Noordzee — Mer du Nord in French — is a small seafood counter on Place Sainte-Catherine, in the fish market neighbourhood that used to supply the city before the canals were filled in. You order at the counter, you eat standing outside at a high table or on the square, and what you’re eating is as fresh as anything available in central Brussels. It’s one of those places that has no pretensions and doesn’t need any.
The menu is short and changes with availability. Oysters, grey shrimp, langoustines, grilled fish of the day, a fish soup, and the shrimp croquette — the croquette au crevettes grises — which is the most beloved item on the menu and the one thing on this list you cannot eat on keto.
Everything else is fine.
What to order
Oysters are the obvious starting point. Belgian oysters from Zeeland, just across the Dutch border, cold and briny and exactly what they should be. Zero carbs, high protein, and eating them standing on a Brussels square in good weather is one of the better simple pleasures the city offers.
The grey shrimp — crevettes grises — are a Belgian obsession and deserve to be. They’re tiny, sweet, intensely flavoured, and almost always sold already peeled at Noordzee. Eat them plain or with a squeeze of lemon. A portion of grey shrimp is a perfect keto snack or starter.
Langoustines when available. Grilled fish of the day — whatever it is, it’s worth having. The fish soup is rich and usually good; check whether it has bread or croutons served alongside and skip those.
The croquette situation
The croquette au crevettes grises is one of the great Belgian dishes — a crispy fried shell encasing a thick, creamy grey shrimp béchamel. It’s also breadcrumbed, deep-fried, and built around a flour-thickened sauce. There is no keto version and no adaptation that preserves what makes it worth eating. It’s one of the genuine casualties of eating keto in Belgium and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
Everyone around you will be eating them. They smell extraordinary. This is just how it is.
The setting
Place Sainte-Catherine is one of the nicer squares in Brussels — the old fish market area, with the church of Sainte-Catherine at one end and a line of seafood restaurants and bars along the sides. Noordzee is the counter operation; there are also sit-down seafood restaurants on the square for a longer meal, though Noordzee is the reason most people come.
It gets busy at lunchtime and on warm evenings. Go slightly off-peak if you want to eat without queuing. The square is pleasant enough to linger on with a glass of white wine — Noordzee serves wine — and oysters and grey shrimp while watching the square do its thing.
It’s the kind of place that makes Brussels feel like a genuinely good food city, which it is, once you know where to look. Noordzee is near the top of the list of places to take anyone visiting who thinks Belgian food is just waffles and frites.
The croquettes are still not for you. Everything else is.