How To Eat Gluten-Free in Belgium: Belgium Gluten Free Restaurants + Guide

Later this month, I’ll be hitting the one-year mark since I got my shocking celiac disease diagnosis. While it’s pretty easy to handle in everyday life, thanks to living in Spain, Matt and I recently took a nearly three-week trip across five countries in Europe — all of which I was visiting for the first time as a gluten-free traveler.

Our first stop was four days in Belgium! I’d visited Brussels and Bruges as a solo traveler back in 2018, but this time Ghent was on the agenda as well. Belgium turned out to be one of the “better” countries on this trip for navigating the gluten-free scene, so it was a good place to kind of ease into things. 😜

Planning your own Belgium trip? Here’s everything you need to know about being gluten-free in Belgium.

Gluten-Free Brussels Map

Map Key (Colors)

• Green: Dedicated gluten-free establishment
• Dark pink: Not dedicated gluten-free, but has a 5-heart safety rating on the FindMeGF app
• Light pink: Not dedicated gluten-free, but has a 4 or 4.5-heart safety rating on the FindMeGF app
• Orange: Drinks only
• Dark blue: Shops only

Map Key (Symbols)

• Bike: Belgian food like waffles or fries 😉
• Spoon & knife: Other type of food
• Pasta: Italian restaurant
• Burger: Burger restaurant
• Birthday cake: Bakery
• Ice cream: Ice cream shop
• Beer: Certified gluten-free beers
• Shopping cart: Store confirmed to have Schär gluten-free products

Gluten-Free Bruges, Belgium Map

*Same key as above applies.

Gluten-Free Ghent, Belgium Map

*Same key as above applies.

Notes About the Gluten-Free Maps of Belgium

• Anywhere that I personally ate will have my review in the “description” section when you click on it.

• There may be other restaurants in Belgium offering gluten-free options that didn’t meet my “personal” requirements for the above map, such as not having enough reviews or all recent reviews being poor. But this should be a good starting point.

The Best Gluten-Free Restaurants in Belgium

The Sisters Brussels Cafe (Brussels): A dedicated gluten-free restaurant, so we actually ate here twice – which I did not mind at all because the food was so good! They had a great sandwich menu with interesting gourmet flavor combinations, and it came with a salad and a cup of homemade soup. I recommend the “Only you” sandwich or the “Nice to meet you” baguette. Also, it’s only a one-minute walk from Grand Place, so it’s super central.

Patatak (Brussels): This is a little place where you can get frites (fries) that come from a dedicated GF fryer, along with a bunch of sauces that are gluten free! We went here twice as well, and the first time the worker told me all the sauces on the right side of the menu were GF, and the second time a different worker told me all sauces were GF. They offered to check the ingredients both times when I ordered the apple curry sauce, and they told me their frites fryers are on one wall (with separate utensils) and their fryer for other items is on the other wall so there’s never cross-contamination.

Brugs Pittahuis (Bruges): This was one of the places in Bruges that had the highest number of great reviews and a high safety rating, and it was such a pleasant surprise! It was a pita shop (kind of like kebab) and I hadn’t had kebab in a year since I was diagnosed. The staff really knew what they were doing with gluten-free and they were happy to answer all my questions.

In Choc (Ghent): They have GF sandwiches here, but I was looking for something sweet. At first they told me they didn’t have any GF desserts, but then they remembered they had pre-packaged gluten free waffles! They apologized for not being able to warm it up for me because they only had one toaster/oven — which was okay, I was happy they understood cross-contact — but then they said they were happy to drizzle chocolate on it for me! One of the workers, Sam, was so friendly and allowed me to ask a million questions and oversee everything he did so I’d feel comfortable.

About Food Labeling in Belgium

While I was excited that Belgium had a few good gluten-free options — especially in Brussels — it still wasn’t nearly as easy to be celiac there as in Spain, Italy, Ireland, or the UK. During our whole trip, we typically ate one meal out per day, and then I just ate snacks from the grocery store for dinner. Usually, this was things like charcuterie (cheese and meat), yogurt, nuts, chips, etc.

And the great thing about that — like the rest of Europe, Belgium has mandatory allergen labeling on food packaging. And gluten is considered an allergen! So you’ll know whether something is gluten-free… as long as you can read the label.

I’ve talked in my other gluten-free blog posts about what gluten-containing words to look out for in different languages. The interesting thing about Belgium is the fact that it has three different official languages: French, Dutch, and German. So food labels will have ingredients — and allergens — in all three languages. These will either be in bold or CAPITAL LETTERS in the ingredient list.

Pick your favorite and memorize the words you need to be looking out for! (I chose French since I was familiar with it from traveling to Lyon.)

