"Dream"? Den Gouden Harynck was tagged as "DREAM" in Caps by my Yelp friend during our planning stage on our Google Map... A Michelin 1 Star restaurant. But 39€ 3 course lunch special or a 55€ 3 course Mid-week special and I love SPECIALS! Booking the reservation was easy via their webpage, much easier than finding the restaurant in the dark. 3 Course Mid-week Menu is a steal but of course if you prefer you can order a la carte or the 4 or 5 course taster menu too. The only restriction is that the whole table has to participate. The staff here was really accommodating even willing to replace the main for the 4 course taster menu from lamb to fish... but of course we ended up getting the Mid-week prix menu. The ambiance here is classy and upscale. The service here is detailed and attentive. There is no printed menu for any of the prix menu but the staff will go over 2 Surprise Amuse-Bouche: Oyster and Clam Appetizer: Sea Bream Tartar Main: Pigeon (cooked pink) Dessert: Meringue Topped with Orange Cream Ice Cream Every course were well prepared and plated. Den Gouden Harynck is definitely worth a visit if you are in Bruges. And for my Yelp friend, It was a pleasure to have make your dream came true! read more

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This was the best meal during our 2.5-week trip. **Two different amuse bouche's (forget what they were, but they were GONE) **We got the 3-course lunch menu - the starter, which was a mackerel with really subtle Japanese accompaniments - was one of the single best dishes I've ever eaten. The mackerel - which is usually a very oily fish - tasted so delicate that even my picky ass 5-year-old liked it. **Spanish pork loin was of the highest quality, very tender; our 8-year-old loved it (the seasonal winter vegetables less so, but they were great too.) **Cheese cart is totally worth it (though expensive at 13 or 16 euros' PP) **The proverbial "second cheapest bottle on the list" we got was a really nice pale Pays D'Oc rose that went with everything. **Word of caution, coffee is 8 Euro's a cup. It is delicious and comes in a cool cup, but still. **Location is awesome, right across from the OLVK and the Groeninge museum. **The art on the walls is out of this world. ** The "rekening" was pretty big - while the lunch menu was 39 EUR PP, the kids' was 29 EUR PP, and all the extra charges (coffee, water, cheese, etc.) were pretty steep. read more

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I write reviews when establishments are really good or really bad; unfortunately this is the latter. We went tonight with great anticipation. The website looked interesting though the menu was limited. We arrived on time and I gave my name. We were escorted by the hostess to a table without any greeting. This coldness or aloofness continued throughout the evening. The Germans have a word for warm hospitality: gemütlichkeit. It was sadly missing from all the staff. The bread course was a tasteless focaccia. Until I asked, we weren't offered any other roll though they were available. The first course, caviar and potatoes for me and crab for my wife, was dropped off without a "bon appétit" or any other comment except a canned monotone recitation of ingredients. Plates were picked up with no inquiry about how it was. Water glasses weren't refilled and we had to ask for more water. The next course, grouse, was tasty but tough. Again we weren't asked how anything was. When we declined dessert, no coffee was offered, no petits fours. Staff was perfunctory and staid, no warmth, no friendliness, no smile. We spent almost €500 and I've been greeted with more kindness at Burger King. I would not go back even if the meal were free. One star only because the wine list was decent and it was an attractive restaurant--and zero is not an option. Staff badly needs hospitality training. Sour tastes were left in our mouths. And in keeping with the entire poor experience, we left with no one saying goodbye or escorting us out. read more

We were taking a roadtrip across from Paris to Amsterdam and i was looking up Michelin starred restaurants along the way and this one in Bruges was so cheap that we had to stop by. Mid-week price-fixed 3-course menu for 55EUR (Tues-Thurs). Where can you find this? The food was great, but the experience was not that memorable so i'd have to provide a point-form review. Some general information: - 4-course (75EUR), 5-course(89EUR) menus are available at any time - if you choose price-fixed, you cannot choose your courses - you're at the chef's mercy - service is good, as one would expect - food is fantastic - a lot of fish - no wine pairing offered and all wine are sold in bottle form only - a giant cart of cheese is wheeled out to you after dinner - a la carte menu available What we had: - two amuse-bouche (!): a beet-root soupy sardine dish which i wasn't crazy about. The beet-root part was great, but i dont generally like sardines. My friend who does, really loved that dish so i gave it to him. The second dish was something with wasabi and i liked it much better, although i have already forgotten what was in it - appetizer: giant grilled (or is it pan-fried) fish. No bones with a wonderful selection of condiment pairings, that are great eaten individually with the fish or altogether with the fish. - main: pink iberico pork cutlets with also a wonderful selection of sauces and condiments. They didn't all go together well, but individually with the pork they were fantastic. - dessert: some sorbet with orange zest and syrup. good but also unmemorable. The food admittedly is great, but the restaurant lacked a lot of little things that makes up a 5-star experience. Like the Michelin guide suggests, it's not worth a special journey or a detour, but it is a good restaurant in its category so check it out if you happen to be in Bruges (it's smack in the middle of the small city). read more

