The story
Thomas Troupin leads Toma in Liège, serving an immersive cuisine that dissolves the boundary between kitchen and dining room. He built this approach after years in the Ardennes, finally returning to his hometown to share food closer to family. The restaurant’s name comes from the Spanish exclamation his grandmother used when serving meals, grounding the modern menu in personal memory. A collaborative brigade works without rigid roles, ensuring every dish reflects direct conversations with regional growers.
Menus shift through three distinct seasons, moving from patient preserves to fresh summer harvests. Producers act as partners rather than suppliers, allowing the kitchen to adapt plates around what arrives at the door each week. This commitment to transparent sourcing won the Culinary Innovators Philosophy Award and sustained Michelin recognition through 2026. Dishes prioritize ingredient clarity over heavy technique, letting regional vegetables and meats carry the narrative of seasonal gastronomy.
The dining space sits directly against Liège’s historic ramparts, offering a quiet contrast to the bustling boulevard outside. Wooden surfaces and open sightlines keep the cooking visible, reinforcing Thomas Troupin’s goal of shrinking distance between guests and staff. A recently added terrace extends the dining area into a small vegetable garden, bringing soil and sun into the service routine. Evening service closes quickly, emphasizing focused attention over sprawling hours.
Recognition
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Details
History
High quality cooking
¡Toma! Come y cálla! “Take it, eat and shut up!” his Spanish grandmother would say. What better name for the new joint from Liège chef Thomas Troupin (ex-Menuiserie in Waimes) and Roger Gehlen. With its chiaroscuro dining room contrasted with the neon-lit dry-aging fridge in the background, velvety seats, an opening out onto the vegetable garden and ringside tables in front of the burning stoves, boy does ¡Toma! shine. That evening, the chef showed off his locavore-led “immersive cuisine”: perfect trout churros as an appetizer; a Petits Gris de Namur snail pizzette; puffed up bread with tortilla cream and black garlic aiolii, olé!; then a divine toasted bread layered structure with mushroom butter, mustard mayo, black truffle shavings and thin slices of flash-smoked veal from Lothar Vilz (which later appears shredded in a massive beetroot gnocchi – zero waste!); extremely tender Ondenval trout buttered with coffee and crowned with caviar made in Belgium; Menapii pork from Dierendonck, prepared three different ways (shredded on dauphine potatoes, slow-cooked with hoisin broth, and braised on a Japanese BBQ). And for the finale, a myriad of bite-sized Humberto root vegetable and citrus sweets, including a vibrant roasted celeriac flan with uda pepper and candied kumquat. // Lea Pelotti
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