De Mijlpaal

A Michelin star in Belgium's oldest city; and harder to book than its low profile suggests

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, 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.

What kind of restaurant is this, is it right for you?

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, the kitchen more likely to be firing at full capacity. For a second visit, Saturday evening is the right call.

The drinks program at De Mijlpaal

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, 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.

How De Mijlpaal compares to other options in Tongeren

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, 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.

Practical details

De Mijlpaal is at Sint-Truiderstraat 25, 3700 Tongeren. Lunch runs 12–2 pm on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday. Dinner runs 7–9 pm on Thursday, Friday, 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