My last guide to Bruges and Ghent was a bit of a patchwork quilt: I first published it in summer 2022 after a trip to both cities, and I’ve gradually added to it over the past couple of years because of three intervening trips to Bruges. In that time I’ve uncovered more and more interesting places to eat, and gradually fleshed out that side of things. By contrast, the Ghent half of it looks a tad neglected. 

Anyway, I’ve just come back from spending the best part of a week across both cities and rather than update the 2022 guide again, making it somewhere between Trigger’s broom and Frankenstein’s monster, I’m publishing a new version. Where the recommendation dates from a couple of years ago I’ve tried to make that clear, and where it’s more recent I’ve said so. Where possible that means new text, which means this supersedes my previous guides to both cities. 

As I said in my 2022 guide, both cities are very easy to get to – Ghent is half an hour from Brussels, Bruges an hour. Both are on the same train line, which makes them easy to do for a two centre holiday, and Eurostar lets you buy an “any Belgian station” ticket which includes your onward transit from Brussels Midi. Yet although both cities are gorgeous, both well worth your time, they’re surprisingly different with different things to recommend about them. 

Of the two, Bruges is prettier and more chocolate-boxy, all absurdly beautiful buildings, canals and bridges. It’s lovely in summer but arguably lovelier still in winter when the place has a brooding splendour and the snug comfort of those brown pubs truly comes into its own. I’ve taken to going there at the start of the year when the doors are still bedecked with garlands and Christmas beers are on tap everywhere, and it’s especially gorgeous then. 

And if your focus is more on beer, Bruges is the place to go because it boasts possibly the best pub in the whole wide world. More on that later. I think its dining scene was possibly the thing that lagged behind but even in the short time I’ve been going there it feels like the range of restaurants has expanded and moved beyond ribs joints and tourist-pleasers. 

Ghent on the other hand is larger in every way. It still has the canals and the splendour, but on a bigger scale – bigger buildings, wider bridges, grander squares. But it also has a more modern edge. Part of that is down to the university but there’s also a far bigger retail scene, more craft beer options rather than just the traditional Belgian stuff, public transport, trams and, I would say, a huge range of inventive places to dine. 

But that’s not all. For me Ghent has a better coffee scene, a couple of excellent galleries and museums and a lot of street art – the tourist office even does a street art map and you can spend a very enjoyable afternoon ambling from one piece to the next. 

Having done both cities in a week, I still find it difficult to pick a favourite. Probably Bruges edges it, though I wish I could pick up a few Ghent restaurants and drop them in Bruges (Bruges is a trickier place to get a great light lunch, for instance). But then if I could move the Little Bear to Ghent, I think the choice between the two would be almost impossible. 

The only other thing to say is that in previous guides I’ve said Bruges was more touristy than Ghent: that may have been true in the past but the huge quantities of guided tours I saw in the latter suggest that’s no longer necessarily the case. 

Bruges

1. Bruut

Bruut is in a handsome building next to an absurdly beautiful bridge overlooking the canal, and inside it’s all rather convivial – leather chairs, fetching tiled floors and exposed light fittings. But there are a few al fresco tables by the side of the bridge with a gorgeous view, and that’s where I sat when I had lunch there in 2022, one of my meals of the year. Chef Bruno Timperman offers a no-choice, no-substitutions set menu for lunch or dinner and comes out to introduce and talk through many of the dishes himself. And put simply, the man is a wizard: I don’t normally talk about chefs in my blog but this is all very much in his image and it’s very much his show.

Nothing I ate was short of dazzling, and there were almost too many highlights to mention, but a steak tartare made simply with high-grade beef, salt and milk to draw out all the flavour was a tender, mineral miracle. A pre-lunch nibble of prawns, cooked whole and dusted with a vivid raspberry powder was like nothing I’ve eaten. And our dessert, cherries halved, hollowed and filled with rose-coloured chocolate, topped with discs of elderflower jelly and sitting in a cherry gazpacho dotted with cherry balsamic, has stayed in my memory ever since. My one regret was not taking up the wine pairing – although in my defence it was only lunchtime, and the beer list had excellent lambics on it which made for an original alternative.

I made a repeat visit in January 2023 for dinner and sampled the full whistles and bells experience, although with no booze because I was a little below par. Not everything worked – a beautiful piece of cod wrapped in crispy nori and topped with caviar was submerged under an icky spooge of what Bruno called “plankton sauce” and wasn’t quite my bag – but he served the most tender pigeon I’ve ever eaten, with a pigeon confit ragu wrapped up in a leaf on the side, an astonishing scallop with a Belgian take on XO sauce and a poached pear with yoghurt parfait which made a tried and tested staple seem fresh and new. If you eat one meal in Bruges, go here.

