EBG Rating: 7.7/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️
Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️
Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️

Description:
While Bruges has some of the best pubs in the entire world, it does not boast very many of the minimalist drop-in brown cafés of the kind you’ll find in Antwerp or indeed out in the countryside.

In De Reisduif (the wandering pigeon?) long eluded me and it took 11 Bruges visits until finally arriving at an open door.

Inside it’s a super simple, tiny pub. Characterful worn wooden high tables, messages scrawled on the wall, hanging hops above the bar, and classic tiled floor.

It advertises itself as beyond class or status, once you enter the threshold you are as equal as anyone else – whether they include the pubs regulars in that or not is something we have yet to discover.

As to be expected in a stripped back pub – don’t expect anything fancy on tap. Rodenbach is the ideal choice for this place – stately, mildly oaked, somewhat out of time and out of date, but curiously characterful and an essential part of the constellation. A small selection of local and trappist bottles compliment the mainstream tap options.

Soak up the surroundings of a true brown café that not even the hard hitters like De Garre or Vlissinghe really truly in style deliver.

(Added August 2026)