Rue Antoine Dansaert & Saint-Géry

Rue Dansaert is Brussels' fashion and design street — a corridor of Belgian designer boutiques, concept stores, and the kind of independent retail that survives in a city where rents are still low enough to support creativity. The street runs from the Bourse (the neoclassical stock exchange) west toward the canal, and the surrounding blocks — collectively known as the Dansaert quarter — have become Brussels' most design-conscious neighbourhood.

The Belgian fashion designers who emerged in the 1980s and 90s — the 'Antwerp Six' and their successors — have retail presences here, and the mix of established names and emerging designers gives the street a creative energy that the luxury-brand corridors of other European capitals can't match. Stijl, the multi-brand concept store, is the neighbourhood's anchor, stocking Belgian and international designers in a converted warehouse that sets the aesthetic standard.

Halles Saint-Géry, a 19th-century covered market at the quarter's heart, has been converted into a cultural centre and exhibition space with a ground-floor bar that is one of the best places in Brussels for a weekend afternoon beer. The surrounding streets contain the highest concentration of cocktail bars and natural wine bars in the city, and the Saturday brunch culture that has colonised the neighbourhood means the terraces fill from 10am. The area bridges the tourist zone around the Grand-Place and the increasingly hip canal district, making it a natural walking route between old Brussels and new.