Restaurant Week is simple: a three-course dinner at top restaurants for only €27. The promotion is sponsored by Diningcity.com, an online restaurant guide that started in the Netherlands and now features franchise-websites in more than a dozen cities around the world.

Belgium’s Restaurant Week premiered in Antwerp in 2007, and, with this sixth edition, it finally expands to cover all of Belgium.

When a restaurant chooses to participate, they offer Restaurant Week a certain number of seats for a surprise three-course dinner (or lunch for €22) for one week in June. Customers must visit the website to reserve their seats; restaurants won’t take the reservations directly. Once the seats are snapped up, tough luck.

Although we’re already part way into Restaurant Week, you may still be lucky enough to snag yourself a place. Reservations can be made until 17.00 on the day of the meal. Here’s how to participate:

Step one: Surf to www.restaurantweek.be and choose your geographical region. Hint: after choosing your region, you can find a discreet link on the right side of the screen that will tell you all the participating restaurants for that area. But it doesn’t list their availability, so you are better off with...

Step two: choose the day, number of diners, and whether you are reserving for lunch or dinner. The site will tell you which restaurants still have availability for the time you indicate. Once you decide, click on “Make a reservation”. (Warning: some customers are having trouble viewing the website properly with Explorer, though Firefox and Safari appear to work just fine.)

Joost de Weger runs Belgium’s Diningcity website and is, ergo, Belgium’s Restaurant Week organiser. He says that restaurants like that they get the opportunity to reach new customers. In earlier editions, it was hard to convince restaurants to join in, but they are now piling on board to the tune of nearly 500 restaurants.

There are a few hidden charges to watch out for: drinks are not included, unless the restaurant decides to throw in an aperitif or discounted wine option, but that is the exception, not the rule. In addition, restaurants with a Gault Millau rating over 15 points, or a Michelin star are entitled to add an extra €10-€20 to their three-course meal, making those options less of a bargain. (But still a discount.) Restaurant Week has become a bi-annual event, so if you miss out this time, keep an eye out for the next edition, which begins on 29 November.

Restaurant Week
7-13 June
Across Brussels and Flanders
www.restaurantweek.be