Bruut
Meestraat 9, Brugge
https://bistrobruut.be/en/

2. Assiette Blanche

More classic and formal and a little less cutting edge, Assiette Blanche has an attractive wood-panelled dining room and every meal I’ve had there has hit the spot with unerring precision. They have a set menu or an a la carte, although you can sort of switch between the two. It’s old school, but not fussy, and it’s always absolutely packed with customers, many of whom seem to be regulars. 

The food matches the room. The dishes here are generous – robust but not clumsy, but certainly not a fiddly-plated exercise in nouvelle nonsense. On my most recent visit in January 2024 I was really impressed with the standard, loving a carpaccio of scallops with cauliflower couscous, hulking wedges of black pudding with apple, pickled beetroot and little dabs of foie creme and a beautiful sabayon with blood orange. But they also do a set lunch which is both delicious and excellent value, and comes highly recommended. And if you want to try a Dame Blanche – the ubiquitous Belgian dessert of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce – you won’t find one better than the one here. 

Assiette Blanche
Philipstockstraat 23, Brugge
https://www.assietteblanche.be/nl

3. Más

Más is only open evenings Wednesday to Saturday, and is walk-ins only, although they very nicely take your number and ring you when they have some space, leaving you free to enjoy a beer somewhere (I had mine at De Garre, where the house triple is 11%: with hindsight not the most sensible choice). It’s worth jumping through those hoops, because Más’ Mexican food is as delicious as it is incongruous, from beautiful cheesy quesadillas to pork belly skewers with salsa, from tacos to their excellent fried chicken.

On my first visit in 2023 I ate up at the bar, and it was reminiscent of some of my happiest meals in more Mediterranean parts of Europe. Returning in January 2024 I found that, if anything, the food had got even better. The fried chicken now came with a tomato sauce with a deep touch of mole about it, the quesadillas were even more decadent and all three types of taco I tried were simply brilliant although my favourites remained the shrimp, peppered with crunchy little nuggets of chorizo.

They have cocktails on tap too, apparently, although I’ve never given them a try. They have a good range of beers from Brussels Beer Project, though, which went nicely, and the excellent Lupulus NEIPA which has, to my palate, notes of mango. It pairs perfectly with one of the two desserts on the menu, the “Solero Solero” which tastes exactly as you would expect from the name, only more so.

I made a really happy return to Más again in March when they looked after my combined stag and hen do party, fifteen very hungry and extremely grateful diners. As before, the food was fantastic but there were further revelations, like the fact that Más made what I think may be the only sweet potato fries I’ve ever truly enjoyed. The churros at the end, served with chocolate spiked with a little chilli, were exquisite. But what I’ll remember most was the natural, charming service, making us feel incredibly welcome and no trouble – no mean feat when you’re handling fifteen raucous punters.

Màs
Academiestraat 10, Brugge
https://www.instagram.com/mas.brugge/?hl=en

4. Onslow

Onslow was the discovery of my trip in January 2024. I absolutely loved it there. Slightly off the beaten track in Bruges’ Sint-Anna district it’s the kind of achingly-cool-without-trying restaurant you wish was just around the corner from you, and I detected some similarities with some of my favourite places in the U.K., like Bristol’s Marmo, along with Ghent’s sadly-closed and much missed De Superette. It’s all plain unshowy tables and bare white walls, but the place had a real verve when I visited.

The menu is made up of a handful of snacks and a bunch of sharing plates, and the enormously personable staff tell you to aim for about two sharing plates per person. I over-ordered on my first visit and returning in March for lunch in a bigger group we stuck firmly to that approach. It paid off handsomely, and across both meals the food was outstanding.

Actually I’d go further than that and say that even in a few short months the food has gone up a level. Since my first visit to Onslow it was awarded a Bib Gourmand by Michelin and it really showed, especially when comparing dishes common across both visits. Onslow’s fried chicken back in January was some of the best I can remember eating but in March, with the addition of lemongrass and an even crunchier coating, it was improved further.

There were other stupendous dishes both times I ate at Onslow, from a yoghurt dip smothered in gochujang to top-notch salmon sashimi topped with something like smacked cucumber. Calamari were light, tender and so moreish we ordered a second portion. Pork belly came with kimchee, a really exceptional steak tartare was strewn with enoki and coriander and broccolini was better than broccoli has any right to be. “Why is it never like this when we cook it at home?” asked Zoë, a very fair question (even if it sounded more like an accusation). It’s also worth mentioning that although the wine list is good the beer list, including some excellent sours from Dust Blending, matches it glass for glass.

Onslow
Jeruzalemstraat 53, Brugge
https://www.onslowbrugge.be

5. Amuni

You might think it’s a little meh to have pizza in Bruges, and you might be right. But I have a soft spot for Amuni, and if you want somewhere for a good lightish lunch that isn’t a moules frites place I think it’s a handy restaurant to know about.

Just next to the Burg it’s a stylish space which does excellent pizza – although my favourite thing there was the vitello tonnato. We foolishly ordered it to share back in 2022 and returning in March I was dead set on having my own portion, only to find they’d sold out. A nicely done scamorza and ‘nduja bruschetta went some way to making amends. Another reason Amuni is worth having in your back pocket is that if you find yourself in Bruges on a Sunday, when nearly all restaurants seem to be closed, it will sort you out.

