Try the restaurant at the top of the Atomium. M. and I were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food and the service. It’s possible to compose your own three or four course menu but make sure you reserve a place at the restaurant as soon as you get in. We had about an hour’s wait but there’s plenty to keep you occupied in the meantime.
The Atomium was built for the Brussels World Fair in 1958.
The diagonal tubes contain escalators and stairwells which provide the access to the spheres (although two were off limits for structural reasons) and the vertical tube at the centre takes you all the way to the top and the restaurant.
(©MRandin)
One of the spheres holds a collection of the kitchen gadgets that were featured at the Expo in 1958.
(©MRandin)
I remember seeing some of these things in my grandmother’s kitchen. But the feeling I got as I took in the exhibit was not one of nostalgia. In fact, it was the same feeling I had at a museum in Berlin, where they had reconstructed a kitchen from the 1970s containing many “artifacts” from my era. It was the “oh my god, I’m a museum exhibit” feeling. M. didn’t want to admit it, but I knew he felt the same way.
So we worked our way down the tubes to the main floor of the atomoium, headed back to town on the tourist bus, found a good bar and perked ourselves up with an alcoholic beverage.
