What is the Chez Clément Pétanque Tournament?

The Pétanque Tournament is one of the four signature events of Brasserie Chez Clément, alongside the weekly Thursday disco nights (launched by France Clément in the mid-1990s), the October Raclette season with Swiss cheesemakers on site, and the Apéros rendezvous around the permanent bar. It takes place once a year, in September (Sunday 20 September for the 2026 edition), and gathers around fifty teams. It is one of the most convivial moments of the calendar, pistes are set up on the brasserie's grounds and matches roll on through the day from morning to late afternoon.

The format is well worn: registration and the first rounds in the morning, the Pétanque lunch around midday in the dining room or on the terrace depending on the weather, then the elimination phases through the afternoon and the final at the end of the day. The brasserie seats 230 in normal configuration, and the kitchen led by Vincent Frédéric De Laloy, chef in the house since 1996, with a brigade of thirty-two, absorbs the grouped lunch service without difficulty. The result is a tournament where the food side and the boules side weigh equally; both are properly looked after.

The tournament sits inside a long Belgian tradition: Pétanque as an end-of-summer ritual, closing the season and easing the return to cooler evenings. It is also one of the most effective ways for newer residents of the Walloon Brabant, Genval, La Hulpe, Rixensart, Wavre, to find their way into the community of regulars at the brasserie. Registration is not limited to the existing regulars; the tournament is open to residents of the region and to passing public.

Under Marie and Gilles Verleyen, the fifth generation in charge since 2021 under the J and JJ Brasserie SA banner, the tournament has carried on in the same spirit it had before. The brasserie itself, rooted in Genval soil since 1858 (founded by first-generation Henri and Sidonie Clément as the inn “Bruyère à la Croix”), provides the long backdrop. The gigantic free car park directly opposite the brasserie, ten metres from the entrance, makes it easy to host fifty teams and their supporters in a single day.