What to eat in Brussels

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• What else should the list cover? Desserts and pastriesNon-alcoholic drinksLocal alcohol

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1. Eat moules-frites

   A pot of mussels cooked in white wine with leek and celery, with a separate portion of fries. You use an empty shell as tongs for the rest.

   Mussels still closed after cooking are not eaten. The season runs September to February, and the broth at the bottom is mopped with bread or dipped fries.

2. Get fries from a fritkot

   Thick-cut potatoes fried twice in beef fat, served in a paper cone with a spoon of sauce on top. The first fry cooks the inside, the second builds the crust.

   There are fifteen sauces: andalouse, samouraï, piccalilli, tartare. The classic is mayonnaise rather than ketchup, spooned straight into the cone.

3. Try carbonnade flamande

   Beef braised in dark beer with onion, mustard and a slice of spice bread that dissolves and thickens the sauce. The sweet-bitter note comes from the beer rather than sugar.

   The spice bread, spread with mustard, goes straight into the pot, and that is the trick of the sauce. It is served with fries rather than mash.

4. Try waterzooi

   A chicken or fish stew in broth enriched with cream and egg yolk, with julienned vegetables. A Ghent dish, gentle and without a single sharp note.

   The fish version is older than the chicken one and harder to find. It comes with boiled potatoes, and the broth is eaten with a spoon like soup.

5. Try grey shrimp croquettes

   Crisp croquettes filled with a thick mixture of North Sea grey shrimp, served with fried parsley and lemon. The shrimp are tiny and peeled by hand, hence the price.

   Grey shrimp are smaller than pink ones and noticeably sweeter. The filling should flow inside rather than sit as a dense paste.

6. Try stoemp

   Mashed potato beaten together with vegetables — carrot, leek, cabbage — and served with a sausage or bacon. Brussels home food from the old cafés.

   The vegetables are mashed in rather than placed alongside. It appears in old café-brasseries as a dish of the day rather than a menu fixture.

7. Try boulets à la liégeoise

   Large meatballs in a sweet-and-sour sauce built on pear and apple syrup with onion. A Walloon dish served with fries, and unexpectedly sweet.

   Sirop de Liège is thick, almost black, made from reduced fruit without added sugar. The sweet-savoury pairing is a tradition rather than an experiment.

8. Try chicons au gratin

   Chicory heads wrapped in ham and baked under cheese and béchamel. The bitterness of the chicory against the sweet sauce is the entire point.

   The chicory is grown in the dark near Brussels, which gives it the white colour and mild bitterness. A winter dish, rarely cooked in summer.

9. Try filet américain

   Raw beef chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, capers, onion and seasoning, served with fries and toast. The Belgian tartare, and it is everywhere here.

   Unlike French tartare it arrives already mixed rather than assembled at the table. Butchers also sell it as a spread for bread.

10. Try abbey cheeses

    Semi-hard washed-rind cheeses from monastery dairies: Chimay, Maredsous, Herve. They smell stronger than they taste, and come with sirop de Liège.

    Herve is Belgium's only protected-origin cheese and the most pungent. It is served with the same dark pear syrup that goes with boulets.

11. Try both kinds of waffle Desserts and pastries

    The Liège waffle is dense and oval with caramelised pearl sugar inside, eaten with your hands. The Brussels waffle is light and rectangular, dusted with sugar and eaten with a fork.

    A Liège waffle is eaten plain; the sugar is already inside. A mountain of cream and strawberries on top means the waffle was made for visitors.

12. Buy pralines Desserts and pastries

    Filled chocolates, invented in Brussels at the start of the twentieth century. Bought by weight at a chocolatier, who assembles the box in front of you.

    Real pralines keep only a couple of weeks because they contain fresh cream. Ask for an alcohol-free selection if you are travelling with them.

13. Try speculoos Desserts and pastries

    A crisp spiced biscuit with cinnamon and brown sugar, served automatically with coffee. The same biscuit is ground into a spread for bread.

    It comes free with coffee almost everywhere, which is standard rather than a gesture. Moulded versions with images of Saint Nicholas appear in December.

14. Drink hot chocolate Non-alcoholic drinks

    Hot milk with real chocolate stirred into it rather than powder: thick and not cloying. Good places serve the chocolate as a block on a stick.

    Ask for it made with milk rather than water; the difference is large. A speculoos comes alongside as standard.

15. Try lambic and gueuze Local alcohol

    Beer fermented spontaneously on the wild yeasts of the Senne valley: sour, dry and nothing like ordinary beer. Gueuze blends young and aged lambic; kriek uses cherries.

    Start with kriek or faro if sourness is unfamiliar; they are gentler. A real kriek is made with whole cherries rather than syrup and is dry, not sweet.

16. Try a trappist beer Local alcohol

    Beer brewed inside a working monastery under the monks' control: full-bodied, strong and fruity from the yeast. Fewer than a dozen such breweries exist worldwide.

    Eight to ten per cent is normal, which is why the glasses are small. Each beer has its own glass, and serving it in the wrong one is considered a mistake.