How far is Brasserie Chez Clément from Waterloo?

For a British visitor on the Waterloo pilgrimage, the Genval / La Hulpe corridor is the natural lunchtime base. From the 1815 battlefield to Chez Clément at Rue de la Bruyère 230, count roughly fifteen minutes by car, usually via the N5 (the historic Brussels-Charleroi road) and the N275 across Lasne. The drive crosses some of the most peaceful countryside in Walloon Brabant, and ends ten metres from the communal border of La Hulpe.

The brasserie has been a fixture of the area for far longer than the battlefield's modern museum infrastructure. Founded in 1858 as the “Bruyère à la Croix” coaching inn by Henri and Sidonie Clément, the house was originally placed at the crossroads of the routes to Wavre, Brussels, Charleroi and Namur, the same kind of strategic carrefour where, four decades earlier, the armies of 1815 had moved. Five generations later, Marie and Gilles Verleyen continue the family thread, with a brigade of thirty-two led by chef Vincent Frédéric De Laloy.

Practically, the choreography is straightforward. A morning visit to the Lion's Mound, the Wellington Museum and the 1815 Memorial centre tends to wrap by 12:30 or 1 p.m., in time for the brasserie's lunch service (noon to 2:30 p.m.). For visitors with a longer day, the dinner service runs from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., and the bar between services from noon to 1 a.m. The house is open seven days a week, including the Sundays and bank holidays when the battlefield typically draws its largest crowds.

For groups, coach access is straightforward, and the large free car park ten metres from the entrance accommodates cars and minibuses. Many Waterloo-themed tour operators include a lunch stop at Genval / La Hulpe as part of their full-day programme, logically so, given that the corridor's gastronomic depth is more interesting than the battlefield's immediate vicinity.