Amuni
Burg 9, Brugge
https://www.amuni.be

6. Goesepitte 43

Another January 2024 discovery, Goesepitte 43 is a very accomplished restaurant in a handsome townhouse in the south-west of the city. I went there for my final lunch of the holiday, partly because chef Jan Supply offers a no choice 34 Euro set lunch even on Saturdays and I wanted to see if it was any good. It really is, and you eat it in a really beautiful dining room with top-class service: one man covers all front of house, is perfectly bilingual and charm personified.

It’s so nicely judged and a great place to go if you want an excellent lunch where you leave thoroughly satisfied but not stuffed. An amuse bouche a little like a mushroom duxelles set the scene nicely, but far better was to come: a risotto with fine herbs, edged with olive oil, was topped with a beautiful slice of parsnip, cooked on their Mibrasa oven (whatever that is), carrying a precious cargo of toasted pine nuts and dill. Pork was served pink on a slab of charred cauliflower, its fractal edges blackened and savoury. 

And if I was a little underwhelmed by my chocolate and coffee ganache, it might mostly have been envy from staring at the dame blanche opposite me. Even so, my meal was easily enough of a treat to make me want to explore the a la carte next time. Not only is the wine list great, and the aperitif cocktail equally so, but the drinks list also contains some excellent beer – especially Dupont’s Avec Les Bons Voeux – if that’s more your scene.

Goesepitte 43
Goezeputstraat 43, Brugge
https://www.goesepitte43.be/en

7. Brasserie Raymond

The one gap that’s always existed in my Bruges repertoire is the traditional Belgian restaurant. I went to Gran Kaffee de Passage and found it hit and miss, the interior better than the food. A friend of mine raves about the moules at Brasserie Cambrinus, but I’m yet to try them. But on my most recent trip in March I had a booking for sixteen at Brasserie Raymond, and I came away very impressed with the place. It had been recommended to me over a year ago, by the couple at the next table sitting outside a Belgian pub, and I’d made a mental note but never got round to it.

Now I’ve been, I wish I’d gone sooner and I plan to visit again. It’s squarely in the grand brasserie tradition, very much Franco-Belge with a huge and interesting menu that covers a lot of ground from lobsters and oysters to chateaubriand and steak tartare. I saw the chateaubriand turn up at my table for others and was more than a little covetous, especially of the gorgeous frites, but I felt a lot less resentful once a bronzed, fat skate wing was placed in front of me, dotted with capers, glossy with beurre noisette, served with a salad and baby potatoes with more than a hint of smoke to them. Next time, I’m having the full three courses, the whole nine years, the Mr Creosote Experience.

Brasserie Raymond
Eiermarkt 5, Brugge
https://www.brasserie-raymond.be

8. Cuvee

Bruges is a beer city, no doubt about it. So you really have to admire the pluck and persistence of Cuvee, a wine bar right in the centre which has been going for something like 20 years. Not only that, but for over 15 of those it has exclusively stocked natural wine, which makes it a trailblazer in more ways than one. The owner told me all about this as I settled our bill at the end of a hugely enjoyable lunch in January 2024. She said it was especially tough when they switched to natural wine, and that this made them a bit of a figure of fun in Bruges’ food and drink fraternity. 

Well to quote the great Alan Partridge – needless to say, Cuvee has had the last laugh. Because what they’ve built is quite something: a deceptively huge, incredibly tasteful space packed with cool furniture and gorgeous bottles of wine. There’s space out front for groups, a little snug at the back which would be perfect for drinking with friends and some tables for dining, looking up at the counter. 

There is also, I am happy to say, a really terrific menu of the kind of food that goes well with wine. On my first visit I adored my duck rillette with piccalilli and thin melba toasts, and was blown away by a couple of enormous cheese croquettes, so glossy under their crisp shell, completely different from their distant Iberian cousins.

We made a mental note to return and descended on the place in a bigger group last month – ten of us, sitting at the long central table sharing small plates and tasting a range of very enjoyable natural wines, one sparkling, one white, one orange and one red. And the food was even better than I remembered. I loved the plate of capocollo, adored Cuvee’s marinated salmon with olive oil as much as I had on my previous visit.

And then to finish, two knockout dishes. First, a nutty, just-right risotto with asparagus, samphire and beautifully done monkfish, and then a cracking chocolate mousse dressed with olive oil and salt flakes. Throughout we were treated so brilliantly, and the passion and energy the staff had for each of our wines was properly infectious. I was already a Cuvee convert, but that experience made me an evangelist.

