Some of the most popular restaurants and bars in Antwerp

Antwerp is a right destination for tourist that is looking for quiet and relaxed weekend.   The old farms here are transformed into bed and breakfast-hotels. The restaurant and café business here is quite an active and provide network for bicycle tours has come to life for the past few years. Antwerp is also unique for the cuisines that it offers to its customers and tourists alike.

•    ’t Zolderke: This restaurant is situated at the historic center of the city and there traditional food is also being served. Its menu keeps changing from season to season however its chef procures fresh produce, fish, and meats each and every day from the local markets. The restaurant has reputation for its high-end quality work and working man’s prices.

•    In de Schaduw van de Kathedraal: This is an appealing restaurant for tasty Belgian favorite’s delicacies and dishes. The signature dish that is Grande Bouillabaisse is loaded with fresh fish and seafood from the North Sea. This menu includes the generous bowl feeds two, and that’s an understatement! Crab gratin, sole with lobster sauce, and croquettes are other popular dishes over here.

•    ’t Fornuis: At a 16th-century stone house in Antwerp’s historic section it is an artistic restaurant over here.  It has sturdy oak chairs and low-beamed ceilings create a nice cozy ambiance. Here chef comes around table to explain the day’s selections. It has around 4,000-bottle wine cellar that gives apt accompaniments. The restaurant has collection of miniature stoves.

•    Sir Anthony Van Dyck: Once serving expensive French cuisine now this restaurant has switched to rather more relaxed, monthly brasserie menu. The simple, elegant dining room is brightly lit, thanks to a bank of windows that opens at its interior courtyard. One can enjoy salad here and someone looking for light and fresh that tuna steak can quench your appetite to almost and to an extent.

•    La Pérouse: As Antwerp was once and still is a popular port city one can look at here that one of the most popular of its restaurant is situated on a boat. French cuisine offered here is a class. Waterzooi de poussin (fish chowder) is the best in the city; other dishes here includes lobster salad, thick-cut steaks, and grilled monkfish with saffron and leeks, it is served along with herb-mashed potatoes.

•    De Foyer: It is too good for lunch or a light supper and be prepare to stand in queue if you wishes to dine over here at the portico of the Bourla Theater. The setting of the restaurant is superb. The theater’s ornately painted dome, red velvet drapes, marble columns and potted palms make you feel as you are in a chic turn-of-the-century hotel. Its lunch buffet is a local favorite due to its reasonable prices and a wide variety of fresh salads, homemade soups and imported cheeses.

•    De Manie: Its food is too excellent at the restaurant and one can enjoy food here around in calm and unhurried atmosphere. Its latest appetizers include quail salad with goat cheese and artichokes and goose liver baked with honey and bilberries. For a main course one can have sample lamb with rosemary and mustard seed or grilled woodcock with Brussels sprouts gratin. In dessert one can think or presume for a parfait.

Bars in Antwerp

It is obvious that being a big Belgian city, Antwerp provides a good number of bars that serves the favorite beverage – beer. Kulminator is one of the most famous bar in the city for its being one of the oldest one. It has around 500 different labels of the brew to drink about.  The variety in the restaurant includes variety of beers like lambic, gueuze, fruit beers, trappist beer and all other varieties. Even of snacks one can enjoy over where sausages and cheese.  Antwerp’s another great tradition is frites – french fries, available from a number of stands that involve Friterie no 1 just by the cathedral.

Den Engel is another pub that has suds and atmosphere to spare. Antwerp has not that much of bars however some noted bars like Royal Flanders Ballet, Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra and the Flanders Opera all one can get at the historic city. Frequent theater shows and musical performances can be seen at the Queen Elisabeth Concert Hall and at the Stadsschouwburg performing arts center.

Paters Vaetje is also quite an interesting spot beer lover and is located close to the cathedral and sometimes is compared with magnificence of Waagstuk, OudArsenaal and Kulminator along together, however yet it is an outstanding little pub.  It lists around 100 strong beer and rather good snacks too and it has a bit higher prices as well.
Oud Arsenaal situated across the Rubens’ House is suited for culturally minded beer drinkers. Its opening hours are yet too tasteful as one can have a beer mug yet at 9 am in early in the morning. It serves some tasty lambics like de Cam gueuze, and the knowledgeable bar staff always offer a suggestion if you have a beer style as according to your desire and taste. All along it is a very traditional bar as has things lined up against the wall, benches at a side and chairs on the other. And always willing to share your table with others if it goes too crowded.

One of the prominent shopping areas in Antwerp is the Meir that is a street which stretches from the Keyserlei to the Groenplaats. It is even one of the most famous shopping streets in Belgium. The streets Hopland and Schuttershofstraat are the shopping areas of rich and famous as it provides exclusive fashion shops out there like Cartier, Hermes, Scapa, Armani, etc. The Huidevettersstraat, Nationalestraat, and Kammenstraat are another very interesting shopping street there to visit.

