Where can you find some of the world's best chocolate? Cool jazz. And one of the most beautiful central squares in the world. It's all in Brussels, Belgium's capital city, oozing with international flavor, hip shops, European cafes, and historic architecture. We're diving in with a local guide and a top chocolatier to discover some of the not-to-miss sites and experiences in Brussels, including the Grand Place. Brussels annual jazz weekend, an addictive chocolate workshop.
You can call it orgasmic chocolate. It's hazelnut cream with Piemonte hazelnuts. And more, on this episode of The Travels with Darley Podcast, taking you traveling with the locals to experience great food, culture, history, architecture, and what makes places just so darn interesting. A great way to get an introduction to Brussels is by taking a walking tour.
Long time resident and local tour guide, Sasha Seggai, meets me in Brussels, Upper Town, where the Royal Palace and many government buildings are situated. He's walking me to one of the biggest attractions for travelers in Brussels. Hey, you really seem to be different. The Upper Town and the Lower Town, the Upper Town is where the official institutions are and also museums. The Lower Town is with many bars and narrow streets, people working.
Since Brussels is existing, you can say, it is like this. We walk into the Lower Town to admire the Grand Place, the main square, and gathering place in Brussels. It's teeming with tourists, with many like me getting a bit dizzy. My head swivels round and round admiring the opulent Baroque Guildhalls and edifices. Sasha, this really is a beautiful square. So we need to thank the French for this beautiful square, although the French did not build it, but the French did destroy everything here.
It was a long time ago. It was in 1695. And if you look on the façades, prints us over there, you can see it took only two years to rebuild the house over there, many houses, where we build in a very short time. It was a sunken, you remember, maybe, Louis de Foure Thien. Louis XIV, he's sent this Marshall the Mata-Shal de Villeau, what a Brussels. And march on the Villeau, he did come with his cannons. And he put his cannons on the hill not so far from here.
And he took City Hall Tower, and he missed his target, with all the raspers destroyed. You know, it were the guilds who did we build the square, the corporations. They wanted to show that they still were important. They wanted to show their prestigious, but actually, they actually did lose a lot of money. Because in those days, it was already the free market economy that was developing. And so the guilds, they didn't have much to say anymore.
One of the houses is still the guild house today, you can say. And that's the house where the Belgian beer brewer was still meet each other. It's written on the façades, right? So it's the house with a golden statue on the top. In Belgium, we never want to have the same façades our neighbors. We are very individualistic. It's also easy to find your home back in Belgium if you drink with me. There is a lot of beer here. Yeah, definitely.
And that's always, almost all the time, you see many people here. Although you see many, many tourists, the local people also like to come just to the square, to feel like this is really something exceptional to have here in Brussels. [MUSIC PLAYING] Sasha departs to lead a tour, but before he goes, he tells me some places I should check out that are close to the Grand Place, which I can now recommend also to you.
I read through Rue des Bouchers, Brussels Restaurant Row, to check out Chez Leon It's been welcoming locals and travelers alike for over 100 years. The restaurant's specialty is mussels and frites. If you're walking in this area, you might also want to stop to see the Manneken Pis Fountain. You kind of have to. A statue of a boy urinating. It's a symbol of Brussels, and depending on the time of year, may be adorned with a costume.
After lots of city walking, I'm having an afternoon treat, getting an introduction to the diversity of Belgian chocolate with Laurent Gerbaud, a top chocolatier. In his workshop in Cafe in Brussels, Gerbaud invites the public to learn about and help make a variety of chocolates during chocolate workshops. One of his personal specialties, his chocolate, accented with spices, dried fruits, and nuts, to combine salty and sweet flavors. It smells so good in here. And it looks so good.
There's so much chocolate. Yeah, I always try to mix just two ingredients. One chocolate, one fruit, or one chocolate, one spice. I hate fusion cuisine in the chocolate. It's a total mess because you have two. You're a purist. No, it's just that if there are too many ingredients, in the chocolate, you don't taste the chocolate anymore. I like to make it very simple and addictive. So you have one, you need another one. Well, I will definitely have more than one, you know.
What should we try first? The blend of the house. We call them aromatic cacao. So this one is made from cocoa beans from Madagascar, Ecuador and Peru. So it's Trinitario and Cacao National Genotypes. They're very, very, very fruity, very powerful, very long lasting taste. And once you're used to this, it's like going from cheap, -tasting vinegar to very expensive wine with a fantastic taste. So this is more or less the comparison you could do.
So my only purpose is to get you addicted to my taste. And then you never go any other places. So you're going to spoil me with amazing, expensive chocolate. Yes. And I'll be calling and getting more chocolate. I'm sorry for you. I'm so sorry. I like it. All right. Mmm, that's some good chocolate. It has a really, really rich flavor. Yeah, and there's nothing added. It's really pure cacao. Mm-hmm. Very good. I'm going to be more of this one. All right. What should we try next?
It's a Persian cranberry. And you must first take off one berry. You chew it. And with the saliva, you will rehydrate it. So it's only that time that you have the taste. And then you take the chocolate. It's a little tart, a little sweet. It's really good. Hello. The last one to try, you can call it orgasmic chocolate. Anis and nut cream with piment and anis and nut. Mmm. It's a hazelnut explosion. Yes. And it's very long lasting. Also, it's like one minute, two minutes. Mmm, that's my favorite.
Great. So far. But I have to explore. Yeah, we go to the shop. Yeah. The shop is dangerous territory, but a great place to buy gift items for friends back home. Gerbaud is one of just a few chocolate tears that offer hands-on experiences with chocolate in Brussels. [MUSIC PLAYING] Brussels is a musical city. And you can find jazz pretty much year-round with bigger events and festivals in the winter and in the spring, like Brussels Jazz Weekend, one of the capital's biggest open-air festivals.
There's music throughout the city, including lots of free events and performances, like the one I'm experiencing back in the ground-plus. It's magical when you can combine awesome food with architecture, culture, and history in one vacation. In my time in Brussels, though it was a work trip filming for my TV series Travels with Darley and taping for this podcast, it sure was a lot of fun.
Thanks for joining me on another adventure with locals as the guide on the Travels with Darley Podcast, taking you around the world and back again home. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (Music)