Brussels and the Pursuit of Chocolate

Belgium does not apologise for its obsessions. In a country that has elevated brewing, architecture and surrealism to the level of national philosophy, chocolate occupies its own distinct place: something closer to culture than craft, as central to the country's identity as its quirky humour. To understand this is to understand Brussels itself.

The city has always known how to take pleasure seriously. In the Sablon, where antique dealers and chocolatiers have kept each other company for generations, the chocolatier's window is lit like a jeweller's – rows of ganaches arranged with the care of a museum collection. The Grand Place, just 56 steps from Hotel Amigo, blazes with gilded extravagance. Nearby, beneath the vaulted glass ceiling of the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, Europe's oldest shopping arcade, and still one of its most beautiful, the praline was born.

Chocolate arrived in Belgium via the port of Antwerp in the seventeenth century, a luxury reserved for nobility, served as a hot drink at court and in the grandest houses of the city. It remained the preserve of the privileged for two centuries, until industrialisation, and Belgium's growing access to cocoa, brought it within reach of a nation. The story has a satisfying precision. In 1912, Jean Neuhaus Jr created the first praline, a hollow chocolate shell cradling a soft filling of cream or ganache. For the final touch of elegance, his wife Louise created the ballotin – that gift box which remains, more than a century later, the definitive way Belgian chocolate is presented.

Few countries have a relationship with a single ingredient as defining as Belgium's with chocolate. Over two thousand chocolatiers practice their craft across the country today, drawing on fine art, architecture and a particular national instinct for taking beauty seriously. The act of choosing chocolate here – the ritual of it, the deliberate pleasure – is, in its own quiet way, a form of wellness. Small moments of joy, of melting stillness in an otherwise fast-paced world.

Science has long agreed. Indeed, the nineteenth-century chemist Baron Justus von Liebig called it "as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power." And the research has only deepened since. Dark chocolate is particularly beneficial, containing over three hundred compounds, among them anandamide – derived from the Sanskrit for inner bliss – and theobromine, a mild, sustained stimulant that lifts mood with none of caffeine's edge. The benefits are most pronounced in chocolate with a high cocoa content and minimal processing – precisely the standard to which Belgium's finest makers have always worked. 

It is then, one might note, a particularly convenient truth that the pursuit of exceptional chocolate, and the pursuit of good health are part of the same journey. For those in Brussels, this is excellent news.

Nowhere is that standard more inventively celebrated than with Bel'Oeuf – an exhibition founded by Brussels chocolatier Marc Ducobu – which gathers the country's finest makers around a single creative theme, asking each to respond through the particular language of their craft. This year: pleasure in motion. Ducobu found his inspiration in Brussels' AutoWorld museum and in the sinuous, organic architecture of Victor Horta, whose four Brussels houses carry UNESCO World Heritage status. That a chocolatier should look to an Art Nouveau master for direction feels, in this city, entirely inevitable. The results – sculptural, extraordinary, kinetic in spirit – are on display at Hotel Amigo from 2-8 April, with proceeds from each piece going to Télévie, supporting vital cancer research.

Belgian chocolate has always found its audience. What distinguishes the moment now is the ambition with which it carries its own history – and the conviction that the craft itself is worth making a journey for.

Discover Brussels through its most beloved craft, with Hotel Amigo.