24 Best Hotels in Brussels, Belgium

This little bed-and-breakfast was a shell when owner Laurent took it on—he rebuilt the workshop at the end of the garden and then turned it into two rooms, installed a glass corridor leading to them, and huge patio doors in the breakfast room and the result is a light, airy, modern-looking B&B with an owner who usually finds a solution to whatever problem you have. Snacks decorate the communal area (if you're peckish) and the buffet breakfast makes the most of local producers. Best of all, you're just a street away from Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Location, charm, and history are Amigo's stock in trade---the 15th-century site was once a prison, and it's said that Belgium's then Spanish occupiers mistook the word "vrunt" (prison) for "vriend" (friend), hence the name. Located just a block from the Grand Place, you'd be forgiven for just lingering a while. Rooms are largely neutral with green, red, or blue highlights, silk curtains and leather headboards, plus a mix of modern furniture and antiques. Works by Belgian artists hang on the walls, and Tintin pictures and figurines cheer up the mosaic-tiled bathrooms. If you'd like a view over the surrounding rooftops, ask for a room on one of the higher floors (these also cost more). 

This boutique stay lies on place des Martyrs, a historic location that contains a monument to the 445 patriots who died in the brief but successful 1830 War of Independence—many are buried in a crypt below the cobbles. The Juliana's grandeur certainly befits this hallowed setting. Its rooms are sold as "apartments," highly stylized and continuing the neoclassical design that courses through the building. A beautiful pool and wellness area (gym, sauna, hammam) keeps up the general air of moneyed luxury, which filters down to everything from the Molton Brown bath products to the rather fine in-hotel brasserie. 

A charmingly renovated 18th-century building is the setting for this family-run boutique hotel, found deep in the fashionable Louise neighborhood. The rooms are bright and tastefully simple, decorated in either single or two-tone colors. Try and bag a room overlooking the inner courtyard, replete with giant outdoor chess set. Elsewhere, a billiards room provides old-fashioned distraction, as does the café-bar, which serves snacks and a good range of beers. As befits its residential setting, the area is also whisper-quiet, although it's only a short walk to avenue Louise or 15 minutes to the hip Saint-Gilles bar area. This really is a gem.

Arguably the city's most complete stay is the attractive Martin's Klooster, which used to be a 15th-century Augustinian monastery and hospice. Stashed away in a quiet cobbled corner not far from the center, its Klooster Bar is also one of the better spots in town for a cocktail. Rooms are no less desirable, with the upper end sporting four-poster beds and "bubble baths." It is simply one of the prettiest stays in the area, complete with a magnificent interior orangery garden.

There aren't too many options for stays in this thin sliver of the city, between Mont des Arts and the Sablon, particularly toward Cirque Royale, but this stylish offering is the exception, and a good one given it's a low-budget chain. It's certainly in a different league to the average Ibis. And for little more than €100 a night, you get a central, stylish stay in a lively area. Rooms are comfortable and simple, the bar is rather slick considering, and there's even private parking. The breakfast can be taken in the inner courtyard.

After years in the wilderness, a titanic makeover has turned this back into one of Brussels's plushest stays. It's nice to see, as the building itself has plenty of history. It was 1913 when this grande dame first jitterbugged onto the Brussels scene, and you can see it in the design; the exterior is a veritable Art Nouveau palace, its imperious white facade and black balconies hinting at the crisply decorated rooms within. Everything is up-to-date once again, with the pool, spa, hammam, and fitness center all first-rate, while the cozy hotel bar oozes gentleman's club chic. A real blast from the past.

Squirreled away down a small lane off Grand Sablon square, this is a more modern boutique stay than the usual grandes dames you'll find in this area. Certainly, its subterranean pool is moodily chic, and this Parisian chain doesn't skimp on its retro theme: light woods and blockish furnishings, a Finnish sauna, and a general air of days gone by complete a charming picture. It also has another branch next to the Cathedral of St. Michael and Ste. Gudula.

A business hotel that wants to be just that little bit cooler than the rest; granted its design is a little industrial in places, but this slick offering has large, loft-like rooms, a fun bar area, a fitness center, and a small café area clearly geared to tempt those whose business meetings ran over. You can play foosball or pool in the lobby, and a general air of professionalism runs throughout. An always reliable stay.

Having had a complete makeover and rebranding, it doesn't take long to appreciate the selling point of Craves, whose stylish, speakeasy-style Art Deco bar and accompanying Middle Eastern restaurant draw the eye as you make your way to the reception.The rooms are bold, if tasteful, affairs, decked out in deep blues and blacks, with marble surfaces, hardwood floors and brass accents—like an old-school gentleman's club by way of North Africa. Combined with its location—slap-bang in the center of the city, not far from the Bourse—it's a useful bolthole and a likeably polished stay.  

This family-run hotel is, in truth, more like a grand B&B: owner Carmen still rents the building, which used to be a rectory, from the church (Sint-Michelskerk) across the road. It's a charming location, with an attractive interior walled garden where you can take breakfast on sunny mornings. You can even pick its apples and strawberries when in season. Rooms have been recently renovated, and the "Michel Suite" in particular is gigantic—practically a flat in itself. It's the kind of quirky stay where there's nothing else quite like it in the city, and it's all the better for it.

