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Popular with locals, this pub serves a good selection of beers (see In de Plantenmarkt).

A famous old estaminet (traditional pub), serving a range of dishes cooked with beer (see In ’t Spinnekopke).

Hop-shoots – a spring-time by-product of brewing, usually served in a cream sauce. They taste a bit like asparagus.

Mass market manufacturer of biscuits since 1886. Its distinctive blue-and-white boxes contain such refined delights as “almond thins”.

Lambic can be flavoured with cherries (formerly the cherries of the north Brussels orchards of Schaerbeek), added during fermentation to create a highly distinctive drink called kriek ; with raspberries, to make framboise ; or with candy sugar, to make faro . Of the three, newcomers may find faro the easiest to begin with.

A specialist beer bar with 500 brands, including what is claimed to be the world’s strongest beer (see Bierhuis Kulminator).

There were tens of thousands of lace-makers in 19th-century Belgium, many of them living in penury. That industry was undermined by the invention of lace-making machines, and to some degree it still is. If you want to buy proper, hand-made Belgian lace, go to a reputable shop, insist on a label of authenticity, and expect to pay a high price.

Lager, or pils , is a bottom-fermented beer: the yeast remains at the bottom of the brew (stronger, heavier ales tend to be top-fermented, which seals in more flavour). Although such light beers may be sniffed at by connoisseurs abroad, in Belgium they are brewed to a high standard. Despite its ubiquity, Interbrew’s famous Stella Artois, brewed at Leuven, is a good-quality lager.

In the valley of the Senne, the river that flows through Brussels, there is a natural airborne yeast called Brettanomyces . For centuries, brewers have simply left their warm wheat-beer wort uncovered during the winter months, and allowed air to deliver the yeast into it. The fermenting beer is then left to mature in wooden casks for a year or more. This creates a very distinctive beer, with a slightly winey edge, called lambic – the quintessential beer of Brussels.

One of the nation’s favourite chocolatiers. Less rich and less expensive than its rivals in the top league.