Humus & Hortense
An intimate Brussels vegan fine-dining room, once named world's best, with zero-waste cocktails, garden-grown produce and vegetable-led desserts.
Humus & Hortense does not so much cook vegetables as choreograph them. Named the world’s best vegan restaurant at the 2019 We’re Smart Taste Summit in Amsterdam, this Brussels dining room is the product of an unusual partnership: an expert mixologist and a chef set on making vegetables perform at their absolute best.
The kitchen’s discipline is genuine. A roots-to-leaf approach keeps food waste to a minimum, and that thinking extends to the bar, where zero-waste cocktails turn unused herbs into infusions and fermentations. Ingredients are organic, seasonal and local wherever possible, much of it grown in the restaurant’s own garden.
The room itself is intimate, designed for a convivial mood, with an interior that sets Art Nouveau against stately Baroque, stucco ceiling and all. It is a setting that takes the food as seriously as the food takes itself.
And the plates earn the attention. Here texture, appearance and aroma matter as much as flavour, which makes much of the menu strikingly photogenic. Vegetables dominate, naturally, turning up even in dessert, in the form of candied beetroot and the like.
For travellers who want plant-forward dining at its most considered, Humus & Hortense is a Luxa Terra kind of restaurant: proof the most sustainable kitchen in the room can also be the most exciting one. Book ahead; the room is small and the reputation is not.
