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.
Bar
Long-running soul and funk music bar on the Langestraat with DJs, live acts, cocktails and Belgian beers; open daily from 14:00 till late.
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 arcaded seafront pavilions from 1900–01, with a copper-domed belvedere, now the temporary home of the Mu.ZEE art museum.
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.
Holiday home
Nine car-free tiny-house cabins near Mariakerke beach, with wood stoves, a shared sauna, a natural swimming pond and cargo bikes included.
Renovated group villa for up to 14 between Ensorpark and Park Nieuwe Koers, 500 m from the beach, with a garden, 12 bikes 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.
