Fine dining is not dying

INSIGHT - French chef Bruno Verjus is closing his two-Michelin-starred restaurant Table with these words: "Fine dining is dead." He has no doubt. We do. Because the figures for the Belgian market tell a different story.

“ Fine dining is dead,” declared chef Bruno Verjus in a video announcing the closure of his Parisian restaurant, Table, one of the world’s most renowned establishments. The chef has his reasons, very personal ones, but is he right about the entire world of exceptional cuisine? The figures for the Belgian market tell a different, more nuanced story.

The reality is undeniable: €466 net at the end of the month. That's not much. Of the 18,249 companies operating in the restaurant sector in Belgium, the median profit margin is 2.25% on a median turnover of €310,733, according to Gondola Foodservice's model. That's roughly €583 per month before taxes. And that doesn't even include withholding tax.

This comes in a context where food prices have increased by 38% in Belgium since the end of 2019. Automatic wage indexation, meanwhile, has risen by more than 25% over the same period. The hospitality sector is also a matter of personnel, and wage inflation has not spared this sector.

The risk with averages is that the tree hides the forest.

One hundred and thirty-nine restaurants are starred in the Michelin Guide Belgium and Luxembourg 2026, compared to one hundred and fifty-three in 2024. Twenty-two of them, with two or three stars, are Belgian, for a combined turnover of 49.2 million euros in 2025. We will not go back here to the controversy over their distribution: fifteen in Flanders, three in Brussels, four in Wallonia.

But here's what the numbers say.

The median net profit margin for Belgian fine dining, 2.3% , is almost identical to that of the entire Belgian restaurant sector, 2.25%. The median Michelin-starred restaurant does not generate a higher profit margin than that of a regular restaurant.

What distinguishes this segment is its weighted average, 7.0% across our sample of twenty-two establishments, driven by a small core of highly profitable restaurants. And above all, the scale of the revenue: the median for fine dining, €2,069,863 , is nearly 6.7 times the median for all Belgian restaurants.

At comparable margin rates, the cash generated in absolute value is therefore much higher at the median starred restaurant, which puts into perspective the narrative of a generalized crisis in the high-end sector.

A direct consequence of this is reflected in the cost structure: a Michelin-starred restaurant employs an average of fifteen full-time equivalents, compared to three for the Belgian restaurant industry as a whole. Cost pressures affect every segment of the hospitality sector; they are simply being rebalanced on a different scale.

This very high turnover at the best establishments shows that the market is there for haute cuisine. Obviously, not everyone can afford it. "A €480 meal like Verjus is worth it," summarizes Christophe Hardiquest, chef of Mensa, in Le Soir . "But there you have it, it doesn't matter." There's still enough left to make it happen.

It's the mediocre establishments that are destined to disappear, as highlighted in Gondola Foodservice's analysis report, The Selective Appetite , and only those that demonstrate their added value will survive. For a bill of nearly €1,000 for two, it's essential to clearly demonstrate what sets them apart.

Once the proposition and added value have been clearly identified, three parameters determine the success of an establishment: location, ratings and reviews, and good management.

Ratings and reviews, first of all. Across the entire Belgian market, the Gondola Foodservice database confirms this: a better rating and more reviews mean more sales.

In our overview of the twenty-two starred restaurants, the rating remains consistently above 4.5 out of 5. The number of reviews, however, varies considerably and correlates with revenue. Boury, with the highest revenue observed, has over eight hundred Google reviews. The Jane, the second highest, has over fifteen hundred.

Then there's location. La Paix, in Anderlecht, doesn't occupy the most enviable spot in the capital, and it also has the lowest turnover in the area. Conversely, Sir Kwinten, in the Pajottenland region, and Castor, in the Waregem textile basin, are located in two of the wealthiest residential areas in the country, following the same logic as Knokke or Uccle.

L'Air du Temps, Slagmolen, and D'Eugénie à Emilie are all located just minutes from major highways, including the E411, E314, and E19. Location is certainly an advantage. But in the world of fine dining, a chef's reputation can also draw customers much further afield.

For the management of the establishment, one must go beyond the media soundbite: the question is not whether the restaurateur knows how to cook or not. "Those who are most successful today don't know how to boil an egg," asserts Grégory Sorgeloose, a specialist in leasing and sales in the hospitality industry, in an article in L'Echo discussing a sector crisis .

Some have understood this. Victor Roisin, who recently took over the Toucan sur Mer in Ixelles with DJ Lost Frequencies, readily places himself in this category of incompetents. "I surround myself with people who are more trained and more intelligent than me," he says in the same article.

Thibault Demanet, who recently closed his last two establishments after twelve years in the industry, recounts this shift in his own way. "Setting up small businesses with good products is what I love," he says of Jimbo, his chip shop. But he acknowledges the limitations: "I'm not good at managing finances. I delegated too much. I should have controlled my costs better. These days, you have to calculate everything. Running the hospitality business based on instinct is no longer possible."

With such a delicate balance, being a good cook, or having one, remains essential. But it's no longer enough. Managing a business, maximizing revenue, keeping costs under control, and managing staff have become equally vital. A heating engineer starting their own heating company knows this. So does an entrepreneur venturing into construction: being good at your trade doesn't guarantee a company's success. The restaurant industry is no exception.

For the complete analysis of the restaurant industry in Belgium, access via The Cube , the software from Gondola Foodservice, from October 1, 2026.