For many couples in Europe, Valentine's Day will bring with it a common question during the pandemic: How do you make another night at home seem special? But a lucky few in Brussels will spend it like many people did before lockdown, by going out to a restaurant.
The restaurants are actually a handful of hotels scattered across the city that have transformed their suites into private dining rooms in order to get around COVID-19 restrictions.
People can dine in at one of these temporary restaurants without breaking household bubbles rules because the couples are separated by rooms instead of tables.
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"We're over the moon about being here tonight, just like in a restaurant," Marine Deroo, a French woman who lives in Brussels, told AFP.
"We've been cooped up at home for months. We've tried setting up pretend 'evenings out' at home – but to actually go out, like to a restaurant, it's a super opportunity that we just jumped on."
A couple eating out at the Qbic Hotel in Brussels. /AFP
Deroo ate with her boyfriend at the Qbic Hotel, part of a chain that is also located in four other European cities, including London and Amsterdam. It was the first hotel in Brussels to turn its rooms into temporary dining rooms two months ago.
During the first wave of the pandemic, it provided free rooms to frontline health care workers. It then reinvented itself as a co-working space for university students.
A dinner at its temporary restaurant costs $180, but for that price couples also get a night in an adjacent room, and a four-course meal – although alcohol is not included.
"The idea came because a lot of people were frustrated at staying at home, and said 'We want to do something, we want to have some quality time," said Qbic hotel manager Bert Vandewaetere.
"So that's how we came up with the idea: We can eat in the rooms, we have rooms, we have plenty of rooms – so why not combine them?"
But he added that their restaurant is different from traditional room service.
"It is not at all room service because a room service is not the experience that we want," he said.
"People are really dressing themselves up for a really good night on a Saturday evening. We have three hosts that welcome them with the VIP treatment they deserve."
Usually, the hotel has 23 rooms available for customers, but this Valentine's Day weekend they are adding an extra 37 rooms – most of which are already booked for the night.
Video editor: Paula Harvey