Yamayu Santatsu opened in Brussels in 1978. A decade before Japanese cuisine became a category that European cities understood they needed, and nearly four decades before the wave of Japanese-influenced restaurants that now lines every fashionable street in every major European capital. The restaurant on Chaussee d'Ixelles has survived that wave by declining to participate in it. It serves Japanese food the way Japanese food is served in Japan: with precision, without theatre, and without the slightest interest in explaining itself to diners who arrive expecting something more dramatic.
The kitchen is staffed by Japanese chefs who have maintained the restaurant's standards across the decades. The sushi and sashimi are the obvious draw. Fish handled with a care for temperature, texture, and cut that the newer generation of Brussels Japanese restaurants has not yet learned to replicate with the same consistency. The cooked dishes are equally considered: grilled items that achieve the particular character of a kitchen that knows how to manage heat, broth preparations of genuine depth, and the small supporting elements that distinguish a meal at Yamayu Santatsu from a meal at any restaurant that has simply decided to serve Japanese food.
The room is not designed to impress. It is designed to function. To move food from the kitchen to the table in the correct condition, with service that is courteous and efficient rather than performative. For the guest who has been eating in Brussels for twenty years, Yamayu Santatsu is the baseline against which all subsequent Japanese addresses are measured. For the visitor arriving for the first time, it provides an orientation in what the cuisine is actually about before the restaurants that have decided to interpret it have their say.
The wine list is modest and the sake selection more interesting. Ask for guidance on the latter. The floor team knows what they are working with. The price point, relative to the quality of what arrives at the table, represents genuine value at the $$$ level in a city where that price range sometimes delivers considerably less.