Find places to eat, things to do and local favourites for your stay by the sea.
Selected by Ostend City Guide
Cocktail bar
Centre
Lively cocktail and tapas bar by the Kursaal, with tropical and tiki cocktails, late-night sharing plates, pasta and resident DJs.
Restaurant
A Thai restaurant on the Vlaanderenstraat in central Ostend: curries, Pad Thai and stir-fries to eat in, take away or have delivered.
Contemporary charcoal-grill restaurant near the seafront, with dry-aged beef, a menu that changes every six weeks and Sunday lunch.
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
Sailing school on the sheltered Spuikom lagoon: dinghy courses for children, teens and adults, Optimist training and summer SUP sessions.
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)
Large three-star hotel near the beach with a 1,000 m² wellness area, family rooms and six wheelchair-adapted rooms; tram stop outside.
Family-run charm hotel with 14 rooms on the polder side of Mariakerke, with a large garden, playground, private terraces and free parking.
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.
