Restaurant in Tongeren, Belgium
Michelin-starred lunch in Belgium's oldest city.
De Mijlpaal holds a Michelin star for 2024 and 2025 and ranks on OAD's Classical Europe list, making it the strongest fine dining option in Tongeren at the €€€ tier. Chef Jan Menten's French-creative kitchen runs limited hours — closed Tuesday and Wednesday, dinner only on Saturday — so book two to three weeks out minimum. A clear yes for a considered occasion meal in Limburg.
De Mijlpaal holds a Michelin star for the second consecutive year (2024 and 2025), and Opinionated About Dining's Classical Europe list ranked it at #216 in 2024 before climbing to #353 in 2025 — a shift in ranking position that reflects a more competitive field, not a dip in kitchen quality. For a French-creative restaurant on Sint-Truiderstraat in Tongeren, a city better known for its antique markets than its dining scene, that credential carries real weight. If you've been once and enjoyed it, this is the kind of place you return to with intention.
Chef Jan Menten runs a tight operation. The hours confirm it: lunch service Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (12–2 pm), dinner Thursday through Saturday (7–9 pm), with Tuesday and Wednesday fully closed. Saturday is dinner-only. That's a limited weekly window, which means availability compresses fast. Booking difficulty here is genuinely hard , plan at minimum two to three weeks ahead for dinner, more for a Saturday. If you're visiting Tongeren specifically for this meal, lock it in before you book accommodation.
De Mijlpaal sits in the €€€ price tier, which in Belgian fine dining terms places it below a four-star splurge but firmly in the considered-occasion bracket. The cuisine is classified as French and creative , classical technique with room for interpretation. OAD's Classical Europe ranking is a meaningful signal here: this is not a modernist showpiece restaurant chasing novelty, but a kitchen that respects tradition and executes it at a level that earns sustained peer recognition. That's a useful distinction when deciding where to spend this kind of money.
If you've dined here before and found the cooking technically precise and ingredient-led, the recommendation for a return visit is to go at dinner rather than lunch. The Saturday dinner-only format suggests the kitchen treats that service as its primary showcase. Dinner at a Michelin-starred French-creative table in a Belgian market town, with two full hours of service window, is a different experience from a weekday lunch. The room will be quieter, the pacing more deliberate, and the kitchen more likely to be firing at full capacity. For a second visit, Saturday evening is the right call.
No specific wine list or cocktail program details are available in the verified record, so specifics on cellar depth, by-the-glass selection, or cocktail offering cannot be confirmed here. What can be said with confidence is that a Michelin-starred French-creative kitchen at this level almost always supports a serious wine program , classical French cuisine at the €€€ tier makes little sense without one. Belgium has a sophisticated wine culture, and Tongeren's proximity to Liège and the broader Limburg region means access to strong European suppliers. For a return visit, it's worth asking the team about producer-led selections or regional Belgian options if they appear on the list. Whether the drinks program operates as a standalone draw the way a dedicated bar program might is unclear without more data , but if the food is your primary reason to book, the wine pairing question is worth raising at reservation time.
For context on where De Mijlpaal sits relative to the broader Belgian fine dining field, the OAD Classical Europe list it appears on also includes restaurants like Hof van Cleve - Floris Van Der Veken in Kruishoutem, Boury in Roeselare, and Zilte in Antwerp. At a national level, it competes in a category that includes Willem Hiele in Oudenburg and Bartholomeus in Heist. De Mijlpaal's positioning as a classical French-creative restaurant in a smaller city gives it a different character from those urban or coastal peers , lower ambient noise, less competition for reservations from corporate diners, and a more personal atmosphere. If you're comparing it against the broader creative French category in Europe, Pierre Gagnaire in Paris and AM par Alexandre Mazzia in Marseille represent what that cuisine category looks like at its most ambitious , useful benchmarks for understanding where De Mijlpaal fits on a wider map.
Within Limburg and the surrounding region, consider also Castor in Beveren and Cuchara in Lommel if you're building a multi-stop itinerary. For Brussels-based diners making a day trip, Bozar Restaurant in Brussels operates in a similar creative register but at a larger, more urban scale.
De Mijlpaal is at Sint-Truiderstraat 25, 3700 Tongeren. Lunch runs 12–2 pm on Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Dinner runs 7–9 pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Tuesday and Wednesday are fully closed. Booking difficulty is high , reserve well in advance, particularly for Saturday dinner. No booking method, dress code, or seat count is confirmed in the available record; contact the restaurant directly to confirm reservation availability and any specific requirements.