In Antwerp trendy shopping can be done at Kammenstraat and other surrounding areas. Along this area you can find the Fashion Museum and many shops from the famous Antwerp fashion designer like as Walter van Beirendonck and Dries van Noten.   Chinatown there is located around 300m north of the Central Station. A good number of Japanese, Korean and Chinese products can be found there. In Chinatown that is situated about 300m north of the Central Station, there a lot of Japanese, Korean and Chinese products can be found out there.

Weekend Markets in Antwerp held in Antwerp on the Theaterplein Square in front of the Stadsschouwburg theatre. There markets is quite popular with stalls offering everything starting from food, fruit and veg, meat, fish, nuts, cheese ethnic specialities to household goods and bicycles to clothes. On Sundays these markets generally have more stall than Saturday.

The Grand Bazar Shopping Centre is fairly newest malls in Antwerp and situated in the heart of the city, along the Beddenstraat and right next to the Hilton Hotel. Earlier it was a historic department stores, the Grand Bazar provides a good variety of small shops, along with terrace dining and stylish surroundings.

Diamond Purchase in Antwerp

When it comes to sale and purchase of Diamond jewelry then, there is no parallel to diamond business in Antwerp as it produces about 85% of world diamond jewelry.  However for procuring Diamond jewelry in Antwerp, one should be aware of buying from tourist trap shops around the central station. Therefore one should go for procuring and purchasing diamond at the diamond district centers in Antwerp. However, diamonds one can procure at reasonable prices from Burie (Korte Gasthuisstraat 3) or Del Rey (Appelmansstraat 5).

The history of Antwerp as the World Diamond Center takes birth from two primary diamond trade routes that passed through Venice. On the far end of the trade route used to be situated Bruges a German city that developed into a flourishing diamond cutting center and there city’s reputation gradually improved with span of time. With passage of time, the diamond trade during sixteenth century passed away to Antwerp that was expanding as a flourishing at the time. By the time Antwerp even invented techniques and technology for diamond cutting and polishing.

It was in 1866, the first diamond was discovered in South Africa and this changed fortune for Antwerp. And many big discoveries were made subsequently in diamond mining sector, therefore massive influx of rough stones following the discoveries in South Africa led into the growth of Antwerp as a leading diamond cutting center. Within a few months, this massive influx provided work for thousands of craftsmen, and the swift revival of diamond cutting in Antwerp was further stimulated by an ever-growing demand for gemstones. Diamond industry, though suffered a setback during World War I and World War II but things improved and diamond industry again prospered in Antwerp.

Another place for a diamond connoisseur should visit Diamondland; an exhibition center where public can observe cutters and setters through windowed booths. Another must visit place there is a Diamond Museum. Where one can have entire history how Diamond industry flourished in Antwerp.

•  Antiques: Kloosterstraat, Lange Koepoortstraat, Leopoldstraat and Wolstraat are the areas that are known to be a Latin Quarter situated close to the Antwerp Fashion Museum are upmarket chic boutiques. This antique market expands across to St Andries. In Antwerp another places for antique shops is Leopoldstraat. Volkstraat is the area for lighting, home decor and Art Nouveau. Kloosterstraat is a very nice place to hunt for bric-a-brac over there.

Fashion Shopping in Antwerp

The primary shopping street in Antwerp is Meir and among most of the shops at this street are busy international chain stores.  Primarily in and around Nationalestraat, areas Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter van Beirendonck and Marina Yee are good for fashion shopping. The most noted shopping spot there is Het Modepaleis, at No 16.  Since 1989, this grand former outfitter’s has been the flagship store of Dries Van Noten, one of several local designers who provided Antwerp a space and name in international fashion map.
Schutterhofstraat too is fine for fashionistas. For urban street wear Kammenstraat, St Antoniusstraat and Nationalstraat are good places. Kammenstraat is preferred for younger fashion, primarily for Fish & Chips.
For shoes Coccodrillo, at Schuttershofstraat, 9, is one of the best places to buy for.  Steenhouwersvest 14 is the famous shop in Antwerp that specializes in modern furniture even dating back to Fifties to the Seventies, and has great chairs and lights. It has vintage Hermès scarves, old handbags and a rail of vintage and second-hand clothes.  Another popular shop for furniture in Antwerp is Bazar Bizar, Steenhouwersvest 18 that sells exotic collection of furniture, silks, sandals, trinkets and accessories from Morocco, Indonesia and the Far East.

•  Beer: From around 350 brands of beer and in Antwerp you will get all the best brands.

• Chocolates: Belgians are also famous for producing the best chocolates from the century and the Pralines is its national specialty which is even available in Antwerp in abundance.

