BRUSSELS Tonton Garby

Trip: Europe 2023

We found Tonton Garby mentioned on travelers' blogs and Youtube videos, and it was very intriguing. This was a hole-in-a-wall fromagerie sandwich shop run by one man in the center of Brussels.

There is no menu, no set opening hours, and the owner talks to you about your food preferences and makes your sandwiches accordingly. He spends a good half-an-hour making a couple sandwiches per customer. As a result, the line moves super slow, so you need to plan accordingly.

Tonton Garby at work

It turned out that Tonton Garby was extremely close to our AirBnb, and today we spent the morning walking around Grand Place before returning to the sandwich shop for lunch. The hand-written sign said he decided to open at 11:30am on this morning, and when we arrived at 11:50am, there was a short line of 3 or 4 parties ahead of us. Even so, it was around 12:30pm when he finally got to us.

We decided on getting 3 sandwiches, since we weren't sure we would be able to come back another day. We went for a sweet one (he added pear to this sandwich), a savory one, and one with olive tapenade that looked really interesting.

Our three sandwiches from Tonton Garby

Tonton Garby insisted that we took a bite out of one of the sandwiches, as he claimed he would not charge us if we didn't like it. Each sandwich was 8 euros, and we gave him a generous tip, as he was quite a one-man show.

We took the sandwiches back to our AirBnb and enjoyed each of them very much. We saved some for dinner later that night. 

It turned out that we were not able to return to Tonton Garby on another day. His opening hours were just too late for the remaining days we had in Brussels.

Nope, not yet opened

Recommendations: Highly recommended. Plan accordingly because of weird opening hours and the slow moving lines. Don't go if you have places to be at a certain time, otherwise you will probably be late to the next thing.