Cuvee
Philipstockstraat 41, Brugge
https://cuvee.be/en/

9. Kottee Kaffee

For an actual light lunch, instead of a pizza, I highly recommend the muted but chic Kottee Kaffee. It’s on Ezelstraat, a street with a scattering of tasteful boutiques, and it offers a menu which is sort of Le Pain Quotidien but independent. So there’s lots of lovely bread and salted farmhouse butter, cheeses and charcuterie but the menu offers lots of more brunchy stuff if that’s your bag. Very fetchingly put together, decent value and there’s good coffee too. But perhaps just as winning were the staff and the constant playlist of 90s music, most of which they enjoyed singing along to. 

On my first visit at the start of 2023 we asked how long they’d been there and apparently they’ve been open less than a year. You’d never have known. Returning a couple of times in 2024 I was delighted to see it thriving, and as stylish and buzzy as ever. I enjoyed both their tartiflette and their baked eggs, and enviously eyed the waffles with halloumi turning up at a neighbouring table. The coffee is better than you might expect from the tall, old-fashioned latte glasses, and if you feel even remotely sub-par their ginger shots are a positive tonic.

Kottee Kaffee
Ezelstraat 68, Brugge
https://kotteekaffee.com/en/

10. Vero Caffè

Bruges has lots of pretty patisseries where the priorities are the cakes and pastries and the coffee, though perfectly pleasant, plays second fiddle. Far better, in a little square with some outside space, was Vero Caffè. It also sells excellent squidgy brownies, exactly as you would like them, so it gets my vote. They were packed to the rafters when I returned in January 2024 but still doing superlative coffee – along with a decent carrot cake and sublime dark, fudgy chocolate cake.

Vero Caffè
Sint-Jansplein 9, Brugge
https://www.facebook.com/VeroCaffeBrugge/

11. Cherry Picker

Come for the music, stay for the atmosphere! is the slogan of this record shop in the east of the city. Come for the music stay for the coffee, more like, because it served one of my favourite coffees in Bruges. I love places like this – it reminded me of Truck Records, out on Oxford’s Cowley Road – and I’d have happily whiled away longer sitting outside or inside with a good book.

A return visit in January 2024 confirmed that it’s simply one of the nicest places to sit nursing a coffee, and I simply love the fact that the coffee is so much better than it needs to be. Make sure you have Shazam installed on your phone before you go to Cherry Picker, because you will end up using it.

After the boozy lunch at Cuvee last month, most of our party wandered off to De Garre, one of their favourites, to get back on the beer. But a small splinter group of us, including me, beetled off to Cherry Picker because I couldn’t imagine a trip to Bruges where I didn’t pass at least half an hour there drinking coffee and daydreaming that I lived just round the corner. As always, it was blissful.

Cherry Picker
Langestraat 74, Brugge
https://www.cherrypicker.be

12. Coffeebar Adriaan

On my visit in October 2022 I became a regular visitor to Adriaan for the first coffee of the day and I became thoroughly attached to the place – it’s a tasteful, classy spot, all muted mint green and comfy furniture, the antithesis of craft coffee places in the U.K. (and abroad) with their over-reliance on chipboard. The coffee was pretty good, the pastries spot on, the service friendly and speedy.

I’ve been back on most of my subsequent visits and if it isn’t Bruges’ best coffee it might be Bruges’ most reliable place to find one – it’s open when it says it is, including on Sundays, whereas some of the other coffee places I like do seem to be closed on random days, or shut early just because they feel like it.

Coffeebar Adrian
Adriaan Willaertstraat 7
https://coffeebaradriaan.be

13. We Are Coffee Makers

This one is confusing – it used to be called Cafune, and still is on some websites I found, but it seems to have changed its name to the exceptionally literal We Are Coffee Makers. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, We Are Coffee Makers probably does the best coffee I had in Bruges, and is in a small and likeable spot two doors down from Más, on a street which also boasts the fantastic and fascinating beer shop Bacchus Cornelius (top tip: head to the back room for the white whales of the Belgian beer world). They roast their own coffee – the chap told me they’re the only people allowed to roast coffee in the whole of the city centre – and very good it is too.

When I visited in January 2024 they were semi-closed for a makeover and I had to camp out on their little bench outside with my takeaway latte, pretending it was warmer than it actually was. Gladly, returning last month their facelift has been completed so there are tasteful wishbone chairs, little tables and an abundance of baked goods on offer. You have to be there early to snag one of their outstanding pain au chocolats, but the New York cheesecake I tried on a subsequent stop was a more than acceptable consolation prize.

We Are Coffee Makers
Academiestraat 8, Brugge
https://www.wearecoffeemakers.com

14. Café Rose Red

From hearing Zoë talk about Café Rose Red I was expecting to like it a lot, and I wasn’t disappointed. A rather attractive room, all red walls and roses hanging from the ceiling, it had a decent if not incredible beer list and an interesting range of options on tap. I’d heard good things about the food and so we ordered a few bits and pieces to graze on.

