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.