French Gluten Labeling:

• cereals containing gluten: céréales contenant du gluten
• flour: farine
• wheat: blé
• rye: seigle
• barley: orge
• oats: avoine/gruau
• may contain traces of: Peut contenir des traces de…

Dutch Gluten Labeling:

• cereals containing gluten: granen die gluten bevatten
• flour: tarwebloem
• wheat: tarwe
• rye: rogge
• barley: gerst
• oats: haver
• may contain traces of: Kan sporen bevatten van…

German Gluten Labeling: 

• cereals containing gluten: glutenhaltiges Getreide
• flour: Weizenmehl
• wheat: Weizen
• rye: Roggen
• barley: Gerste
• oats: Hafer
• may contain traces of: Kann Spuren von… 

Gluten Free Beer in Belgium

This can be a hot topic in the celiac community, so if you’re following different guidance, continue to do what makes you comfortable.
I understand that in the U.S., what’s considered “gluten-free beer” is generally beer that is brewed without any of the traditional gluten-containing beer ingredients, like barley and malt.

In Europe, gluten-free beer is brewed with these gluten-containing ingredients, but through a chemical process, the gluten is removed to a level below 20 PPM. The U.S. would call this “gluten-removed,” though Europe calls it “gluten-free.”

I recently ruined an entire Saturday of mine when I woke up and decided to start worrying and researching and going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out whether European gluten-free beers are actually safe for celiacs. There are a lot of conflicting opinions. Matt helped me read scientific studies about it as well (he has a biology/science background).

Here’s what I decided: If any product has the Crossed-Grain Trademark, which is the highest level of gluten-free certification in Europe, I personally will trust it to be gluten free and generally celiac-safe. And that includes beer.

I live in Spain. I was diagnosed with celiac disease in Spain. I’ve received a great level of support from the Spanish Celiac Association (FACE). And I’ve decided that I will follow the FACE’s recommendations, as well as those from the Association of European Celiac Societies — after all, gluten is at least considered an allergen here, which is more than I can say for the U.S.!

Both FACE and the AOECS have lists of approved products, and gluten-free beers with the Crossed-Grain Trademark are on the approved list. Which means I consider those safe for me.

ALL THAT TO SAY: Belgium actually has a really great gluten-free beer that has the Crossed-Grain Trademark and approval by AOECS! It’s called Mongozo, and you should be able to find it at most beer halls like the Delirium Village in Brussels, 2be (the Beer Wall) in Bruges, and De Dulle Griet in Ghent.

Mongozo started making their gluten-free Premium Pilsner and Buckwheat White back in 2010 and 2014 respectively, though they also had a line of “exotic” beers that were not gluten-free. However, starting in 2024, it seems that they have updated ALL their beers in the exotic line to be gluten-free as well, according to Instagram. They aren’t super active on social media, nor have they really updated their website to advertise these changes.

But I saw the Crossed-Grain Trademark and registration number on the “exotic” flavor beer bottles with my own eyes. And the Mango Mongozo was the best GF beer I’ve had in the last year. 🥹

Other Things to Know: Gluten Free in Belgium

Just a few more random thoughts on things you might want to know before you visit Belgium as a gluten-free traveler.

• Celiac disease doesn’t seem to be super well-known amongst food service workers — outside of the places that we went. But we chose most of them specifically because they already had several decent reviews on FindMeGF. I think you’ll get more understanding if you say you’re gluten-free, though be sure to specify that it’s more like an allergy (not a preference)!

• Pretty much everyone we encountered spoke English really, really well. There were no language barriers at any point, so I didn’t feel the need to download or use gluten-free translation cards. They’re always an option though! Just remember to have them in at least both French and Dutch when you’re in Brussels. 😉

• We got coffee a lot on this trip. Not a single place we went had gluten-free oat milk. I asked to read the ingredients on the box at a few places, but all of them listed gluten as an allergen. Eventually I gave up because I recognized that all the cafes were using the same non-GF oat milk brands. So I just started ordering Americanos with milk on the side — be sure to ask for the milk to be cold, otherwise they might still use the (contaminated) steamer to give you a little cup of hot milk. Also, be clear in your pronunciation: “cold milk” can sound a little bit like “oat milk”!

• I never really saw any food packaging that explicitly stated “Gluten Free” or anything like that unless it was imported from elsewhere. However, large grocery stores like Carrefour may have a gluten-free section with Schär products and potentially a few local brands as well. Another grocery store, Delhaize, has great information online: Even in the absence of gluten being labeled on a product (which, by default, means it does not contain it), if you find the product on their website, it will explicitly list “does not contain gluten” which is such a great second source of verification!

• Fries (frites) are one of Belgium’s most famous foods, and the good news is that they can be gluten-free! Frites shops often only serve fries, so they’re the only things that go in the fryer. But of course, you have to ask to be sure — and don’t forget to ask about the ingredients in the sauces.

• Waffles are another big one in Belgium, but I had a harder time finding celiac-safe gluten-free waffle options, especially as someone who is currently avoiding oats as well. Many of the places that do GF waffles are using oat flour, so keep that in mind if you also don’t eat oats.

 

Let me know what other questions you have about being gluten free in Belgium! I’d be more than happy to do my best to answer — and feel free to follow me on FindMeGF as well. 🙂

-Cathy

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