Find places to eat, things to do and local favourites for your stay by the sea.
Selected by Ostend City Guide
Restaurant
Centre
A Thai restaurant on the Vlaanderenstraat in central Ostend: curries, Pad Thai and stir-fries to eat in, take away or have delivered.
Cocktail bar
Lively cocktail and tapas bar by the Kursaal, with tropical and tiki cocktails, late-night sharing plates, pasta and resident DJs.
Café
Café-restaurant inside the De Grote Post cultural centre, open daily from 8.30am to 11pm for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with vegetables in the lead.
Art
The painter James Ensor’s home and studio, kept as he left it, with an interactive visitor centre on his masks, carnival and Ostend.
Attraction
Raversijde
Open-air museum in the dunes with more than 60 bunkers, gun positions and tunnels from both world wars, on Prince Charles’ former estate.
Seafront (Zeedijk)
Leopold II’s Belle Époque colonnade on the western seafront, restored and reopened in 2026, with sheltered benches facing the sea.
Hotel
Mariakerke
Large holiday hotel on the Mariakerke promenade with rooms and apartments, buffet restaurants, an indoor pool, a kids’ play village and the tram outside.
Restored Art Deco hotel from 1880 on Marie-Joséplein, 100 m from the sea, with a classic grand café on the ground floor.
Holiday home
Five-bedroom group house for up to 12 in the Raversijde dunes, next to the Atlantikwall museum, with a fireplace, garden and outdoor shower.
28Mar
Exhibition
28 Mar – 3 Jan 2027
10:00–17:30
About 100 works trace 150 years of small sculpture in Belgium, from Art Deco statuettes to Wim Delvoye, at Mu.ZEE on the seafront until 3 January 2027.
16May
16 May – 9 Nov 2026
10:00–18:00
A small exhibition at Ostend’s City Museum on Paster Pype, the priest remembered as the father of the fishermen, with unseen photographs. Until 9 November.