A great little budget stay, though buried among the residential weeds. This hyper-colorful hotel has the feel of an upmarket hostel minus the dorms, though each room is en suite and lockable. There are books to read, games to play, and the staff are uber helpful and have good local knowledge. It just has the friendliness of a good backpacker joint. Best of all: your door key is essentially an old Nokia mobile phone that allows you to make local calls within Belgium.

Having styled itself as a "wellness hotel," this is one of the better-value stays along the Chausée de Charleroi in Ixelles, and its facilities—cleverly squeezed into a 19th-century mansion house—are a cut above most. The spa (a small pool, marble steam room, sauna) and fitness room are as much geared towards physiotherapy as relaxation, and it's possible to get a decent workout here, which is a rarity in most small city hotels. Downstairs, the bar is a slick, neon affair, and while the room decor tends to be quite dark (dark woods, beige carpets, gray marble), those overlooking the courtyard are more charming.

This four-floor, stylish boutique stay in the center, opening onto Rue des Bouchers, ticks just about every box you could want for a city stay. It's technically part of Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert (which the majority of rooms overlook), and it wraps around a small internal courtyard. Rooms are elegantly light affairs, all pale woods accented by white framing, and downstairs is the excellent bistronomique restaurant Comptoir de Galeries and a bar-café.

A relative newcomer, nestled on the edge of the botanical gardens, the stylish Hoxton towers over its leafy setting. Set within a rather stern-looking office-block originally built as IBM's HQ in Brussels in the 1970s, it has been transformed inside. The rooms are fashionable in a way that wants you to know it but doesn't set your retinas ablaze, mixing bare concrete, polished wood, and a modern take on '70s-era design. Downstairs, it has the feel of a bustling workspace (all laptops and lattes), reflecting the business clientele, but the rooftop bar and eatery (Tope) is a welcome perk, as is the hotel's unexpectedly accomplished Peruvian-style restaurant.

This stylishly restored, 17th-century building lies between the Grand Place and the Gare Centrale. Rooms surround a lovely interior courtyard, with some suites located up a splendid Louis XVI staircase. Named after Belgian artists, the rooms come with plain floorboards, exposed beams, and suede sofas, while some have terrace views. There are a couple of budget options on the top and bottom floors, which are a little smaller—those rooms around the Patio section tend to be a little newer. Suites have decorative fireplaces, and the honeymoon option is particularly romantic. A gym and wellness center are an added bonus.

Occupying the building of what was formerly one of the city's more eccentric stays, there is little that is quirky about this polished, family-owned boutique hotel. But that's rather the point. It's all light wood, sleek lines, creams, and beamed ceilings, like something out of an upmarket French furniture catalogue, and not dissimilar to its excellent sister hotel in the Louise area. The bar-café downstairs is very much of the lounging-with-a-newspaper variety, and also doubles as the breakfast area, while the rooms are large for the size of the building. It's a surprisingly quiet area too, despite the bars and restaurants of place Sainte-Catherine being just a short walk away.   

This upscale hotel has expansive terraces, a rose-filled garden populated by waterfowl and songbirds, and a good restaurant, Kolya. Roman pillars and classical scenes painted on the walls give the lobby a slightly kitsch vibe. The well-appointed rooms have Louis XV and Louis XVI-style antiques—even the TVs are set in distressed-looking picture frames. The sauna (in a design about-face) has a Moroccan flavor with tiling and arched doorways.

As part of Sablon's lineup of antiques shops, cafés, and chocolatiers, this hotel offers discreet luxury behind an elegant white facade. The reception area is set within a hushed row of private art galleries, and there's a pretty interior cobbled courtyard. Rooms are tastefully decorated and have had a much-needed refurb in recent years. The plusher suites also come with whirlpool baths. Ask for a room at the back, as the square outside is often clogged with people, and the noisy weekend antique market gets going at 9 am.

What was the BLOOM! hotel has been rebranded to create the kind of hotel name that looks like someone just fell on a keyboard. Nevertheless, the spirit of what was one of the more colorful design hotels lives on. Inside, graffiti decoration, splatter art, and wild stenciling mark it out as something a bit different, though it is very much a business hotel at heart. A well-equipped fitness center and budget-friendly prices separate it from the rest of the area's brisker-valued stays, many of which could do with a lick of paint. The same can not be said of this splashy offering.

Near the northern end of the Galeries St-Hubert shopping arcade, this hotel has an Art Deco facade and is decorated in a variety of styles, including "Maritime" rooms with blue-and-yellow walls and wood floors. The greenery-filled atrium incorporates a 10-foot-high section of the 12th-century city wall and serves excellent Scandinavian-style open sandwiches. Its Michelin-starred restaurant, Sea Grill, is among the best dining spots in the city.

A top-to-bottom makeover has seen the Scott reemerge as a more elegant roaring 1920s-themed stay—all gold and dark, limpid greens. It's a solid boutique stay in one of the quieter corners of Saint-Gilles There is certainly little that is roaring about Place Loix, but the rooms are tasteful and the price is a bargain. The owners also run the equally charming Hygge Hotel in Ixelles, which is a good fallback if there's no room here.

This hotel is vintage by virtue of having a fair amount of clutter adorning its spaces—think a CHiPs-style motorcycle on a balcony and old silver food truck in the yard. It also has a penchant for swirly, 1960s-style orange-and-brown wallpaper. Aside from that, it's all rather modern. The "wine bar" is more of a bar these days, but the main appeal is just what a quiet little spot this is, a stone's throw from the main shopping streets and with a number of excellent dining options nearby.