The story
Cécile is a modern French restaurant at Brusselstraat 6, 1760 Roosdaal, in the Pamel district, and Gault&Millau gave it 13.5 points for 2026. The brick townhouse faces the village church square.
Chef Tom Van Nieuwenhuyzen trained as a pastry chef and works in an open, windowed kitchen. There is no fixed menu, just a short à la carte built on classic French technique and the seasons. Le Fooding praised his corn falafel with tahini and Flemish egg salad, and a pink lamb fillet brightened by mint and coriander chimichurri. The current card also lists cappelletti cacio e pepe and wild sea bass with kale and hand-peeled North Sea shrimp. Dessert has included white chocolate mousse with avocado ice cream.
Sisters Judith and Astrid Van Snick run the dining room, which is white-walled and calm, with blond-wood tables. The name comes from two neighbouring sisters, Martha and Cécile, whom the owners visited as girls. The wine list leans heavily on Burgundy and Champagne, and the bread comes from Les Pains de Stéphane.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
This is the kind of place you’ll be tempted to keep all to yourself: a peaceful townhouse with all-white interiors, tucked away in a small Flemish Brabant town and surrounded by fields. Ring the bell and you’re welcomed in as if you were an old friend. Inside a dining room with the effortless elegance of a bouquet of wildflowers, sisters Judith and Astrid Van Snick provide radiant, attentive and impeccably warm service. Meanwhile, chef Tom Van Nieuwenhuyzen (a pastry chef by training) casts his quiet magic in the windowed kitchen. And what arrives on the blond-wood tables are delicate, self-assured plates that get straight to the point: corn falafel with creamy tahini sauce and a quintessential Flemish egg salad, to open the show; invigorating Irish oysters served with a rather pronounced seaweed butter; perfectly pink lamb fillet served with tender glazed carrots and new potatoes, all jolted awake by a mint and coriander chimichurri that lights up the whole plate; and for the sweet finale, a rich white chocolate mousse paired with freshly churned avocado ice cream. · Cléo Popina
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