The assorted cheese and charcuterie was surprisingly disappointing, but I think the trick is to go for dishes that the kitchen has cooked rather than simply dished up: the kibbeling – battered chunks of fish with a mild, soothing tartare sauce – was the equal of any similar dish I’ve had in Andalusia. My understanding is that in the last few years Rose Red has moved from being a bar more to being a hotel restaurant so reservations are increasingly required if you want to try it out.

Café Rose Red
Cordoeanierstraat 16, Brugge
https://www.rosered.be/nl/

15. ’t Brugs Beertje

I probably would have liked Café Rose Red a lot more if I’d liked ’t Brugs Beertje a little less, but that was never going to happen. The Little Bear is the Belgian pub elevated to its ultimate form, a welcoming little place with a great selection on tap and an eye-wateringly huge and brilliant list of bottled beers, including many Belgian breweries I’d never heard of and a “vintage” section which gave you the chance to try dark beers and lambics which had been properly cared for across the best part of a decade. My favourite drink on their list was an aged imperial stout, a Cuvée Delphine from 2013 by De Struise which has the kind of depth and complexity the uninitiated wouldn’t necessarily associate with beer.

But more than the impressive selection, it just felt like the perfect place to stop, drink, eavesdrop, people-watch and potentially get into random conversations. The middle room – complete with plaque to original Belgian beer spod Michael Jackson (not that one, a different one) – was nice, but the front room was where you wanted to be, at a table with your favourite person, making inroads into that excellent list, in no hurry to be anywhere else. It reminded me of the Retreat in its previous incarnation under Bernie and Jane when it stocked shedloads of Belgian beers, and always the right glasses to go with them, and it made me miss the Retreat of years gone by.

But either way, whether you were there as a pair or, as I’ve experienced several times, in a big raucous group of beer obsessives, all diving into the depths of the gigantic beer list, congratulating one another on their choices and swapping anecdotes and in jokes, it is for me the epicentre of Bruges, and absolutely not to be missed.

Before I went I don’t think I understood the hushed tones with which Zoë and her beer friends referred to it. How good can it be? I thought. It’s just a pub. Well, that shows what I knew because it’s not a pub, it’s the pub, and once you go you will compare everywhere else to it, in some way; I’m fairly sure that if George Orwell had got to visit, through some wormhole in space and time, he would never have written “The Moon Under Water”. Instead he would have penned a paean of praise to the Little Bear, one far better than this.

It opens at 4pm and, happily, it’s open on Sundays when so little of Bruges is. And it doesn’t have lock-ins per se, but I have no idea when it really closes. I’ve certainly never been the last to leave, which is a life goal to keep on the list. On one particularly beautiful evening there we settled up, well past midnight, put our coats on, stepped through the front door, looked back at the golden glow of the windows and thought what the fuck are we doing? We went back in for one last nightcap.

’t Bruges Beertje
Kemelstraat 5, Brugge
https://www.brugsbeertje.be/en/home-2/

16. De Kelk

De Kelk, on the other side of the road from Cherry Picker, is quite unlike the other beer places on this list. Although it does have an excellent range of Belgian beer, the list leans more towards the wider craft scene with fascinating beers from breweries I’d never come across before. I tried a couple of beautiful DIPAs from Madrid’s Cerveceria Peninsula and Latvia’s Ārpus, and if I’d stayed longer there was plenty more to explore. 

The interior is cracking too – a far cry from Belgium’s more traditional pubs with a tiled floor, high leather stools and lighting that’s more speakeasy than boozer, with some random streetlights used to good effect. I also loved the bar snacks, which included some disgraceful keesballen and very creditable jamon serrano. I went back in January and if anything it cemented its place in my affections – it’s brave to be like De Kelk in a city full of brown pubs and Belgian beer, and I wish them every success. Their bottle list contained countless imperial stouts I would dearly have loved to try.

De Kelk
Langestraat 69, Brugge
http://www.dekelk.be

17. De Windmolen

De Windmolen, out past De Kelk at the edge of the city and a stone’s throw from the windmills from which it takes its name, isn’t a place for beer purists. It’s sort of part-pub, part day café and most days it closes at 8pm. The inside is pleasingly eccentric: when we went this month one table was taken up by a very competitive-looking card game. And the beer list tends to bottled triples, although they do have local Brugse Zot on tap which never disappoints. But for me it’s a special place – especially when I visited in October 2022, and could sit outside, coatless, while the back of my neck was gently baked by the completely unseasonal autumn sunshine. Worth a stop, even if only for the one.

De Windmolen
Carmersstraat 135, Brugge

Ghent

1. Roots

Roots was one of my favourite finds of last month’s trip to Ghent, a small and exceptionally tasteful restaurant in the Patershol district, possibly the prettiest part of the city. It’s a really beautiful space, the staff speak the kind of English that made me ashamed of my nonexistent Dutch and the lunch menu, a crazy forty-five or fifty-nine Euros for three or four courses, is an utter bargain.

