Au Gré du Vent

Butter from the farm across the road

Butter and cheese arrive from the farm opposite, which is the first fact of the cooking. Stéphanie Thunus, chef and owner of Au Gré du Vent in Seneffe, grew up on that agricultural ground, trained at the Hôtel School of Namur, then worked at Maison du Cygne, where she met her husband Sébastien, and at Gril aux Herbes d’Evan in Wemmel. In 2012 the couple converted her family’s old barn into the dining room, leaving a small chapel remnant as the only visible trace of what the building was. Michelin holds one star here for high quality cooking. Her own method is product-led and unhurried: ingredients decide the menu, and nothing leaves the kitchen unfinished. Gault&Millau named her Discovery of the Year in 2013 and Young Chef of the Year in 2014.

The barn, the season, the plate

The kitchen serves tasting menus, the Menu Coup de Coeur among them, with à la carte alongside. Season sets the rotation rather than a fixed carte. Slow-cooked egg arrives under morel foam. Red mullet is pan-fried and set in bouchot mussel beurre blanc. Limousin veal takes a punchy gravy, broad bean sauce and aubergine caviar agnolotti. Anjou pigeon is spice-rubbed and matched to red beet and kriek cherry, and ris de veau has come to the table with beet, cherries and kriek sauce. Cod carries a smoked jus; tomatoes from local growers are prepared several ways under a bittersweet dressing; Ardennes game appears when the season turns. Amuse-bouches set the tone early, leek and bouchot mussel maki or mushroom and foie gras gyozas, and a celery sorbet resets the palate mid-meal. Technique sits inside the ingredient rather than over it.

Seven hundred references

The cellar holds seven hundred references, run by sommelier Pierre Moury, who took the keys from Sébastien Guchet and gives advice that stays modest. The list was named Gault&Millau Wine Menu of the Year in 2019, which points to a real programme rather than a decorative pairing script. Pairings follow the kitchen’s seasonal line, so the glass moves with the plate instead of arriving at a fixed cadence. Sébastien Thunus supports the operation and greets guests himself, and the couple also run the adjacent Au Fil de l’Eau Hotel, which lets a long tasting menu end without a drive home.

Light against the garden

The room keeps the barn’s memory without making a costume of it. A recent renovation enlarged the open space and flooded it with light: floor-to-ceiling glass, pastel benches, curved furniture, landscaped garden views. The work at the pass happens with the Hainaut countryside in sight rather than as a theme applied afterwards. Service is formal, the noise level low, the pace unhurried enough for a tasting menu to hold its shape. That matters for food built from small turns of acidity and texture, kriek against beet, broad bean against veal, morel foam around an egg. The clearest thing on the table remains the butter from a farm across the road in Seneffe.