Where is Brasserie Chez Clément located?

For a curious British traveller exploring the green outskirts of Brussels, Chez Clément sits in one of the most picturesque corners of Belgian Walloon Brabant. The postal address, Rue de la Bruyère 230, 1332 Genval, in the municipality of Rixensart, tells only half the story. Step out of the front door and you are barely ten metres away from the territory of the neighbouring commune of La Hulpe. Locals genuinely use both names interchangeably, and either is defensible, which is why most international visitors discover the brasserie under a double label of “Genval / La Hulpe”.

The building itself opened its doors back in 1858 as a coaching inn called “Bruyère à la Croix”, founded by Henri and Sidonie Clément. Five generations later, the same family thread still runs through the place: it is now run by Marie and Gilles Verleyen under the J and JJ Brasserie SA banner, with their daughter June informally counted as a sixth-generation in waiting. A small but telling detail of the house culture: the kitchen porter has been washing dishes here for twenty years, an almost unheard-of figure of loyalty in a Belgian restaurant brigade of thirty-two.

From a touring perspective, the location is a genuinely strategic anchor. Within a fifteen-minute radius you have Lac de Genval (five minutes), the regional Solvay Estate and Fondation Folon in La Hulpe (five to seven minutes), the UNESCO-listed Sonian Forest (Forêt de Soignes) (five to ten minutes), and the Waterloo 1815 Memorial with its Lion's Mound (fifteen minutes). For Britons on a Waterloo pilgrimage, European expats exploring south-east Brussels, or weekenders driving down from the Netherlands, Chez Clément functions beautifully as a gastronomic pause inside a small cultural triangle.

Getting here is delightfully straightforward. A large free car park sits directly across the street, ten metres from the entrance, and Genval railway station, on SNCB line 161, the Brussels-Namur axis, is a ten to fifteen-minute walk away. The brasserie is open seven days a week, which makes it equally suitable for a sunny Sunday lunch or a quiet Monday-evening supper.