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e l e g a n t Midweek 60€ dinner at Den Gouden Harynck. It's a bit off-the-beaten track as you discover the location and once inside, the night begins. It's a bit of the usual fine dining routine, from the minute you're seated to the cheese cart finish. Amuse-Bouche: Oyster Amuse-Bouche: Clam Appetizer: Sea Bream Tartar Main: Pigeon (cooked pink) Dessert: Meringue topped with Orange Cream Ice Cream The place was perfectly western elegant and refined, from the table setting to the plating. The amuse, did just that and somewhat went overboard as to beat it's appetizer. The dishes are nicely prepared but you do have to wait a bit in-between each course. If not for the loud-speaking local across us, we would have even felt awkward chatting. As we had our meal without a fault in service, I noticed a couple let's called them "big-heavy-camera-carrying American tourist" had less than perfect service in comparison. It was unusual given that we had the exact same everything, almost. read more

A great meal, with every course upping the ante. I enjoyed the number of different flavours and textures on each plate and the finishing touches were excellent: from the scallops with a scent of bergamot on the plate, to a hint of candied orange with asparagus, through to beautifully cooked lamb and basil yoghurt with the dessert. If Brugge is somewhere you wouldn't intend on going to very often then I would thoroughly recommend trying this place out. read more

We booked a table for 31/10. They got the date wrong and were expecting us a day earlier (30/10). Sent us a rude email the following day (31/10) before lunch. We didn't see that email and went there as we had planned. During lunch, someone came and said to us "We were expecting you yesterday.....", and we were confused until we saw the rude email when we got back to the hotel. We asked them to take their words back as we reserved the table for 31/10, they confirmed the reservation for 31/10 and we went for lunch on 31/10. They finally sent an apology, but insisted they were "mistakenly informed". Who did they try to fool? There're booking request and email confirmations to prove that they were not "mistakenly informed". Had they ever checked their emails to verify the date before they shot their customers with rude email? Apparently, they were not professional enough to do so. Still waiting them to explain what did they mean by "mistakenly informed"? The advertised 49 euro lunch available Tue-Fri was not on the menu they showed us. According to the consumer laws, that is misleading. The service was cold. As they admitted later that they "got angry with us" for not showing up the day before. As for the 65 euro menu, the mullets were fresh, but my husband had a piece of scale of his mullets which he left in his plate. He told them when his plate was taken away, and they just ignored him. The pheasant main dish was dry and chewy. I left a piece of pink meat with bloody thread in the plate. The BBQ chicken from my local supermarket tastes more tender and juicy than this fancy bird. The dessert--the sugar rock was too sweet and the sauce was too sour. Hard to strike a balance when two ingredients went into extremity. No wonder this restaurant was so empty. read more

There are a few Michelin-starred spots in the heart of Bruges, and Den Gouden Harynck is one of them - just a couple minutes from the heart of town, on a side road with a relatively small entryway. Once inside, you definitely feel like you have stepped into a dining room with the elegance befitting the charming little town it resides in. There's a small garden outside (with a table to boot - probably for lunch use only), but the rest of the dining room feels very cozy and definitely maintains the feel of old Europe, even if the food being cooked is squarely in the heart of modern European cuisine. Service here is okay, but I did feel that the English was somewhat limited. We were also given no menus at all (not even a drink menu), which left us heavily reliant on the waiter to simply bring us white wine or red wine that they were willing to serve us by the glass. This turned out okay in the end - their choices were solid - but given that there was a gregarious Danish table that spoke to the servers in English that got a menu to look at, it did feel like we got a bit of the short end of the stick, especially at the end of the meal...we sat for probably 15-20 minutes after it was clear we had finished dessert, and we still had to call the waiters over to explicitly ask for the check. The chef was actually the most pleasant to speak with - his English is quite good, and he recounted some of his fond memories of West Coast America when he took a family trip out there. His food is absolutely delicious as well. Without trying to be too clever, the food here stuck with fish and meats that paired well particularly with herbs (think dill) and, surprisingly, chutney. A couple of the dishes had vaguely subtle hints of spice, notably the grilled sea bream, which was served with a sauce and lentils that definitely had a bit of warmth to it. I also really enjoyed the first dish, which was a good portion of lobster meat served on top of lettuce and sprinkled with dill oil and dotted with herbed cream that made for a deliciously complex lobster salad. We then moved to the meats, starting with a supremely succulent goose liver topped with chives and pomegranates and soaked peaches...with 3 'bites', it is a solid helping of rich, fatty goodness that, combined with the fruit and the acidity of the chives, made for an excellent dish. The main course was lamb cooked a little rarer than I would like, but it still had an excellent crisp on top, making for a juicy yet crunchy bite. The au jus was a little lighter than usual but a nice accentuation of the flavor of the dish, while the tiny potato cake on the side was a nice little complement (and well-crisped itself) to the meat. Dessert was a nice, light finish - a basil-infused sorbet over some seriously fresh strawberries and raspberries, paired with some thin sticks of apple. For a 5-course tasting menu, the price came out very reasonably - a tad under 100 euros a person, IIRC. If you're from out of town, I think the level of service may vary a bit, and if anything, that was the biggest disappointment here. But I really enjoyed the coziness of the space otherwise, the straightforward execution of the food with sauces that really worked with each dish without straying for the sake of exploration. Definitely worth a trip back - perhaps for lunch - and highly recommended for those looking for a high-class dining experience without having to travel outside of town. read more

On a walking tour of Bruges organized by our cruise ship, we had only a short time for lunch after a canal boat ride. This elegant gem is near the boat dock. With no English on the menu, I was grateful for the translations of an accommodating server. He had shrimp, pounded almost smooth, in a sauce of cream and herring roe. I accompanied sea bream with eggplant and raisins with a glass of champagne. We left happy but regretful. To have stayed for a full meal would have been perfect! read more