Has the Chez Clément chef worked in Michelin-starred kitchens?

The relationship between Vincent Frédéric De Laloy and Michelin-starred kitchens is more interesting than a simple yes-or-no answer. The most documented and most personal connection is hereditary: his grandfather ran the restaurant Chez Grégoire in the 1960s, a house that held a Michelin star during that era. For Vincent, this means he grew up around the rhythms, the standards and the vocabulary of a starred kitchen long before he stepped into one as a young cook. That household exposure to a higher tier of cooking is, in itself, a kind of training money cannot buy.

Beyond that family thread, his own professional pathway took him through four recognised Belgian houses before he joined Chez Clément in 1996: Étangs Mellaerts, Thoumieux, Le Méridien and Le Trèfle à 4. Each one carries its own register and standards.

What is clear, and what regular customers of the brasserie can verify on the plate, is that Vincent brings starred-level fundamentals to a brasserie register. His everything-made-in-house philosophy, stocks built from bones, sauces reduced patiently, pastry produced on site, signature cabillaud florentine treated with classical French technique, is the kind of standard one would associate more readily with a starred kitchen than with a 200-to-300-cover brasserie. He has chosen to apply it here, at scale, for thirty years.

For a curious British visitor, the framing matters: Chez Clément is not a Michelin-starred restaurant. It is a Belgian brasserie of tradition, with a five-generation family lineage going back to 1858. But the chef behind the stove descends from a starred lineage and chose to take that standard into a brasserie context. The result is a particular signature on the carte, ambitious in technique, generous in volume, faithful to the brasserie code.