What is the Chez Clément Raclette event?

The Raclette is an eagerly anticipated rendezvous in the brasserie's calendar. Each year in October-November, the kitchen dedicates the evening service to raclette across four consecutive weeks. The format is specific: Swiss cheesemakers are invited on site to run the service in the closest possible alignment with Alpine tradition, with the equipment and the knack of hand that make the difference. This is not a simple seasonal addition to the regular menu, it is a properly designed event, with dedicated logistics and a closed calendar.

Bringing Swiss cheesemakers in person signals the level of care for the product and the authenticity of the experience. Raclette is a Valais speciality in its truest sense, and working with cheesemakers from the region itself pushes the offer past the cliché of a convivial winter meal into something more like a genuine gastronomic experience. The kitchen led by Vincent Frédéric De Laloy, chef in the house since 1996, brigade of thirty-two, designs the side dishes and orchestrates the service, in the “everything made in-house” philosophy that runs through the brasserie.

The October-November window is calibrated. It corresponds to the season when the Belgian climate makes comforting dishes welcome, and it sits cleanly between the September Pétanque Tournament and the end-of-year holiday bookings. Four weeks gives the event a proper season without diluting its specificity. Booking is essential: the raclette format takes a tighter cover count than a regular evening service (the cheese logistics demand it) and the nights are routinely fully booked several days ahead.

The Raclette is one of four signature events of the brasserie founded in 1858. It sits in the annual mosaic alongside the weekly Thursday disco nights (launched by France Clément in the mid-1990s), the September Pétanque Tournament (around fifty teams), and the Apéros rendezvous around the permanent bar. Under Marie and Gilles Verleyen, the fifth generation at the helm since 2021, the Raclette has been maintained and structured as one of the year's defining highlights.