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.
Harbour (Visserskaai)
Classic fish cooking on the Visserskaai, opposite the Vistrap: fish soup, sole, turbot and bouillabaisse from the day’s catch.
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.
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.
Sport & activities
Oosteroever
A full day of sea fishing on the North Sea from Ostend harbour, at weekends from February to November; rods for hire, catch to take home.
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.
Seafront (Zeedijk)
Art Deco grand hotel from 1933 at the western end of the promenade, with sea-view rooms, an all-day brasserie and its own car park.
Family-run three-star hotel on the Wapenplein, Ostend’s main square, with a Belgian restaurant downstairs and dogs welcome.
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.
