It’s for almost 2 years that I wanted to revisit Sir Kwinten!! Last time I was at Sir Kwinten I was not feeling 100% and got sicker by the minute…so I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I had hoped back then.  Now a friend of mine, who lives in Lennik (which is the town where Sir Kwinten is located), wanted to have dinner, so  it seemed like the perfect excuse for me to revisit Sir Kwinten. Very glad I did as it was a night to remember!! The type of kitchen they serve at Sir Kwinten is exactly the type I like best, ‘simple’ brought in a special way – revisited classics if you will :-). I say simple, but there’s more to it obviously… I just mean that they are able to serve you culinary heaven just using few ingredients of impeccable quality and at a correct price (not overpriced basically).

If I would have to rank Sir Kwinten I would put it in my top 5 favorite restaurants together with Les Eleveurs and my all time favourite Pazzo Antwerp!! If I would live closer I would definitely be a regular. On their menu you find classics like a “sole meunière” or a good “entrecôte” with homemade French fries as well as revisited classics and innovative dishes (innovative but not too complicated!)… A restaurant that puts a big smile on my face!! They also renewed the restaurant’s looks in something more modern, very nice and very comfy chairs!

Sir Kwinten is owned by one of Belgium’s best Sommeliers aka Yanick Dehandschutter, so getting served great wines is a known fact. What is great about being in the hands of a top sommelier is that they want to let you enjoy some new discoveries they made and ‘get you to learn more about wine and be as astonished as much as they were when they discovered it (that’s called passion btw.) . Who am I to stop them 🙂 Just sit back and relax I’d say! The discovery of the evening (even of the month) was a Belgian Chardonnay Barrique by Crutzberg!!

Something Yannick tends to do is serve people wine without telling which one it is and let people think about it for a while. Not really to be able to name the exact wine, but more to take away pre-judgements people might have if a wine comes from particular country or place. Plus you’ll be more surprised sometimes when you’re told which wine it is and from where it is….This is exactly what happened with us with the Chardonnay from Crutzberg… not that I would pre-judge Belgian wines as I’m a big fan!!!! (Became even bigger fan thanks to my friends from Belgian Wines) I didn’t and would have never guessed this wine came from Belgium… Result of this is that I’m trying to get hold of a few bottles for myself to pass on this discovery to my friends and family. Isn’t that what a restaurant experience should be all about? Getting to know something you have never tried before and want more of it 🙂

My friend and I chose the 4 course menu not that the ‘à la carte’ dishes didn’t fancy me, but my friend forced me to take the menu… If I can make people happy by such a small gesture I do it. I’m such an easy person if you look at it, my wife is such a lucky person 🙂 🙂 Feast your eyes on the menu we had:

We started with a few appetizers: 1^st was local Fresh cheese with radish, eel and buckwheat. For the other dishes I confess I know they were veeeeeeery tasty and that there was something with Lamb, goose liver and a veal tartar with beetroot and kohlrabi… but that’s as far as I remember it as I wasn’t really planning on writing a blogpost (rather enjoy and relax), but I had such a great evening I just had to write and share 🙂 To accompany these appetizers we had rose bubbles from my dear friend Luis Pato adding a bit of fruitiness to harmonize our appetizers

We continued our meal with for me Limousin veal (3 different preparations) with Jerusalem artichoke, chestnut and miso. For my friend a revisited “Chicon gratin” (chicory) . Let’s say we didn’t feel like sharing food and they were able to put the plates right back in the cupboard (we emptied them well). These dishes got accompanied by the wonderful Belgian white wine I described earlier.

The next dish in line was  Pieterman (Weever fish) with Vichyssoise (potato and leek),  butternut and purslane that was served with a Romanian white wine aka Budureasca Fume… again very impressed, I didn’t know they made wine of this quality!! Definitely I would have never picked myself if I would have seen it on a wine list (damn pre-judgements).

As main dish a pleasant pheasant 🙂 with cantharel mushrooms, parsnip and rillettes… with which we didn’t get 1 wine, noooooo sire we got 3 that matched perfectly with them… again here e didn’t know which ones we had… I did immediately recognized the 2010 Barolo (by Marziano Abbona) amongst them 🙂 The other 2 were a Bulgaria Allegro Barbaro Marselan, which is a more classic taste because of the syrah/merlot blend (80% merlot). The 3^rd one was a French Cuvée violette by Clau de Nell, less my cup of tea on its own, but it worked with the dish 🙂 what disturbs me about this wine is the ‘bio/natural’ taste in it… dunno what it exactly is but I know I don’t like it 🙂 but again it worked perfectly with the dish.

We finished off with some tangerine with almond, white chocolate and lemongrass served with a Belgian icewine by Hoenshof … in contrast to what you think I must say this icewine was really good!! Not too sweet FYI, for those who don’t know what icewine is, they basically freeze the grapes at a temperature of -8°C and at when grapes are frozen they press them to get the most concentrated juice out of them…(in a few words)

I had a delightful evening filled with amazing food and wines!! Can’t wait for my next Sir Kwinten experience!! Thanks to Yanick and his team!!