Concept
It’s simple, we are about fresh flavour… a sort of ‘gastronomie sans frontieres’. Being British, we are not so much about simply Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding or Fish and Chips, despite both meals being classic and great dishes when well made, but we are more about an international range of good taste. All of us who work at LaBritannique have great experience cooking and working all over the world and we have brought this together so that we can share it with you. This is what I believe is a fundamentally British approach to modern food today. It’s about searching out new flavour combinations, reassessing traditional dishes – sometimes giving them a facelift, sometimes just refining them a little and preparing them well, sometimes about developing new and innovative techniques to lighten the end result without compromising on flavour, sometimes it’s about getting great raw materials and doing little to them, but whatever it’s about...
"it’s always about bringing you, our customers, tasty food that has been globally inspired, locally sourced and prepared with passion"
About Alex Weston
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I have always been interested in food. I grew up in a home of plenty, in a country house hotel on The English Riviera, near Torquay in Devon. Unlike the infamous Fawlty Towers, based on another hotel in the same town, we had a great sense of providing our guests with a warm welcome and abundance of local produce, lovingly prepared by a dedicated team of cooks and chefs. To me, good food was a key essential in life, even at an early age. After school, despite a great interest in food, I was encouraged to go onto university, where I read European Studies. Travelling extensively through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France as a young student, my palate developed further as did my desire to discover more about culinary Europe. I found it strange that everyone would say such negative things about the British reputation for food because at home we had always valued good food, had access to locally or home-grown and -reared meat and vegetables and we’d always have some interesting or tasty way of turning out a delicious finished product.
When I came to Brussels, I loved the range and diversity of great products that were available to the amateur chef, and the good quality of the restaurants, but I missed the variety in food that people would have at work functions, lunches and at parties I’d go to, (although when I first came here 12 years ago, I wasn’t moving in the kind of circles where the host had ordered in caterers…) I soon realised that the lowest common denominator in food in Brussels was mayonnaise, baguette, the ubiquitous pain surprise and plenty of classic items with some sort of piped out mousse. After a short while, it all became very much the same and very much uninspiring…
I struggled with the idea of leaving my office bound job, at the same time got myself trained professionally at CERIA, the main chef school in Brussels which has trained a number of famous Belgian chefs. I also worked closely with my sister at her restaurant in Devon, The Vineyard Café at Sharpham Vineyard and finished my training by doing a stage at Le Pain et Le Vin, certainly the best restaurant in my humble opinion in Brussels. I was able to combine a desire to provide fresh exciting flavours, some learnt through extensive practice and reading as well as gaining something from all of my travels around Europe and Asia, with a knowledge and practice of working with classic Franco-Belgian cooking techniques and recipes and the result has been LaBritannique.
Why LaBritannique you might ask…? Well, that’s simple. Where I live and where we have our kitchens is on the street where the 2nd British Army liberated Brussels in September 1944, in fact we are based on the very bridge where the Army is commemorated. One can assume you can’t get closer than that to the spot where it happened. So being British, I couldn’t resist the play on words in many respects…
It is my intention that we become one of the best catering businesses in Brussels, this time liberating our customers from tired offerings, giving them instead a fresh and tasty approach to eating, dining and entertaining. I would like to provide all sorts of clients from large enterprises to individuals with a variety of catering products from corporate events for 250, via cocktail parties and weddings for 100, memorable gatherings for friends and family for 10, to intimate dinners for 2 and even meal plans for everyday healthy eating for 1. I would like to bring something from all of the travels I have enjoyed to you and your friends and colleagues at a price that anyone would value and appreciate.
If you like good food and are interested in good classic dishes, exotic and different taste sensations from all over the globe or want to have a warm and professional team to serve your needs, I’d like to hear from you.
