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À la Bécasse
À la Bécasse has one hall with long rows of tables and good-hearted revelry reminiscent of the days of Breugel. Go for a jug of draught lambic.
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À la Mort Subite
Floor-to-ceiling square columns with brass hat racks, massive mirrors, varnished timber panelling and leather banquettes make this a sublime place to try the namesake 'mort subite' ('sudden death') gueuze. If this twice-fermented beer is too sour for your taste, order a kriek (cherry) or framboise (raspberry) version. Soak it up with old-school snacks like omelettes.
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Au Soleil
This old clothes shop has been converted into a shabby-chic bar with good beats and surprisingly cheap drinks given its status as a favourite for posing in shades.
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Bazaar
Upstairs Bazaar is an over-the-top restaurant with flamboyant décor and international fare like ostrich in port wine. Downstairs, DJs spin rock, soul and funk in the vaulted former monastery cellar-turned-nightclub.
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Beursschouwburg Café
Brussels' Flemish youth love the big bold bar at their newly renovated theatre/concert hall. While not strictly speaking a club, by the wee small hours when everyone's moving it serves the same purpose, and is handily located smack in the centre of town.
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Café Belga
DJs hit the decks on Friday nights at this split-level Art Deco bar in the Flagey liner, with ad hoc music programming taking place other days, such as occasional Sunday jazz. The big picture windows, wooden deck-like interior and terrace all offer primo people-watching opportunities while you sip a Belga cocktail of vodka, Canada Dry and violet syrup.
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Café de l'Autobus
Old-timers' bar opposite Maison Antoine, the city's most famous friture . The owners don't mind if you demolish a cone of frites while downing a beer or two. On Sunday it's a breather for vendors from the Place Jourdan food market.
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Chez Marcel
The more things change, the more they stay the same. This old-timer's bar is a bastion of the old Marolles spirit, serving up Cantillon gueuze, rib-sticking fare and atmosphere to spare.
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Chez Moeder Lambic
An institution. Behind windows plastered with beer stickers, this tattered, quirky old brown café is the ultimate beer spot in Brussels. Sample some of their hundreds of brews while flipping through the collection of dog-eared comics.
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Daringman
A laid-back neighbourhood pub where privileged young arts students mix it up with an older working class crowd - this is the place to head when you want to kick back with a Belgian brew and chat to some affable locals.
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De Markten
Spacious modern café that's a popular Flemish pit stop for shoppers trawling the nearby Rue Dansaert boutiques. In fine weather, pull up a chair at one of its tables on the tree-lined square across the road.
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De Ultieme Hallucinatie
For a drink or brasseries fare (like shrimps in white wine), stop by this bar. Built in 1850 in neoclassical style, it was transformed in 1904 into the wrought-iron-filled showpiece it remains today.
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Dirty Dancing@Mirano
Clued-in clubbers know the area for this place, where DJs include the likes of Cosy Mozzy and the atmosphere is electric. However, locals caution against walking through the poorly-lit streets late at night and advise catching a taxi instead.
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Duke's
Done out in outrageous kitsch (lots of velour) by Miguel Cancio Martins of Buddha Bar, Paris fame, this club inside the Royal Windsor Hôtel lures an over-30s crowd. Yes, that means '80s tracks play alongside more up-to-date tunes.
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Falstaff
A century old and still popular with the fashionable young and eccentric old, this Art Nouveau grand café, designed by Horta-disciple Houbion, is an exotic world of mirrors, glass and fluidity. Ignore the location - this street has been screaming for attention for years.
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Fontainas
The ripped black vinyl seats, '60s tables and light fittings and cracked tiles of this ultratrendy bar see locals catching up on the newspapers by day until the party cranks up again come nightfall.
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Fuse
Clubbers know this place as the home turf of megawatt DJs, like DJ Pierre, mixing house and deep house. Gay boys Europe-wide also know Fuse for its legendary La Démence parties.
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Goupil le Fol
You can't help falling in love, or just wishing you were, as you sip the house fruit liqueur in this romantic bar. The nooks and crannies are crammed with old records and paintings and Brel et al croon in the background.
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Halles St-Géry
Occupying a huge, tiered former market hall on what was once an island, Halles St-Géry has an enormous obelisk at its centre marking 'kilometre zero' - the point from which all distances in Belgium are measured. Halles St-Géry now hosts art exhibitions by day, and the bar cranks of an evening when DJs spin funk, house and more. In summer, the party spills outdoors and goes on until the wee hours.
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James Joyce
The first Irish pub in Brussels. Sometimes rowdy, but it does have quieter moments and there's occasional live music.
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La Fleur en Papier Doré
Artists adore this out-of-the-way Marolles bar where the walls actually do talk, in a sense, by way of the sketches and scribblings of the city's famed surrealists covering them.
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Le Bier Circus
Serious beer buffs should make this one of their first ports o' call. Several hundred brews and staff who know their stuff make it an excellent place to start investigations. The décor's hardly fuel for the imagination, but that's the beer's job anyway. As Belgian pubs go, this one has very limited opening hours, reflecting its odd location in an unloved part of town.
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Le Cirio
Anything but off-the-tourist-track, but still a fixture for locals sipping the signature half-and-half (half wine, half champagne), this 1886 grand café could be a film set, with lots of dark timber, glass cabinets and lighting giving it a sepia-tinged glow.
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Le Greenwich
Legendary as the den where Bobby Fischer and countless other chess masters have traded pieces, this brown café is still dominated by chess. Sitting and watching the players battling it out is entertainment enough (which is to say there's no music, of course).
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Le Roy d'Espagne
Sit and sip (pricey beers) the splendour of the Grand Place in this former guildhouse. And, yes, those are inflated dried pigs' bladders above your head.
