De Kleine Zavel

I was here on October 4. It was hard to get the waiter’s attention and he got our order pretty messed up. The food was not very good. A low grade tourist place.

Recently two Australian friends flew into Belgium for a couple of days and spent one of them in Antwerp.
They had one request: choose a good restaurant for lunch.
Not too difficult in Antwerp. But as one of them was the daughter of a leading Australian winemaker, and the other was the owner of a resort in the wine producing region of the Hunter Valley close to Sydney — a resort that has a top class reputation for its food and wines and is a haven for Sydney foodies, my choice of restaurant had to be spot on.
No worries, mate.
I took them for lunch at De Kleine Zavel, which is located close to the Schelde and just a short walk from the Grote Markt, De Kleine Zavel has been one of my favourite Antwerp restaurants for a several years. In that time it has changed hands, but unlike so many restaurants when this happens, the quality of its cuisine, the standard of its wines, the attentive and friendly service has not changed one iota.
The restaurant has a casual bistro ambiance, its seating divided by old beer crates.
The menu changes regularly, and on the day I went there with my Aussie guests, it was, as usual, a hard choice to make.
In the end, one of them went for baked goat cheese with a tian of red beetroot and almond-​aïoli as a starter, while two of us chose the baked bacon, slowly cooked with hoisin sauce and served with spinach.
For the mains one of my guests had cod fish with cauliflower, parmesan sauce and grey shrimps; while the other chose a well laid out selection of raw tuna prepared in a dozen different ways. I went for a rack of lamb with ratatouille, polenta, saffron-​aïoli and tarragon gravy.
They shared an excellent Sancerre, while I did justice to an Argentinian medoc.
We all had a dame blanche for dessert, a vanilla ice cream with a wonderful hot house made chocolate sauce. For dietary reasons, I asked for an extra lashing of the sauce.
One of my guests insisted on paying the bill, so I did not see how much our lunch cost, but he did say after that he was most pleasantly surprised. Before we left, he made a beeline for the kitchen to thank the chef — and to give him a business card in case he was ever after a job in an Australian resort.
As a price guideline, De Kleine Zavel does a set lunch menu from Monday till Friday (12.00 to 14.00) with a starter, main, dessert and wine for 34 Euros, and a similar Sunday lunch menu for a few euros more.
It’s closed on Mondays and Saturday lunchtime.