For more dining options in the area, see our full Tongeren restaurants guide. For places to stay, our Tongeren hotels guide covers current options. Also worth checking: bars in Tongeren, wineries near Tongeren, and experiences in Tongeren.
Quick reference: Michelin 1 Star (2024, 2025) · OAD Classical Europe #353 (2025) · €€€ · Sint-Truiderstraat 25, Tongeren · Closed Tue–Wed · Booking difficulty: Hard
Yes, at the €€€ tier, a two-year Michelin star and consecutive OAD Classical Europe rankings make De Mijlpaal one of the stronger value propositions in Belgian fine dining at this price level. You're paying for consistent, peer-validated French-creative cooking in a city where competition for tables is lower than in Antwerp or Brussels , which means a more personal experience for the same or less money than comparable starred restaurants in major Belgian cities.
Dinner, specifically Saturday. Saturday is the only day the kitchen runs dinner without a lunch service, which suggests it's treated as the primary service of the week. For a return visit or a special occasion, Saturday evening gives you the most focused version of what De Mijlpaal does. Weekday lunch is a good entry point if you're passing through Tongeren, but it's the dinner format that makes leading use of a French-creative kitchen at this level.
Specific menu details are not available in the verified record, so dish-level recommendations can't be made here. What the OAD Classical Europe ranking confirms is that the kitchen's strength is in classical French technique with a creative interpretation , so tasting menus or multi-course formats, if offered, are likely where the kitchen shows leading. Ask the team at booking about current menu formats and whether a tasting menu option is available for your visit.
The two closest peers in Tongeren are Alter, which operates at the €€€€ tier with a French, Progressive American, and Creative menu, and Magis, a Modern Cuisine option at €€€. Alter is the choice if you want to spend more and push into more experimental territory. Magis sits at the same price tier as De Mijlpaal and is worth considering if French-classical is not your preferred format. Le 54 is a further local option, though detailed data on pricing and cuisine style is limited.
No specific information on dietary restriction handling is available in the verified record. Given that this is a Michelin-starred kitchen with a relatively tight service window (lunch 12–2 pm, dinner 7–9 pm), it's reasonable to assume the kitchen can accommodate common restrictions with advance notice , but that assumption should be confirmed directly with the restaurant before booking, especially for more complex requirements. No phone number or website is listed in the available data; check current contact details via search before calling ahead.
No bar seating information is confirmed in the available record. De Mijlpaal does not have a publicly documented bar or counter dining format. If bar-style seating or a walk-in option matters to you, this is worth confirming when you make your reservation , but given the limited weekly hours and high booking difficulty, planning around a confirmed table is the safer approach.
| Venue | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|
| De Mijlpaal | €€€ | — |
| Alter | €€€€ | — |
| Magis | €€€ | — |
| Le 54 | — |
Side-by-side comparison to help you decide where to book.
Tongeren is a small city, so the direct local competition at this level is limited. Within the broader Belgian fine dining circuit, Alter and Magis are worth considering if you want to compare against other OAD Classical Europe-listed venues. Le 54 is another regional option in the same tier. If De Mijlpaal is closed on your travel dates — it shuts Tuesday and Wednesday — one of these should be your fallback.
Specific menu items are not available in the verified record, so a dish-by-dish steer isn't possible here. The cuisine is classified as French and Creative, which at Michelin one-star level in Belgium typically means a set menu format. Confirm the current menu structure when you book, and ask about chef Jan Menten's current focus at that point.
No dietary policy is documented in the verified record. At a Michelin-starred French creative restaurant in the €€€ range, kitchen flexibility is more common than not, but you should flag restrictions directly when booking — especially for a tasting or set menu format where substitutions require advance notice.
No bar seating or counter dining information is available for De Mijlpaal. Given its Michelin-starred format and the address at Sint-Truiderstraat 25 in Tongeren, this is most likely a conventional table-service setup. check the venue's official channels to confirm seating options before assuming walk-in bar access is possible.
At €€€ with back-to-back Michelin stars in 2024 and 2025, and an OAD Classical Europe ranking that improved from #353 to #216 year-on-year, De Mijlpaal is performing above what its low national profile might suggest. For Belgian fine dining at this price point, that trajectory is a meaningful signal. If you're weighing it against a higher-priced four-star option, the value case here is strong.
Lunch is available four days a week — Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday — while dinner runs Thursday through Saturday only. If your schedule allows, the broader lunch availability makes it the easier option to book. Whether the kitchen offers a different format or pricing at lunch versus dinner is not confirmed in the verified record, so ask when reserving.
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