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.
Mariakerke
Seafood restaurant on the Zeedijk in Mariakerke with a sea-view terrace, owner-chef Jan Liebrechts and homemade shrimp croquettes.
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.
Ostend’s neo-Gothic landmark church with fine stained glass and Queen Louise-Marie’s memorial chapel, plus the old Peperbusse tower behind it.
Hotel
Large holiday hotel on the Mariakerke promenade with rooms and apartments, buffet restaurants, an indoor pool, a kids’ play village and the tram outside.
Harbour (Visserskaai)
Family-run hotel opposite Ostend station on the Visserskaai, with harbour views, breakfast included and a seafood brasserie downstairs.
Apartment
Two-bedroom harbour-view apartment for six on the Visserskaai, let by the week through a local Ostend estate agency.
28Mar
Exhibition
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.
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.
