Anata is a Japanese restaurant on Boulevard Anspach, a few minutes from the Bourse. It does sushi, noodle dishes, donburi rice bowls, and yakitori — the full range of a casual Japanese lunch spot. For keto purposes, about half the menu is immediately useful and the other half can be adapted or ignored.
The sashimi is the obvious starting point. Raw fish sliced and served without rice is keto by definition — salmon, tuna, yellowtail, whatever’s on offer. A sashimi plate as a starter or a main is a complete keto-friendly meal with nothing to negotiate.
Yakitori — grilled skewers — are the other strong option. Chicken thigh, chicken with spring onion, chicken with cheese, pork belly, beef. All grilled, all low-carb, all good. The cheese yakitori sounds slightly unusual if you’re not familiar with it but it works — the cheese melts into the chicken during grilling and the result is better than it has any right to be. Order several skewers and you have a proper lunch.
What to skip and what to adapt
The noodle dishes are off. Ramen, udon, soba — the noodles are the point and there’s no useful substitution.
Donburi — rice bowls — are worth ordering if you ask for them without the rice or with very little rice. Gyudon, oyakodon, karaage don — the protein and sauce on top are fine; it’s the bed of rice underneath that adds up. Some places will do this without complaint, others will look confused. Worth asking.
Sushi rolls are borderline — the rice in a standard maki or nigiri isn’t enormous but it adds up across a full lunch order. Sashimi is the cleaner option. Temaki hand rolls can sometimes be ordered with less rice.
The miso soup that comes with set lunches has minimal carbs and is worth drinking — it’s also useful for electrolytes, which matters if you’re in the early stages of keto.
The restaurant
It’s a genuinely Japanese place — the reviews mention actual Japanese staff and regulars, which usually means the food is made by people who eat it themselves rather than approximating it for a Western market. The portions are generous for the price range and the lunch sets are good value.
Boulevard Anspach 74, central Brussels, close enough to the Bourse metro stop to walk easily from most of the EU quarter if you’re making the trip. Gets busy at peak lunch hour. Worth going slightly early or slightly late if you want a table without waiting.
Two Japanese lunch spots within reasonable distance of the centre of Brussels that both work for keto, at a price point that doesn’t require explaining to your employer. That’s a more useful piece of information than it might seem on a normal day.