Some restaurants open with the ambition of making a splash, while others feel more like a homecoming. Petricor, a new fine-dining restaurant that opened in mid-July in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, clearly belongs to the second category. At the helm is Brussels-born chef Diego Galvez, who is returning to his hometown after several years spent between Belgium, France, and Spain—including six years as head chef at Montia, a Michelin-starred restaurant.
A culinary fusion of Brussels and Spain
Born and raised in Brussels, Diego Galvez has never truly severed his ties with Belgium, even when his professional journey took him elsewhere. In France and then in Spain, he refined his approach to working with ingredients and gained the experience that now informs Petricor’s cuisine. But rather than replicating traditional Spanish cuisine, the chef prefers to draw on its techniques, flavors, and memories , allowing them to interact with Belgian ingredients and terroir.
The result is a unique tasting menu, served in a deliberately intimate dining room. Escabeches, fish, snails, offal, lamb, smoked dishes, and carefully crafted sauces may follow one another, alongside more plant-based dishes. The cooking is precise but unpretentious: here, the idea is rather to let the ingredients speak for themselves and to craft an experience centered on memory and emotion.
A Return to His Roots
Even the restaurant’s name sets the tone. Petricor refers to that distinctive scent of the earth after rain—a familiar sensation that’s almost impossible to describe other than through experience. It’s an image that fits Diego Galvez’s vision quite well: something deeply instinctive, tied to memories, roots, and that feeling of returning to a familiar place after having left it.
This return is as much a personal one as it is a professional one. The chef has returned to live in Brussels with his partner and their daughter—with a second child on the way—to start a new chapter in their lives. And this desire to put down roots here is also reflected in the dining room, the choice of producers, and the wine list, where Spanish wines hold a prominent place alongside French and European bottles, with a special focus on small-batch producers and “living” wines.
A new gourmet destination to watch
With just a few tables and attentive service, Petricor prioritizes an intimate atmosphere over formality. It’s a restaurant that seems less interested in impressing than in telling a story: the journey of a chef who trained elsewhere but chose to return to Brussels to cook at home!
📍Address: 2 Avenue de Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, 1200 Woluwe-Saint-Lambert
