Yirmi

A Villa Format in Wallonia's Quieter Dining Register

The approach to Yirmi sets a particular tone. An elegant villa on Rue Trieux-Scieurs in Malonne, a residential commune folded into the southern edge of the Namur agglomeration, signals something quieter than the urban dining rooms that anchor Belgium's better-known restaurant circuit. There is no theatrical entrance, no ground-floor bar scene calibrated for pre-dinner drift. The architecture announces a meal taken seriously, in a setting designed to concentrate attention on the table rather than the room. For our full Malonne restaurants guide, Yirmi sits at the considered end of what the area offers.

Wallonia's fine dining scene has historically operated in the shadow of the Flemish north, where kitchens like Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem, Boury in Roeselare, and Zilte in Antwerp have drawn sustained international attention. South of the language line, the creative energy is present but the profile is lower, and that gap is closing. Yirmi's Michelin Plate recognition in 2025 and a Google rating of 4.8 from 182 reviews place it within a tier of Wallonian addresses that are being watched with growing interest by the broader Belgian dining conversation.

Terroir on the Plate: Vegetables as the Primary Argument

The most instructive thing about Yirmi's current kitchen direction is the seriousness with which it treats vegetable-led cooking, not as a concession to dietary preference or a seasonal footnote, but as a site of genuine creativity. We're Smart World, the Ghent-based guide that benchmarks plant-forward cooking across Europe, has noted the kitchen's evolving plant menu as a genuine development worth attention, confirming that the new creations represent a substantive shift in approach rather than a marketing adjustment.

This matters in the context of Belgian fine dining broadly. The country's high-end kitchens have long been rooted in classically rich preparation: butter, cream, protein-forward menus, and a Burgundian sensibility about abundance. The pivot toward vegetables at this price register, at €€€, represents a genuine reorientation of what the cuisine is arguing for. It places Yirmi in a conversation with plant-forward kitchens operating in a more rural or semi-rural register across the country, including Willem Hiele in Oudenburg and L'Eau Vive in Arbre, both of which have built their identities partly around the land immediately surrounding them.

At Yirmi, the link between provenance and plate is not incidental. Wallonia's agricultural character, its river valleys, market gardens, and forested hills, provides the context in which vegetable-led creative French cooking becomes a coherent regional statement rather than a borrowed trend. The kitchen's willingness to devote a full menu option to plant ingredients, available when flagged at booking, suggests a level of preparation and commitment that goes beyond token accommodation.

The Format: Freedom of Courses, Fixed-Price Wine

The structural choices at Yirmi are worth understanding before you arrive. The kitchen operates a format that allows diners to choose the number of courses rather than committing to a fixed tasting sequence. This is a meaningful design decision. At the upper end of Belgian dining, where multi-course commitments of seven to twelve plates are standard, Yirmi's flexible construction positions it as accessible to a different kind of evening, whether that is a focused three-course dinner or a more extended progression.

The wine dimension is handled through what may be the room's most distinctive physical feature: a glazed wine cellar that guests are invited to enter and select from directly, with pricing fixed according to the menu chosen. The Michelin inspector note on this element specifically flags the potential for bargains, which is an unusual signal in a context where wine margins at recognized addresses tend to be steep. That structural transparency around pricing connects to a broader hospitality instinct visible in comparable Wallonian addresses. d'Eugénie à Emilie in Baudour operates a similarly host-forward, considered-format approach, and L'Eau Vive in Arbre at €€€€ demonstrates what that register looks like at a higher price point.

Front-of-house at Yirmi is anchored by Adrien, whose role begins at the door and extends through the wine selection process. Michelin's inspectors noted the welcome as genuinely solicitous, a specific and non-routine quality in a country where formal service at this level can sometimes feel procedural rather than warm. A Google score of 4.8 from 182 reviews is consistent with this reading: that number, across a meaningful sample, reflects satisfaction that extends beyond the food alone.

Where It Sits in the Belgian Creative French Tier

At €€€, Yirmi occupies a price point one tier below the €€€€ addresses that define the competitive ceiling of Belgian creative French cooking. Kitchens like Boury, La Durée in Izegem, and Ralf Berendsen in Neerharen all operate at a higher spend. Yirmi's positioning is therefore genuinely distinct: Michelin-recognized creative cooking at a price register that permits more frequent visits and a less ceremonial approach to the evening. For Brussels-based diners considering a short drive south, the comparison with Bozar Restaurant in Brussels or Sir Kwinten in Sint-Kwintens-Lennik is natural, though the Namur setting and villa format produce a meaningfully different experience of the meal.

Internationally, the creative French model in this kind of semi-rural villa context has parallels: Restaurant Haerlin in Hamburg and Gourmetrestaurant Dichter in Rottach-Egern both demonstrate what the format achieves when the kitchen has conviction and the setting is allowed to work with the food. The logic at Yirmi follows the same line.

For those exploring the broader Namur area, our full Malonne hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide offer context for building a longer stay around the region.

Planning Your Visit

Yirmi is located at Rue Trieux-Scieurs 22, 5020 Namur, Belgium, in the Malonne commune on the southern edge of the city. The villa setting and the glazed wine cellar make the room itself part of the experience, so arriving without rushing the pre-meal moment is worth planning for. The flexible course format means the kitchen can accommodate both a shorter and a longer evening; if you want the full plant menu, notify the team at booking. Michelin Plate recognition (2025) and a 4.8 Google rating from 182 reviews are the trust signals that matter here. Comparable Wallonian addresses at the next price tier, such as Bartholomeus in Heist, confirm what this category of Belgian cooking looks like when fully extended.