Antwerp the city in Belgium is popular for its harbor and diamonds and is the second largest city of Belgium. More it has popularity for fashion exhibits there are ancient buildings constructed there and existed between period of 13^th and 19^th century. Some of the important landmarks of the city are described as following:

• Onze Lieve Vrouwe Cathedral: Also termed as the cathedral of Our Lady it is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. The construction of the cathedral began at 1352 and its first stage was completed by 1521 however cathedral was never been completed. This Gothic style cathedral was designed by Jan and Pieter Appelmans. The church contains a good number of buildings and architectural work from the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as paintings by artists such as Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer and Marten de Vos. This cathedral is on the list of World Heritage Sites. At the present location of the cathedral there used to stand a small chapel of Our Lady from the 9^th to the 12^th century that acquired the status of Paris church in 1142. By reaching the 12^th century it was replaced by a larger Romanesque church. In 1352, construction was begun on a new Our Lady’s church.  The church became cathedral of the bishopric of Antwerp in 1559 but lost its title from 1801 to 1961, due to the Concordat of 1801. In 1794 the French revolutionaries who conquered the region plundered Our Lady’s Cathedral and inflicted serious damage. Yet in 1816, various important works of art were returned back from Paris, including three Rubens masterpieces. In 1965 and 1993, a complete restoration of the cathedral took place.

• St Pauluskerk: Saint Paul’s Church is a magnificent Baroque church having beautiful wood carvings, altars and paintings, consisting works by Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens. The first small church was constructed at the present site in     1276; however, the latest Baroque church was made in the 16th century. In 1968, a disastrous fire destroyed the whole complex the new roof was put over it only after 20 years later. It is considered as one of the best historical spots in Europe with sculptures and wood carving. There is also located a sculpture garden out side.

• Grote Markt: It is a beautiful market in Antwerp at the heart of the old city; it is surrounded all around by the Town Hall and otherwise referred houses of the Guilds or corporations. In the background to the marker one can have magnificent view of the Lady’s Cathedral. A large part of the Grote Markt was burnt down in 1576. And most of the structures there reconstructed by Hans Vredeman, the town architect, in Flemish Renaissance style. In the 19th century the houses were again renovated.  The house number 7 is one of the most beautiful houses there. Presently Grote Markt is one of the most pleasant squares in the city. In warm summer days many a people prefer this place as a spot to enjoy a refreshing beer from its many terraces.

• Brabo on Grote Markt: In the center of ‘Grote Markt’ there is located Brabo fountain. There a statue is made by sculptor Jef Lambeaux in 1887. Without the Brabo fountain, the Grote Markt would not be complete. The water of the fountain is not caught in a basin, but just simply disappears under the stones of the monument where it enters in a closed water circuit.

• Cogels Osylei: It is an area of the south east Antwerp developed during the mid period of 1894 and 1906 and is shows up a high concentration of townhouses on Art Nouveau and other in fin-de-siecle style. It is unique and extraordinary in Antwerp in a manner that it is only a few areas in the city developed with an urbanistic plan in the late 19^th century. There houses are made in cottage style catching in similarity with British Tudorbethan architecture. These Art Nouveau houses as expanded as neoclassical mansions and other eclectic architectural styles can be found throughout Zurenborg, that is geographically is divided between Antwerp and the district of Berchem.

• Botanical Garden: The Antwerp Botanic Garden is a spot full of greenery at the busy center of Antwerp. There in the Garden one can have to view a good number of substantial numbers of exceptional trees and shrubs. The herbal collection at the Botanical garden includes about 2,000 species of plants and herbs. Even there at the greenhouse there is a good collection of tropical and subtropical species. The garden has a historical background of around 200 years during its initial years it was a medical garden of the closing Saint Elisabeth hospital. Around 125 years ago, important botanical and scientific research used to be done here. Since 1926, the garden is under the supervision of city council. In 1950, the garden was classified under a category of a landscape of great value.

• Antwerp Zoo: Antwerp Zoo is located at the center of Antwerp, situated next to    the Antwerpen-Central railway station. It is the oldest animal park in the country, founded on 21 July 1843. Along with its sister park Planckendael, Antwerp Zoo it houses over 6,000 animals of about 950 species. Both zoo combining receives around 1.5 million visitors each year and have too 38,000 supporting members. The most common and visited animals in the Zoo are:  Vriesland: King Penguin, Rockhoppers and Gentoo Penguins, Sea Lion Theatre with Californian Sealions, recently renovated reptile house with may species of snakes, lizards, turtles & frogs as well as caimans, aquarium with many species of salt- en freshwater fish, Nocturama with aardvark, tamandua, two-toed sloth, night monkey, armadillo, plains viscacha, Gambian pouched rat senegal galago, slender loris, Lesser Mouse-deer, rakali and Egyptian fruit bat, Zebras and African buffalos and others.

• City Park: There many parks are situated around the city center. And the largest park among all others is the 14 hectare (35 acres) city park or stadspark. It is situated by the Jewish neighborhood not far away from the central station. The feature of the parks includes a white painted pedestrian bridge made over the pond. The iron bridge is integrated into artificial rock masses on the each side of the park. It is among   a few elevated areas it the city. Despite being situated within the noise of city, the park is a favorite spot for joggers, walkers, elderly persons and others.

Other places of attraction in Antwerp are Groenplaats, KBC tower and St Jacobesk.