Restaurant in Geraardsbergen, Belgium
Michelin-recognised, easy to book, underrated.

Zicht holds a Michelin Plate for 2024 and 2025 at a €€ price point, making it one of the most compelling value propositions in East Flanders. Chef Kwinten Boelen produces technically confident modern cooking with a strong vegetable focus in a calm, conversation-friendly room. Easy to book and worth the detour for food explorers visiting the Flemish Ardennes.
If you are weighing up whether to drive to Ghent or Bruges for a Michelin-recognised dinner, consider this first: Zicht in Geraardsbergen holds a Michelin Plate for both 2024 and 2025 at a €€ price point, which is a combination that is genuinely difficult to find in Belgian fine dining. The obvious regional alternative for a special-occasion meal is one of the €€€€ addresses in East or West Flanders, but at Zicht you get technically confident modern cooking without the €200-per-head commitment. For explorers who track down regional talent before it becomes widely known, Zicht is worth the trip.
Zicht is a modern cuisine restaurant on Guilleminlaan in Geraardsbergen, a town in East Flanders perhaps better known for its Flemish ardennes cycling terrain than for its dining scene. Chef Kwinten Boelen leads the kitchen, and the Michelin assessors have noted that dishes are beautifully constructed, tasty, and recognisable, with vegetables given a meaningful role on the plate. That last point matters for how you book: if you are vegetarian or plant-forward, the current menu does not yet offer a fully vegetable-only track, though vegetables feature prominently across the cooking. Worth flagging to the kitchen when you reserve.
The atmosphere at Zicht reads as the kind of considered, settled room that regional Flemish restaurants often do well: not the high-energy noise of a Brussels brasserie, not the reverential hush of a three-star dining room. The energy is calm enough for conversation throughout the meal, which makes it a better fit for a table of two working through a long dinner than for a group looking for a lively night out. If ambient noise level is your primary concern, Zicht is on the quieter end of the spectrum, which is a practical advantage for anyone who finds Ghent's busier restaurants tiring.
Geraardsbergen is a town where tourism follows cycling events and weekend day-trippers from Brussels and Ghent, roughly an hour away by car in either direction. A Friday or Saturday evening booking gives you the full experience without the weekday risk of a reduced kitchen team at a young restaurant still building its operation. Spring and early autumn, when the surrounding Flemish Ardennes are at their most appealing, are natural moments to pair a meal at Zicht with a broader visit to the region. Midweek lunch, if Zicht offers it, would likely be the path of least resistance on booking, but confirm directly since hours are not publicly listed in available data.
Zicht's editorial angle here is worth addressing directly: the cooking at Zicht is described as beautifully constructed, which typically signals plated precision that is designed for eating in the room, not in a takeaway box. Modern Belgian cuisine at this level, with vegetables as a structural element rather than a garnish, is format-sensitive. The dish architecture that earns Michelin recognition generally does not survive a 30-minute journey in a container. If off-premise dining is your primary need, Zicht is not the right choice. The value proposition here is entirely about sitting down in the restaurant. That said, for a food traveller who plans a full evening around a regional discovery, the €€ price point means you can easily extend the night across the wider Geraardsbergen area without strain on the budget. Check our full Geraardsbergen bars guide and Geraardsbergen experiences guide to build out the evening.
A 4.8 Google rating across 116 reviews is a strong signal for a regional restaurant of this size. At €€, the value-for-recognition ratio is among the more compelling in East Flanders. For context, Vrijmoed in Gent and Boury in Roeselare operate at €€€€ with higher Michelin recognition, but they are also significantly harder to book and considerably more expensive.
