10 Best Hotels in Brussels, Belgium

This little bed-and-breakfast was a shell when owner Laurent took it on—he rebuilt the workshop at the end of the garden and then turned it into two rooms, installed a glass corridor leading to them, and huge patio doors in the breakfast room and the result is a light, airy, modern-looking B&B with an owner who usually finds a solution to whatever problem you have. Snacks decorate the communal area (if you're peckish) and the buffet breakfast makes the most of local producers. Best of all, you're just a street away from Parc du Cinquantenaire.

A charmingly renovated 18th-century building is the setting for this family-run boutique hotel, found deep in the fashionable Louise neighborhood. The rooms are bright and tastefully simple, decorated in either single or two-tone colors. Try and bag a room overlooking the inner courtyard, replete with giant outdoor chess set. Elsewhere, a billiards room provides old-fashioned distraction, as does the café-bar, which serves snacks and a good range of beers. As befits its residential setting, the area is also whisper-quiet, although it's only a short walk to avenue Louise or 15 minutes to the hip Saint-Gilles bar area. This really is a gem.

There aren't too many options for stays in this thin sliver of the city, between Mont des Arts and the Sablon, particularly toward Cirque Royale, but this stylish offering is the exception, and a good one given it's a low-budget chain. It's certainly in a different league to the average Ibis. And for little more than €100 a night, you get a central, stylish stay in a lively area. Rooms are comfortable and simple, the bar is rather slick considering, and there's even private parking. The breakfast can be taken in the inner courtyard.

Squirreled away down a small lane off Grand Sablon square, this is a more modern boutique stay than the usual grandes dames you'll find in this area. Certainly, its subterranean pool is moodily chic, and this Parisian chain doesn't skimp on its retro theme: light woods and blockish furnishings, a Finnish sauna, and a general air of days gone by complete a charming picture. It also has another branch next to the Cathedral of St. Michael and Ste. Gudula.

A great little budget stay, though buried among the residential weeds. This hyper-colorful hotel has the feel of an upmarket hostel minus the dorms, though each room is en suite and lockable. There are books to read, games to play, and the staff are uber helpful and have good local knowledge. It just has the friendliness of a good backpacker joint. Best of all: your door key is essentially an old Nokia mobile phone that allows you to make local calls within Belgium.

A relative newcomer, nestled on the edge of the botanical gardens, the stylish Hoxton towers over its leafy setting. Set within a rather stern-looking office-block originally built as IBM's HQ in Brussels in the 1970s, it has been transformed inside. The rooms are fashionable in a way that wants you to know it but doesn't set your retinas ablaze, mixing bare concrete, polished wood, and a modern take on '70s-era design. Downstairs, it has the feel of a bustling workspace (all laptops and lattes), reflecting the business clientele, but the rooftop bar and eatery (Tope) is a welcome perk, as is the hotel's unexpectedly accomplished Peruvian-style restaurant.

What was the BLOOM! hotel has been rebranded to create the kind of hotel name that looks like someone just fell on a keyboard. Nevertheless, the spirit of what was one of the more colorful design hotels lives on. Inside, graffiti decoration, splatter art, and wild stenciling mark it out as something a bit different, though it is very much a business hotel at heart. A well-equipped fitness center and budget-friendly prices separate it from the rest of the area's brisker-valued stays, many of which could do with a lick of paint. The same can not be said of this splashy offering.

Near the northern end of the Galeries St-Hubert shopping arcade, this hotel has an Art Deco facade and is decorated in a variety of styles, including "Maritime" rooms with blue-and-yellow walls and wood floors. The greenery-filled atrium incorporates a 10-foot-high section of the 12th-century city wall and serves excellent Scandinavian-style open sandwiches. Its Michelin-starred restaurant, Sea Grill, is among the best dining spots in the city.

A top-to-bottom makeover has seen the Scott reemerge as a more elegant roaring 1920s-themed stay—all gold and dark, limpid greens. It's a solid boutique stay in one of the quieter corners of Saint-Gilles There is certainly little that is roaring about Place Loix, but the rooms are tasteful and the price is a bargain. The owners also run the equally charming Hygge Hotel in Ixelles, which is a good fallback if there's no room here.

This hotel is vintage by virtue of having a fair amount of clutter adorning its spaces—think a CHiPs-style motorcycle on a balcony and old silver food truck in the yard. It also has a penchant for swirly, 1960s-style orange-and-brown wallpaper. Aside from that, it's all rather modern. The "wine bar" is more of a bar these days, but the main appeal is just what a quiet little spot this is, a stone's throw from the main shopping streets and with a number of excellent dining options nearby.