How We Decide the Weekly Menu in Brussels
By Thomas · 2026-05-14 · Behind the Scenes
Customers ask us regularly who decides what goes on the menu. The honest answer is that nobody single-handedly decides; the menu emerges from a set of constraints that narrow the options down to maybe a dozen viable dishes for any given week, and then Jonathan (our head chef) picks six. Those constraints are shaped by Brussels itself — what the Mabru market has that week, what the Belgian seasons allow, and what households across the 19 communes actually order. The constraints are more interesting than the picking, so this post is about them.
Constraint 1: a six-week non-repeat rule
We commit to not repeating a dish for at least six weeks. With six dishes per week, that means we maintain a working library of about 40 active recipes that rotate through, plus another 20 to 30 that we're testing or rotating in seasonally. This is the constraint that does the most work narrowing the choices. Any week, we know exactly which 30+ dishes are on cooldown and can't appear yet.
Constraint 2: dietary balance across the week
Six dishes must collectively offer: one or two vegetarian options, one fish option, two to three meat options (varying between poultry, beef, pork), and at least one dish under 550 kcal for customers on a deficit. The macro spread across the six must be reasonable; we won't ship a week where every dish is over 700 calories and every option is rich. Subscribers tend to pick 4 to 6 dishes per week, and we want most of them to find a balanced selection inside that range. If you're trying to hit a specific target, our guide to how many calories one meal should have explains the numbers we plan around.
Constraint 3: seasonality and Brussels-market reality
What our Mabru wholesaler has in good condition that week sets the outer edge of the menu. In May, leeks and root vegetables are leaving the market and Belgian asparagus is in. In July, we have tomatoes, courgettes and stone fruit that won't be reasonable in October. We won't put a winter braise on the menu in August (it sells badly and the ingredient prices are wrong) and we won't put a cold gazpacho-style dish on the menu in a grey Brussels February for the same reason. The hard part isn't recognising this; it's resisting the temptation to put a customer favourite back on the menu out of season because it would sell well anyway.
Constraint 4: kitchen capacity
Two chefs in our Auderghem kitchen produce 450+ portions per Wednesday. That sets hard limits on technique. A dish that needs four separate components, each cooked at a different temperature, each requiring 20 minutes of finishing work per portion, is not on the menu, even if it would be excellent, because it can't physically fit in the production day. A dish that braises for three hours and then portions easily is great. A dish that requires 90 seconds of intense plating attention per portion at the end is impossible. The menu skews toward dishes that share components across recipes (the same caramelised onions in two different dishes, the same braised greens) for the same reason a restaurant does. If you want to see how tight that Wednesday is, we walked through it in a Wednesday inside our AFSCA-certified kitchen.
Constraint 5: what customers actually order
We track every dish's order rate against the menu it appeared on, normalised for the position in the menu and the time of year. Some dishes are reliable workhorses that always sell well: the carbonade flamande (we share our kitchen's carbonade recipe if you want to make it at home), the lasagna, the salmon with lentils. Others are interesting experiments that sold once but never recovered (the kale-stuffed quinoa cabbage rolls we tried in autumn 2025, a 23% order rate compared to a 45% average). When a dish lands below 30% three weeks in a row, it goes into the archive. When a dish lands above 60% twice, it gets promoted to the core rotation. The dishes we want to write home about are not always the dishes customers want to eat, and we've learned to listen to the orders.
We've stopped trying to be clever every week. About once a month we'll put on something experimental. The other three weeks are dishes we know people want to eat, executed properly. That's a more honest job description.
Thomas, Timesty
The five constraints at a glance
| Constraint | The rule | What it rules out |
|---|
| Six-week non-repeat | No dish twice within six weeks | 30+ dishes on cooldown each week |
| Dietary balance | Veg, fish, varied meat, one under 550 kcal | Weeks where every dish is heavy |
| Seasonality (Mabru) | Cook what the Brussels market has | Winter braises in August, gazpacho in February |
| Kitchen capacity | Two chefs, 450+ portions a Wednesday | Dishes needing per-portion finishing |
| Order data | Below 30% three weeks = archive | Clever dishes nobody actually orders |
The result of all this is a menu that emerges more than it gets designed. Six dishes per week, narrowed from 40 active recipes by season, capacity, balance, customer signal and the six-week cooldown. The space of «the menu we could have shipped» is small; the space of «the menu we did ship» is one specific selection from inside it. If you've ever wondered why your favourite hasn't been back in a while, that's the constraint stack telling its own story — and why the order deadline is Wednesday 23:59, so the kitchen can size everything before it cooks.
How many dishes are on the Timesty menu each week?
Six dishes per week. They are chosen to cover one or two vegetarian options, a fish option, two to three varied meat options, and at least one dish under 550 kcal. Subscribers usually order 4 to 6 of them, with a minimum of 2 dishes per order.
Why doesn't my favourite dish come back more often?
Because of the six-week non-repeat rule. A dish can't reappear for at least six weeks, and seasonality may push it further out if its key ingredients aren't good at the Brussels market that month. Reliable favourites like the carbonade still come back regularly within the core rotation.
Does the menu change with the Belgian seasons?
Yes. We cook around what our Mabru wholesaler has in good condition: Belgian asparagus in spring, tomatoes and courgettes in summer, braises and root vegetables in winter. We deliberately avoid winter stews in August and cold soups in February, both for quality and for ingredient cost.
Who has the final say on the menu?
Jonathan, our head chef, makes the final pick of six — but only from the dozen or so dishes the constraints leave standing. Season, kitchen capacity, dietary balance, order data and the six-week cooldown do most of the narrowing before he chooses.
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