Flanders, the ultimate promised land

Many Italians find it hard to believe but in Belgium you can eat very well and without taking refuge in chocolate or mussels, which are, without counting french-fries, a national symbol. Hadn’t this been the case, on Tuesday, at Identità, we would not open the Auditorium to Flemish excellence, to the same Flanders that, together with Wallonia, compose Belgium – a nation with two regions, three if you consider the Brussels area. The result of this sum is 30 and a half million square km, 11 million inhabitants. A little more than Lombardy, but with three different languages since to Dutch and French one needs to add a touch of German. Flanders are the Northern half, with 6 million inhabitants. Wallonia is the Southern half, with three million and 300thousand inhabitants. Brussels, the belly button in the middle, has over a million people.

The long absence of a central government struck us at the beginning of the decade, something like 526 days of crisis. This happened because each ethnicity votes for its representatives and no coalition is capable of speaking with everyone. Of course, three regions in comparison to our own 20 are an unbalanced match, but I believe the Belgians could teach us something when it comes to relations between peripheral and central institutions. Also because without a central government, things have began to work better.

In Milan, on the ninth edition, Flanders and not Belgium will arrive because the most important acknowledgements arrived from the Flemish half, starting from an event such as that of the Flemish Primitives, the latest episode of which was in 2011 in Ostend. It was a grouping of chefs, pastry-chefs and scientists, with the name inspired by the artistic movement developed some five, six centuries ago in the same area and city that today sees Flemish cuisine surprise and charm.

After you fly to Brussels, it takes very little to reach Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges and so on. Less than 50 km and you’re in Antwerp; sixty and you’re in Ghent, another 50, down the same road, and you arrive in Bruges, with Ostend by the sea, a little further up. Should you want to reach the Netherlands, starting from France and following the coast, you could do so even on foot, since there are only some sixty km to walk.

With the Michelin guide at hand, Belgium counts 124 starred establishments, of which 3 have three stars, 17 have two and 104 have one. On Tuesday, in Milan, Pieter Lonneville, Kobe Desramaults, Gert De Mangeleer and Dominique Persoone will get on the stage. Of them, only Kobe is not from Bruges. His In De Wulf, an inn, is immersed in the countryside of Dranouter, close to the border with Roubaix and France. However, Kobe has also opened a bistro in Ghent, the De Vitrine, and has established a strong liaison with two other chefs, Jason Blanckaert of J.E.F. and Olly Ceulenaere of Volta, called thus as a tribute to the inventor of the battery – his place is located in an old power station. They form the Flemish Foodies and have excited Ghent’s gastronomic life.

In Bruges, on the other hand, Lonneville has created the Tête Pressée, starting from the family’s tradition of butchers and breeders. His establishment has two souls: that of the restaurant and that of the shop, “forbidden” to vegetarians. Gert De Mangeleer is one of the three-starred ones, the most recent one. For all of them, the relationship with nature and territory is tight, so much so that in a couple of years Gert’s Hertog Jan will move to the middle of the countryside, where the vegetable garden is already at work. Finally, there’s Dominique Persoone, a chocolatier with an infectious passion. His supply chain starts in the cocoa plantations, and soon he will have his own. He’s the supplier of the best chefs in Belgium and the Netherlands – explosive.