I loved everything I had on a beautiful fish-led menu to the point where it was difficult to single anything out. But a langoustine tartare served on little lozenges of toasted brioche, like an open sando, was simply terrific. So was deft and delicate sea bass with potatoes and a leaf called bulls blood, which was a new one on me. But even better was a precisely cooked piece of ling with whey, draped in lardo, crowned with broccoli and striped with an intense, deep sauce.

Throw in an exemplary cheeseboard and a dessert of pear, chocolate ganache, chicory and caramel and you have as good a lunch as I can remember in Belgium. The fact that the room is so gorgeous was just the icing on the cake, as was the presence of a very agreeable-looking courtyard for the summer months. When I go back I’ll have dinner there and do it properly, but it will have to go some to top this magnificent first impression.

Roots
Vrouwebroersstraat 5, Gent
https://rootsgent.be

2. Boris & Maurice

Boris & Maurice was the Ghent restaurant I expected to adore, but merely came away really liking. It’s in Sint Amandsberg, a suburb out to the east a short bus hop away, in an area which is resolutely for locals and not tourists. In case you’re wondering, that’s a good thing: I loved the fact that the wait staff told us they didn’t have any English language menus, not realising that if anything that was a draw rather than a disincentive.

It is – as seems par for the course with Ghent restaurants – an impossibly stylish place full of impossibly stylish people, and if we got the least appealing table, nearest to the door, it merely proved to me that they had no intention of lowering their standards. Fair play to them for that. The restaurant has connections to a place, now long closed, called Bodo that I ate at and loved in 2018, and the menu is every bit as tempting as Bodo’s was: not masses of options, just a handful of snacks, three starters, mains and desserts and a cheeseboard to choose from.

Much of what I had was gorgeous, from bone marrow with gremolata and sourdough toast to a veal tartare with anchovy tapenade and capers, all the way through to a spot-on onglet with béarnaise, frites and something which was referred to as “spicy salad” (it wasn’t, really). All that makes the menu sound very robust and meat focused, which is unfair to the place because there was also white asparagus, hake with brandade, sea bass carpaccio with fennel vinaigrette. I just wasn’t in that mood when I went there, so I can’t tell you about those.

What I can say is that my dessert – rhubarb on crushed sablé Breton, punctuated with citrus and moated with crème anglaise, an upside-down crumble – was one of the nicest things I ate all week, and a dish I thought about a fair few times the next day. Other than that I found Boris & Maurice more amiable than exceptional, but I’d still go back. Especially because, as you’ll see shortly, it’s a brief walk from the most amazing bar.

Boris & Maurice
Antwerpsesteenweg 329, Gent
https://boris-maurice.be

3. Aperto Chiuso

Although Aperto Chiuso has been on my Ghent to do list for some time, I only finally managed to tick it off last month. It was open on Monday evenings, which many Ghent restaurants appear not to be, and the dining room was packed when we took our table at half seven. It’s on the beautifully named Sleepstraat, which is the road where Ghent stops being pretty and starts feeling gritty, and I’ve noticed it before because of the front half of a Fiat 500 gazing out of the window.

Inside the dining room is all dark muted tones – I love the picture of the Last Supper on one wall, looking down on the diners – and the menu looks a darned sight more authentic than many Italian restaurants you find both in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe. Interestingly it offers antipasti, starters and desserts yet all but one of the main courses were pasta dishes – almost no secondi here, and no pizza.

Everything we tried was utterly glorious, offering that comfort which Italian food brings quite unlike any other. It was a drizzly night, I felt a bit jaded after three consecutive evenings of boozing on Belgian beer, and Aperto Chiuso turned out to be exactly what I needed. Bruschetta came as little canapés topped with tomato and mozzarella, red pesto, anchovy butter. Burrata, so often derided in the U.K., was superb with blood orange, toasted hazelnuts and coriander seeds and an olive oil infused with lavender and honey.

And then my main course was the best spaghetti carbonara I’ve ever had – not a white creamy blob of blandness but a bundle of beautifully al dente, top quality pasta hugged by a a thick, mollifying sauce of egg, bacon, parmesan and nothing else. Honestly, it was as close to a panacea as I’ve ever found in a bowl, and when I’m in Ghent again I will eat it again. All that and a stonking house red for a ridiculous four Euros a glass: I wandered back down Sleepstraat well-fed, full of carbs and ready for a little sleep of my own.

Aperto Chiuso
Sleepstraat 82, Gent
https://apertochiuso.be

4. De Rechters

Still my favourite place in Ghent for traditional Belgian food, De Rechters is a contemporary-looking restaurant which is far better than it needs to be given its plum spot next to St Bavo’s Cathedral. When I visited in 2022, I got to sit outside in the sunshine and it made a good meal, if anything, even better. We drank Orval, and Zoë pointed out to me that her beer and mine were bottled on different days, which explained why mine was fizzier than hers: I love it when she goes full Raymond Babbitt about beer like that.