Booking difficulty at Zicht is rated Easy. As a young restaurant in a smaller East Flemish town rather than a major city, you are unlikely to need more than a week or two of advance notice for most dates. Peak weekend slots in spring and autumn may fill faster as the restaurant's profile grows, so two to three weeks ahead is a sensible buffer. Phone and website details are not listed in currently available data; check our full Geraardsbergen restaurants guide for updated contact information.
| Venue | Price | Location | Michelin | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zicht | €€ | Geraardsbergen | Plate 2025 | Easy |
| Vrijmoed | €€€€ | Gent | Star | Hard |
| Boury | €€€€ | Roeselare | Star | Hard |
| La Durée | €€€€ | Izegem | Star | Moderate |
| Cuchara | €€€€ | Lommel | Star | Moderate |
For a food traveller willing to leave the well-worn Brussels-Bruges-Ghent circuit, Zicht is a genuinely interesting stop. Two consecutive Michelin Plates, a 4.8 Google score, and a €€ price point make a credible case. The caveat for plant-forward diners is real: if you need a fully vegetable-only menu, raise it when booking and make sure the kitchen can accommodate you, because the current format has not formalised that option. For everyone else, particularly those pairing dinner with a cycling or hiking visit to the Flemish Ardennes, Zicht functions as the kind of regional find that food explorers return to. Broader context on the Belgian modern cuisine scene is available through our guides to Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem, Zilte in Antwerp, and Willem Hiele in Oudenburg, all of which operate at higher price points but help calibrate where Zicht sits in the regional picture.
Further reading: Geraardsbergen hotels — Geraardsbergen wineries , Bozar Restaurant in Brussels , Le Chalet de la Forêt in Uccle , d'Eugénie à Emilie in Baudour , Ralf Berendsen in Neerharen , Frantzén in Stockholm , Maison Lameloise in Chagny
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zicht | Modern Cuisine | €€ | Chef Kwinten Boelen is going for it. His team and his restaurant Zicht have everything to become the regional "place to be". The dishes are beautifully constructed, tasty, recognizable and vegetables get a nice place. We miss the possibility of 100% vegetable choice dishes, something the young restaurant still has to work on. Perhaps the guests themselves should take the initiative by encouraging the chef. We are certainly not troubled by his cooking skills!; Michelin Plate (2025); Michelin Plate (2024) | Easy | — |
| Boury | Modern Frlemish, Creative French | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star | Unknown | — |
| Comme chez Soi | French - Belgian, Classic Cuisine | €€€€ | Michelin 1 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Vrijmoed | Modern Flemish, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
| La Durée | French-Belgian, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
| Cuchara | Modern European, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
What to weigh when choosing between Zicht and alternatives.
Booking at Zicht is rated easy, so a few days' notice should be sufficient in most cases. As a young modern cuisine restaurant in Geraardsbergen rather than Ghent or Brussels, demand is real but not overwhelming. Weekend slots around cycling events may fill faster, so aim for mid-week if you want maximum flexibility.
Yes, with caveats. Two consecutive Michelin Plates (2024, 2025) and Chef Kwinten Boelen's precise, vegetable-forward cooking give it the credentials for a celebratory dinner at a €€ price point, which makes it genuinely good value against city-based Michelin alternatives. If a fully vegetarian menu matters to your group, note that a 100% vegetable tasting option is not yet available.
Specific menu items are published details are limited, so ordering to a plan is difficult. What the Michelin editorial flags is that vegetables are handled particularly well here, so lean into those dishes rather than defaulting to the most protein-forward choices. If a vegetable-led option is listed, it is likely where Boelen's cooking shows most clearly. Check the venue's official channels for the latest details.
Bar or counter seating details are not confirmed in the venue data. At a restaurant of this scale in Geraardsbergen, a traditional table booking is the safe assumption. check the venue's official channels via Guilleminlaan 151 or check for online reservation options before expecting a bar walk-in format.
Within Geraardsbergen itself, documented alternatives at the same recognition level are limited, which is part of Zicht's case for the drive. For comparable modern Belgian cuisine with stronger city infrastructure, Vrijmoed in Ghent and Boury in Roeselare both hold higher Michelin recognition but require more advance booking and carry higher price points.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.