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Discover Ostend, one local gem at a time.

Find places to eat, things to do and local favourites for your stay by the sea.

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Food & drink
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Local places to discover

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Bistrot's black frontage with the Bistrot Tapasbar sign above a red-lit covered terrace with high tables and potted palmsPhoto: Bistrot

Selected by Ostend City Guide

Cocktail bar

Bistrot

Centre

Lively cocktail and tapas bar by the Kursaal, with tropical and tiki cocktails, late-night sharing plates, pasta and resident DJs.

Selected by Ostend City Guide

Restaurant

Thai Bangkok Pub,

Centre

A Thai restaurant on the Vlaanderenstraat in central Ostend: curries, Pad Thai and stir-fries to eat in, take away or have delivered.

Wood-panelled dining room with dark tables, wine glasses, candles and black leather banquettesPhoto: Didier Van Dooren

Brasserie

De Kleine Garnaal

Station quarter

Traditional brasserie near the station, known for old-fashioned mussels, homemade grey shrimp croquettes and North Sea sole.

Things to do in Ostend

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White corner building of the James Ensor House with wrought-iron balconies and tall black shopfront windowsPhoto: Nick Decombel

Selected by Ostend City Guide

Art

James Ensor House

Centre

The painter James Ensor’s home and studio, kept as he left it, with an interactive visitor centre on his masks, carnival and Ostend.

Visitors gathered at the open steel doors of a concrete bunker set into a grassy dune, beside an information panelPhoto: Nancy Maertens

Selected by Ostend City Guide

Attraction

Atlantikwall Raversyde

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.

Two black hanging baths with tall chrome taps in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking apartment towersPhoto: Penthouse 14

Wellness & spa

Penthouse 14

Oosteroever

Private wellness for two on the 14th floor above the harbour, with hanging carbon baths, a panoramic sauna and views over the North Sea.

Where to stay

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Curved white Vayamundo building on the seafront between apartment blocks, seen from the beach under a blue skyPhoto: Vayamundo Oostende

Selected by Ostend City Guide

Hotel

Vayamundo Oostende

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.

Pale facade of Hotel Princess with rows of balconies and a dark awning bearing the hotel name above the entrancePhoto: Hotel Princess

Hotel

Hotel Princess

Centre

Family-run three-star hotel 50 m from the beach with breakfast included, family rooms and a published seasonal price list.

Red-brick facade of Hotel Rubens with a glazed, awning-covered brasserie terrace at street levelPhoto: Hotel Rubens

Hotel

Hotel Rubens

Harbour (Visserskaai)

Small, family-run two-star hotel on the Visserskaai with marina views, breakfast included and a pancake pub on the ground floor.

What's on in Ostend?

Full calendar
Constant Permeke's wooden statuette The Three Graces, three nude women seen from behind with arms around each otherPhoto: Constant Permeke, De drie Gratiën (1949), Mu.ZEE

28Mar

Exhibition

Statuettes: Small Sculpture at Home at Mu.ZEE

Seafront (Zeedijk)

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.

Stone statue of Paster Pype in a long cassock beside St Peter and St Paul's Church, with an anchorPhoto: Reda Kerbush, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

16May

Exhibition

100 Years of Paster Pype at the City Museum

Centre

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.