fifteen French guests at our dinner were amazed and greatly surprised by the quality and finesse of the Indian wines we drank, be it white or red.

The service was top notch as expected in such a high-end venue.

Dining at Ziya was a nice experience, but somehow it left us a little bit frustrated probably because we had too great expectation from Vineet Bhata.

Ziya

The Oberoi, Mumbai,

Nariman Point, Mumbai,

Maharashtra 400021, India

Tel : +91 22 6632 6210

www.oberoihotels.com/hotels-in-mumbai/restaurants/ziya/

Initially, we wanted to lunch at the Sant Anton market in Madrid, but by the time we got there on Saturday November 9^th 2019 at 2pm all the restaurants and Tapas bars were full, so we had to improvise and find a place to eat for the seven of us.

By chance after walking five minutes away from the market and turning onto the Calle de Pelayo at number 4, we found Gastronomaquia, The name and the look of the restaurant appealed to us and by checking the menu all of us wanted to taste their cooking.

It was our lucky day as they had one big table left, near the kitchen, that could sit our party of seven. Everything on the menu looked good, so we decided to order several entrées to share such as mushroom croquettes, tuna tartar, grilled goat cheese and tiradito Gastronomaquia. These entrées confirmed our first impression: they were all tasty and pretty good, but the best was yet to come with their “A Banda” rice, their own version of the paella with mussels, clams and gambas. To conclude this very nice lunch, we had a Mojito sorbet and chocolate cake, both delicious.

The wine list was very interesting, the white wines particularly caught our attention and we selected a dry white wine from the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries called Bermejo Seco. This too was a lucky and amazing find.

The service was very nice and welcoming.

Gastronomaquia was a genuine serendipity and a good alternative from the eateries at Sant Anton mercado. It deserves to be discovered when you travel to Madrid.

Gastronomaquia

Calle de Pelayo, 4,

28004 Madrid, Espagne

Tel:  +34 915 22 64 13

www.gastromaquia.es