AntwerpChocolateFoodieRestaurant

Only in Belgium: Try chocolate-based dishes at Octave

Where else would a restaurant specialized in chocolate make more sense than in Belgium?

Octave, becomes the first restaurant in Antwerp to offer dishes with chocolate as the main ingredient.

With their​ joie de vivre, Executive Chef, Thomas Van de Weyer and Master Chocolatier Patrick Aubrion delight customers with Belgian dishes and desserts with a twist. Thomas combines flavours in a way no one else can. Patrick worked closely with Pierre Marcolini for 14 years.

They offer both sweet and salty dishes, based on cocoa.

 

However, you can find classics on their menu as well. All Octave dishes are prepared with fresh ingredients and seasonal products. They offer a lunch menu in the afternoons and guests can enjoy a comprehensive menu in a delightful setting for dinner. Octave also serves delectable desserts throughout the day, prepared in their own Bean to Bar studio.

The Story behind Octave

Octaaf Callebaut was born in a family of beer brewers. However, he didn’t really know what to do with his life. Brewing beer just wasn’t his thing. In the end, his father entrusted him with the eighth production line of the family company, adding: “Just figure out for yourself what you want to do with it.” In the back of the factory, Octaaf silently started to experiment with cocoa beans, sugar and milk.

In 1911, the smell of Octaaf’s first chocolate creations started to overtake the beer scent that used to dominate in the family company. Driven by curiosity, the factory’s workers come to have a look. “What’s that syrupy substance?”, one of them asks. He’s the first one to taste the chocolate straight from the pot. Other colleagues follow his example, and they are all enchanted by the velvety, sweet taste. News of the birth of the delicious chocolate spread fast.

 

 

Encouraged by his wife Juliette, Octaaf goes looking for new tastes, techniques and products. The flavours he creates keep on enchanting everyone. The eighth line becomes world famous and turns into the global chocolate empire it is today. Today, the brewery is no more, but Wieze now has the biggest chocolate factory in the world.

As Octaaf was a Belgian taste pioneer, taste is exactly what restaurant Octave is all about.