Are there really fewer and fewer Belgian restaurants?
In many Belgian towns, the same observation keeps returning: the neighbourhood brasserie closes, the menu of classics shrinks and it becomes harder to find distinctly Belgian cooking. Carbonnade, boulets, waterzooi, eels in green sauce and rabbit in beer sometimes seem to be giving way to faster, more international concepts. But does that impression actually match the figures?
The honest answer is nuanced. Belgium has no official statistics classifying restaurants by the nationality of their cuisine. Economic registers distinguish restaurants, cafés, caterers and accommodation, but not a Belgian brasserie from a pizzeria or a Japanese restaurant. We therefore cannot substantiate a claim that the exact number of Belgian-cuisine restaurants is declining nationwide.
Several solid indicators do show that a particular traditional restaurant model is under pressure. That is probably what we notice when we feel that ‘real Belgian restaurants’ are becoming rarer.
The total number of restaurants is not collapsing
Available data do not show a general collapse in hospitality. Le Forem recorded 28,304 hospitality establishments with employees in Belgium in 2023, compared with 27,515 in 2019. After the shock of 2020 and a rebound in 2021 and 2022, establishment numbers were broadly stable in 2023.
The more recent picture is less comfortable. According to Horeca Vlaanderen, Flanders had 19,523 establishments serving food at the end of 2024. After several years of growth between 2015 and 2021, numbers have fallen slightly each year since 2022, by around 0.35 to 0.50%. This is not mass disappearance, but it is a change of direction.
Turnover of businesses is also substantial. Again according to Horeca Vlaanderen, only 38% of VAT-registered food-service establishments started in Flanders in 2013 were still active ten years later. That does not mean all the others were Belgian restaurants, but the figure illustrates the profession's fragility and the difficulty of keeping an establishment going over time.
What is clearly declining is restaurant visits
The clearest signal comes from customer behaviour. A study commissioned by Comeos among 3,859 Belgians found that restaurant visits in 2023 had fallen by 10.8% compared with 2019. Over the same period, fast food's share of out-of-home consumption rose from 9.4% to 17.1%.
Edenred's 2024 barometer, based on more than 4,000 people, points in the same direction. Two Belgians in three still say they visit a restaurant at least monthly, but less often than five years earlier. For 53% of those cutting back, budget is the main reason. More than a third also say they spend less on restaurants than before.
In other words, traditional restaurants are competing with more than other cuisines. They compete with quick meals, delivery, ready meals and home cooking. When spending power tightens, a longer outing that costs more to provide becomes easier to postpone.
Belgian cuisine is still appreciated
Fewer visits do not mean rejection of our culinary heritage. An Apaq-W study conducted in 2023 among 1,000 French-speaking Belgians found that 65% of respondents appreciated restaurants serving Belgian cuisine. It ranked second, just behind Italian cuisine, mentioned by 71% of those surveyed.
Edenred also found that conventional restaurants were the most sought-after type of establishment, while brasseries, grills and mussel restaurants also held an important place. Demand therefore still exists. The problem lies less in Belgians' taste for their cuisine than in the economic conditions under which it must be prepared and served.
The Apaq-W study does identify a generational effect: people under 35 turn more towards Japanese cuisine and mention Belgian and French food less often. This shift does not condemn tradition, but requires restaurateurs to tell its story better and sometimes present it differently.
So why do Belgian restaurants seem to be disappearing?
1. Generous cooking that takes time
Many Belgian classics depend on long cooking, carefully made sauces, fresh ingredients and a real presence in the kitchen. They may look simple, but are rarely instant. When ingredients, energy and labour cost more, the model becomes difficult to balance without sharply raising the bill or reducing margins.
2. Fast food has changed habits
Fast food's growth does not mean Belgians no longer like carbonnade. It mainly shows that they more often seek something quick, predictable and compatible with a watched budget. A traditional restaurant must pay for a dining room, team, kitchen and hours of preparation that faster concepts can distribute differently.
3. Belgian classics sometimes change their name
Part of our cuisine has not disappeared: it has transformed. Chefs still use beer, chicory, brown shrimp, Herve cheese and sirop de Liège, but present them through seasonal cooking, a contemporary bistro or fine dining. An establishment may no longer call itself a ‘Belgian restaurant’ even when its identity is deeply rooted in local terroir.
4. Very large menus are becoming difficult to sustain
The old-style brasserie could offer a long list of stews, meat, fish, mussels and homemade desserts. With less regular customers and fresh ingredients harder to manage, that abundance becomes risky. Many establishments shorten their menus, change their concept or keep only a few emblematic Belgian dishes.
5. Passing a business on is fragile
A family restaurant often rests on recipes, techniques and organisation passed down over years. When it closes for lack of a successor, more than a business may disappear: sometimes it is a way of making a sauce, choosing an ingredient or welcoming regulars. High business turnover makes that continuity harder.
So are there really fewer Belgian restaurants?
We do not have the data needed for a categorical national yes. The total number of establishments has not collapsed, and Belgian cuisine remains highly appreciated. Announcing its disappearance would therefore be wrong.
But the feeling is not imaginary. Visits to traditional restaurants are falling, fast food is growing, some regions show slight erosion and independent establishments experience high turnover. What is becoming rarer is chiefly the family brasserie serving a broad menu of Belgian classics every day in a form almost unchanged for decades.
Belgian cuisine is not dying. It is in transition. To stay alive, it must preserve its flavours and expertise while adapting to shorter menus, greater respect for seasons and a new generation of customers.
Preserving our cuisine starts at the table
Culinary heritage does not survive only in recipe books. It survives when cooks keep preparing the dishes and customers keep ordering them. Choosing a regional dish, asking where an ingredient comes from, supporting an independent brasserie or passing on a family recipe are small actions, but they give tradition real economic value.
The aim is not to pit Belgian cuisine against food from elsewhere. Diversity is part of our towns' richness. It is rather to ensure that, among all those offerings, our own dishes retain a place, a history and artisans able to keep them alive.
Sources consulted
Statbel — Establishment and bankruptcy statistics: https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/entreprises
Le Forem — The hospitality sector in figures: https://www.leforem.be/infos-metiers/secteurs/horeca.html
Horeca Vlaanderen — The sector in 2024 and business survival: https://www.horecavlaanderen.be/nieuws/vtm-en-horeca-vlaanderen-slaan-handen-in-elkaar-voor-mijn-restaurant-winnaars-krijgen-geldprijs-en-professioneel-begeleidingstraject
Edenred Belgium — Restaurant Barometer 2024: https://www.edenred.be/fr/presse/les-belges-vont-moins-au-restaurant-quil-y-a-5-ans
Apaq-W — Study of hospitality consumption habits: https://www.apaqw.be/sites/default/files/uploads/Observatoire/2023/obs-edm-horeca210923.pdf
Comeos study reported by Belga — Changes in restaurant visits and fast food: https://www.telesambre.be/info/les-belges-vont-moins-au-resto-et-davantage-dans-les-fast-foods-selon-une-etude-de-comeos/60844
