Last week I finally did it, I went to restaurant Nuance!  You cannot believe how many times I have rescheduled my reservation ( and the times I’ve been nagging to my girlfriend about this restaurant). Rescheduling at restaurant Nuance means  the next date will be a few months later…. As they are so busy.  Tone, distinction, both these words are synonyms for the word Nuance and are also the words that actually describe Nuance, as this is not your ordinary daily restaurant. This is the kind of restaurant you go to like an explorer trying to find undiscovered land, to experience the unknown.

I really wanted to try this restaurant for a long time now, I really wanted to taste/see  why all guides like  Michelin guide and Gault Millau (and a lot of other guides) highly awarded this 28 year old chef, Thierry  Theys, with 2 Michelin stars and a 17/20… And seeing him cook on Njam cooking channel didn’t make me less curious. ..

Like I said I was really glad I could finally try Nuance! I must also admit that I had set my standards pretty high, hoping that everything tastes as good as it looks…

Writing this blog post wasn’t easy,  as now more than ever I want to make sure you know how good it was and why it was like this.

At Restaurant Nuance you can choose  either eating  ‘à la carte’ or you can go for the 5 or 6 course menu both with or without  adapted wines. In case you would want a different wine, I’m sure the sommelier Steve Wullaert will be able to find the perfect wine to suit your mood.

We started our expedition the way I like best, with bubbles 🙂 and a never ending amount of amuse bouches 🙂 I think I have never received as much different tasters as here… (and I’ve already been to a few restaurants in my life)…. Oyster with a granite of  French sparkling wine, a composition of different prepared radish (yes radish) these are just 2 examples, but they really didn’t stop coming 🙂

We took the 5 courses, the reason, the sixth dish was Foie gras, and I don’t really like the taste…. I would have done an effort if my table guest would have insisted… but this wasn’t the case this time.

After having enjoyed the appetizers, Sommelier Steven  Wullaert came to introduce our first step in our expedition at restaurant Nuance. He introduced a white Austrian wine, Zierflander

A nice soft wine with lovely fruity aspects, but not too overwhelming, but a good start and a nice match with our first course Langoustine Royal, cream of langoustine, sea vegetables & avocado sushi cream.

Followed  by Danish Cod, Fresh pasta, salsify & bergamot with a Parmesan and black truffle jus. Served with a South-African  Ridgeback Viognier  white wine (FYI, South Africa is one of Steven’s preferred wine countries)

Our meaty dish of the night was Aubrac Cattle, 6 weeks maturation, Onion-peanut crunch, black garlic and celeriac with Meyer lemon juice.   Red wine: Can Blau

As you might remember, I like stonger wines, so Can Blau was already going into the good direction 😉

Our first dessert Rose, lychee & citrus  Buddhafingers served with a dessert wine. I’ll be honest that I don’t remember the name (guilty as charged) but I remember it was South African as if we could guess the country and grape, they wine would have been on the house 🙂 🙂 (FYI, we didn’t guess it 😦 )

We had to eat the ball you can see on the picture below as last… MAN, that was one taste bomb a mix of lychee, white chocolate and roses … incredible

To finish (our menu that is) with   “Nespresso Lovers”. An dish inspired by Nespresso

But it didn’t finish yet, with our coffee we also received a wide variety of little tasters… like freshly made (still warm) Madeleines, oliebol, macarons , a  sibérienne etc …

I have enjoyed this evening from the moment I walked in until the moment I went home. This was a wonderful experience! The dishes I liked most were the Langoustine and  the Cod, these two were simply heavenly. Not that I didn’t like everything else, but these two really overtopped the others, for me.  Saying this restaurant isn’t good would be a crime, that you maybe didn’t like everything you received is something else… as that is a matter of taste. If you were expecting to get ‘Flemish stew with French fries” well ok, the disappointed would have been big finding out you weren’t getting some 🙂  It is true, this is not a cheap restaurant, but I’ve already had worse food for much more money… and let’s be honest, this is not the type of restaurant you do every day (or at least, I don’t)  so that little extra doesn’t hurt anybody once in a while (I keep telling myself). I would really come back (hopefully on invitation of somebody else 😉 )

The 4 hours we spend here passed by so quickly, I didn’t even notice we were here so long. Not for 1 minute did I feel bored or had the impression something was going wrong in the kitchen… but then again this is to be expected from a top restaurant.

I would really like to thank Nuance and his team for making this a wonderful evening, I think this wasn’t my last time at your restaurant 🙂

I would like to thank my fellow explorers 🙂 Carlos, Stijn and Valentijn for making this night even better!

I still have one thing that isn’t clear for me though, I have been to a couple of 1 star restaurants and I’m still wondering what it is that gives that extra to receive a second Michelin star (or 17/20 instaid of a 16…). Maybe I’d have to follow the Michelin or Gault Millau guys for a day to understand this;-) 😉

Restaurant Nuance

Website: http://www.resto-nuance.be/

Address:

Kiliaanstraat 6-8

2570 Duffel, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0) 015 63 42 65