Taste of Belgium founder Jean-François Flechet has a new fine-dining concept on the way.
Jacques, which fuses Flechet’s Belgian roots with French culinary techniques, opens Sept. 22 inside Taste of Belgium’s current Rookwood location.
The menu is being developed by Patrick Bowling, who was most recently in charge of Le Bar a Boeuf, the French brasserie opened by Cincinnati culinary titan Jean-Robert de Cavel that closed in August. It will feature traditional Belgian and French dishes like gougères, escargot, vol-au-vent, moules au gratin, crème brûlée, and — of course — Taste of Belgium’s famous waffle, this time paired with duck confit.
“I’m super excited, because … now I get to work with someone who’s super talented and can make some of these ideas a reality and execute them in a restaurant setting. We didn’t really have anyone, from a culinary standpoint, who could execute like this,” Flechet said. “I’m not a chef, you know? I mean, I’ve never run the kitchen, that’s never been my thing, but I love to work with chefs and creative people, so I’m really excited to be working with Patrick to get people to try new food.”
Flechet and Bowling became friends over 20 years ago, back when Bowling was cooking upstairs at de Cavel’s restaurant Pho Paris and Flechet was in the basement making waffle dough. The two reconnected after the closure of Le Bar a Boeuf.
“Annette (de Cavel) has been a really good friend for the past 26 years, and when I last went to Le Bar a Boeuf, I realized, ‘hey, the restaurant is closing. He’s without a job. I think we can do something fun together,'” he said. “He’s now in charge of our entire culinary operations at Taste of Belgium. The two restaurants, the new concept, and at Findlay Market. For someone as creative as him, there is plenty of opportunities.”
Taste of Belgium’s regular menu will remain available at Rookwood during the day, but at night, the restaurant will shift to operating as Jacques.
The news comes as Taste of Belgium is at a critical juncture. Back in January, the restaurant chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; just a few months prior, it closed its first, flagship space in Over-the-Rhine. Eight Taste of Belgium restaurants have closed in the last two years, and only two locations remain at Rookwood and The Banks. Flechet highlighted the COVID-19 pandemic and the departure of General Electric from their office at The Banks as reasons for the brand’s economic struggles.
“When GE left as the anchor tenant, we went from having 2,000 highly compensated engineers above our head to having zero. Nobody was eating downtown, they were ordering from DoorDash or Uber Eats, and we had to pay 40% commission to those services,” he said. “The environment has changed drastically. We couldn’t just keep on doing what we were doing and expecting different results. That’s why we’re trying new things. We said, ‘let’s stop beating a dead horse and try to convince people to come to Taste of Belgium for dinner.'”
When Jacques opens, it will have a set menu to correspond with Cincinnati Restaurant Week. Guests can choose from gougères, escargot or moules au gratin for their first course; steak frites, duck confit and a waffle or vol-au-vent for their second; and crème brûlée, chocolate pot de creme, or profiteroles for their third. If you find the idea of a waffle as a main course at a fine-dining restaurant odd, you’re not alone.
“It started as a joke with Patrick, and then he said, ‘You know what? I kind of love it.’ In the past, we paired the waffle with duck breast, and he thought that doing it with confit would be something that would be really fun,” Flechet said. “It tastes amazing, and the flavors pair well. And it’s also fun to to put a waffle on the main course menu in a more elevated concept. It’s kind of like a wink to what started it all for us, which is the waffle.”
Flechet is most excited to show off their vol-au-vent — which he described as “kind of like a blank canvas: you can do it with chicken, mushroom, lobster. To me, it’s comfort food, like a Belgian pot pie” — and their steak frites, which are served with a green peppercorn sauce.
Once Restaurant Week is over, Jacques will expand to an even larger menu on October 1, although Flechet is mostly tight-lipped about what will be on it. He mentions steak tartare and some other French classics as potential options, but noted that he and Bowling are still trying to decide just how many items will be on the menu.
His goal with the new restaurant is to introduce people to Belgian culture that they haven’t previously been exposed to, and to “keep Taste of Belgium alive and find a path forward so that we can celebrate our 20th anniversary next year.”
“Opening the new concept is a way of generating additional income without having to support the fixed cost of a new restaurant. And also, Rookwood is a beautiful restaurant at night, and a lot of people have only been there during the day,” Flechet said. “We want to be a neighborhood place, and I think that there is a lot of opportunity for people who live up north and don’t want to go downtown. If all goes well, they will say they cannot wait to come back.”
For more information, visit Taste of Belgium’s official website.