Never having had moules in Belgium – I know, such an oversight – I had some as a starter, cooked simply with thyme and they were plump and fragrant. But next time I’ll go the whole hog and have them as a main with garlic and cream, which for me is the only way really to eat moules, dipping your bread and frites into the sauce until you are truly replete.

The frites, incidentally, were a bit wan on that visit – which is a shame, because frites are something Belgium does better than practically anybody. But the stoverij, beer slow-cooked in beer until the whole thing is a symphony of dark brown, almost-sweet ambrosia, is worth the price of admission alone. You can get frites anywhere but beef like that requires patience and skill, both of which De Rechters has in abundance.

De Rechters
Sint-Baafsplein 23, Gent
https://derechters.be/nl/

5. STEK

STEK, in between the centre and Sint Pieters train station, is a lovely little cafe and a perfect spot for brunch, a meal which Ghent, in my experience, does better than Bruges. On a previous visit in the summer I sat out on their gorgeous terrace and enjoyed an exemplary avocado toast with crispy bacon, a splendid latte and a great dose of people watching.

This time around the less clement weather meant I could sample their indoors, a very tasteful space full of cool people and foliage – not necessarily in that order – and very friendly and attentive service. The coffee was as good as I recalled, the fresh lemonade with ginger was a sinus-tickling treat and the lunch game was, if anything, at a higher level than before. I had a potato salad with hot honey smoked salmon, caramelised onions, yoghurt dressing and pistachios which felt relatively virtuous while tasting a little sinful. I got there just before noon and grabbed pretty much the only table which wasn’t either occupied or reserved, so it might be making a lunch reservation online if you fancy giving STEK a go.

STEK
Nederkouter 129, Gent
https://www.stekgent.be

6. Take Five Espresso

I really loved Take Five when I visited Ghent in 2022, and on last month’s visit I was there every morning without fail for a latte, to sit inside at those big windows and enjoy what could feel like Ghent’s single biggest sun trap. The coffee is exceptional, the service is brilliant and they play effortlessly cool jazz – as you’d expect from the name – to soundtrack the start of your morning. The pain au chocolat from Kultur next door are so good that I’ve never tried Take Five’s food, but if it’s as good as their coffee it would be a treat indeed.

I follow Take Five on Instagram and there’s something about some places you visit on holiday that means you feel invested in them long after you have headed home with a heavy heart. So when I heard that Take Five had been so successful that they’d expanded and taken a second site across the city, I was as happy for them as I would have been any Reading-based business. But the original branch on Voldersstraat, with its beautiful tiled floor and its soothing, sophisticated atmosphere, will always be my first port of call.

Take Five Espresso
Voldersstraat 10, Gent
http://www.take-five-espressobar.be

7. Café Labath

According to their website, Café Labath was the very first third wave coffee joint in Ghent, opening twelve years ago. And I felt like I could sense that when I stopped there for a latte, that this was a place that didn’t feel the need to try too hard, that was comfortable in its own skin, knew what it was about and had nothing to prove. That showed too in the beautiful space they had created, all parquet floor and Ercol-style chairs, making best use of the corner plot and the huge windows to allow the very best people-watching experience. I loved the way that, as with Take Five, the public seating outside had been worked into the space, giving multiple options for al fresco drinking in better weather.

If anything, the less calculated interior led me to underestimate the coffee, but when my latte – ordered through a QR code at the table with no need to queue – turned up it was creditable. I had only stopped at Labath on the off chance to grab a quick shot of caffeination before lunch in the area, but when I return to Ghent I plan to have a far more leisurely drink there.

Café Labath
Oude Houtlei 1, Gent
https://www.cafelabath.com

8. Clouds In My Coffee

Clouds In My Coffee is one of the most stylish cafés I’ve seen in over a decade of going to Europe and seeking these places out. Quite aside from the Carly Simon reference, which manages not to be naff, the inside is truly gorgeous, like something out of Living Etc. From the street it looks small (and is surprisingly hard to find) but through the back is a wonderfully light, airy extension and beyond that another of those idyllic secret gardens that Ghent cafés seem to all have up their sleeves.

Did I want a coffee? Absolutely. Was my latte delicious? Of course it was. Did I look at the menu and wonder if it was too early for an Aperol Spritz? You bet I did. And did I feel like I was soaking up design tips for the duration of my visit? Yes, along with thinking Why doesn’t Reading have anywhere like this? The only drawback is that Clouds In My Coffee is the epitome of the best house on a bad street: Dampoort, where it lives, is an up and coming part of Ghent that, from my visit, has more upping and coming to do (the cafe’s website calls it a “multicolour fuse”, which I think is nicely poetic). The walk there from the tram stop involved walking through an Aldi car park and, for an awful moment, I thought I’d wandered through a wormhole in space and found myself on the outskirts of Basingstoke. Still worth a visit though, if only to go somewhere that fitted in about as much as I did.

