CiPiaCe
Sometimes you don’t need a reason to celebrate. You just need a good cocktail, beautiful food and a restaurant that knows how to make an ordinary evening feel a little special.
Back in April, my boyfriend and I headed to CiPiaCe on the Parvis de Saint-Gilles for date night. And it turned out to be exactly the kind of evening we were looking for.
CiPiaCe has actually been part of the Parvis since 2014, when Giorgia Giordano, originally from Puglia, opened it with her partner Andrea Petruzzi. Back then, it was a cocktail bar, and apparently Giorgia wasn’t entirely convinced that the beer-drinking crowd of Saint-Gilles was ready for cocktails. Andrea insisted. Good thing he did.
Over the years, CiPiaCe grew from a cocktail bar serving Italian charcuterie, cheese and aperitivo into the full restaurant it is today. But the cocktails never went anywhere. They are still very much part of its identity.
CiPiaCe is one of those places where the energy hits you pretty quickly. It’s lively, colourful and unmistakably Italian. There’s a sense that everyone working there actually wants you to have a good time. The service is happy, playful and festive, and somehow the whole evening starts feeling like a celebration.
CiPiaCe is known for them, and for good reason. Cocktails aren’t an afterthought here. They are a real part of the experience, creative, beautifully presented and exactly how you want to start a date night.
But definitely think about the food.
The Italian dishes coming out of the kitchen are beautiful. This isn’t just a place that happens to serve food alongside great cocktails. The kitchen deserves just as much attention. The dishes are generous, colourful and full of those Italian flavours that make you want to keep reaching across the table for another bite.
What stayed with me most, though, was the atmosphere.
We ate, we drank, we laughed, and we left feeling like we had actually been out. You know those evenings where dinner somehow becomes much more than just dinner?
That was our date night at CiPiaCe.
Between the cocktails, the beautiful Italian food and that wonderfully festive service, they have a way of making an ordinary evening feel special.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what you want from a restaurant.
CiPiaCe
Parvis de Saint-Gilles 49A
1060 Saint-Gilles, Belgium
Open
Tuesday to Saturday from 17:00 to midnight