Clouds In My Coffee
Dendermondsesteenweg 104, Gent
https://www.clouds9000.com/en/cafe-gallery

9. Het Waterhuis aan de Beerkant

On my first visit to Ghent, at the tail end of autumn 2018, I rather liked Het Waterhuis aan de Beerkant, a tall building by the canal (aren’t they all?) with rooms across several floors: the room right at the top reminded me of mid-90s boho drinking culture in a way which somehow summoned up memories of Bar Iguana. But it wasn’t until I went back on a hot July afternoon in 2022 that I really got what the fuss was about – sitting at a sunny table, overlooking the canal, surrounded by other afternoon revellers of all shapes and sizes it was an extremely agreeable place to while away a few hours and sink a tall, cold Brugse Zot on draft. We don’t have a word, really, for what time spent like that is like but I believe the Dutch describe it as gezellig.

Het Waterhuis aan de Beerkant
Groentenmarkt 9, Gent
https://www.facebook.com/Waterhuis-aan-de-Bierkant-171209319595287/

10. Dulle Griet

There are two very traditional beer places in Ghent with enormous lists, the kind of places CAMRA types hit up on a tour of the city. One is Trollkelder, which I’ve never really taken to – I had a drink outside it once but was faintly perturbed by the models of trolls in the window, glaring at you as you sip your beer. But Dulle Griet, named after a character called Mad Meg from Flemish folklore, was more my sort of thing.

On previous visits I’ve had a drink outside in the front room and enjoyed the idiosyncratic decor: just look at all the random shit hanging from the ceiling. But I now realise that didn’t really do it justice, and on my most recent trip we had a few drinks there in the evening, sitting in a little booth out back, admiring the way any good Belgian bar covers every inch of wall space with signs, mirrors and memorabilia from the country’s seemingly limitless roster of breweries.

The beer list is indeed extensive – around 500 different options, apparently – and so intimidating that it makes the Little Bear’s look like a pamphlet. Prices are elevated compared to their neighbours in Bruges too, with many of the beers a few Euros more expensive (in fairness I’ve never settled up at the Little Bear without thinking is that all?), but I’d say it’s worth it for the experience. I was there on a Thursday night when the place was rammed, and when I gave up my plum spot left before closing time, knowing that I had packing and an early checkout in my future, I felt something of a wrench.

Oh, and however hungry you are, don’t order the cheese. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it’s not cheese in any meaningful sense.

Dulle Griet
Vrijdagmarkt 50, Gent
http://www.dullegriet.be/en/

11. Gitane

Gitane remains my favourite bar in Ghent, and one of my favourite bars in the whole wide world. When I went to Ghent in 2018 I fell completely in love with it, although when I returned in 2022 it was in the summer, the whole world was sitting outside and being at the only occupied table indoors felt a little bit forlorn and neglected.

Well, I don’t know why I thought that, because returning last month I was reminded of just what a wonderful place it is. It’s all panelled walls and red banquettes – I know I overuse the word “conspiratorial” to describe places like this, but I’m yet to find a better word. It’s louche without being sleazy, dimly lit without being dingy, and I like it a great deal. It helps that the beer list is good too – a model of pared-down focus compared to the bloat of places like Dulle Griet, but with a great yet compact selection including options from less widely seen breweries like Brouwcompagnie Rolling Hills and the always excellent De Leite.

Gitane
Meerseniersstraat 9, Gent
https://facebook.com/100054309860476/

12. Django

When I booked a table at Boris & Maurice, in Sint Amandsberg, I thought it would be nice to have a pre-dinner drink in the area. And the only thing I could find that was suitable, really, was a bar just over five minutes away called Django. We’ll go there, I thought. How bad can it be? And I love it when this happens, because it was the find of the holiday.

It was so louche, so hip, so suitable for nighthawks that it made Gitane look like the Hope Tap. From the red lighting to the formica topped tables, from the leather booths out back to the neon sign on the wall, from the wood-panelled bar to the textured concrete ceiling with a mirrorball hanging from it, it was an interiors nut’s Christmasses all come at once. It even has an upstairs balcony floor, nearer that mirrorball, where you can look down on all the ineffable coolness below. Why had I never heard anybody talking about this place, or ever seen a review anywhere? It was almost the perfect bar.

All it needed was great drinks. Except it turned out they had those too, with brilliant Belgian pale Ouwen Duiker and iconic Tripel Karmeliet both on draft. The barman even apologised for bringing the latter in the wrong glass, something you would only ever hear in Belgium. So really all it needed was great food – but the local sausage with mustard, yours for three Euros, was coarse and unbelievably delicious. To think people in the U.K. get all excited about a packet of Tayto: they must be laughing at us on the continent. And although I didn’t get to try it Django also did a very attractive range of pizzas – just looking at the menu made me want to cancel my dinner plans.

Next time I go to Ghent I will spend a whole evening here, although if I do I may be sorely tempted to go the whole hog and move to Sint Amandsberg. I wonder if Ghent needs an itinerant restaurant blogger?

Django
Antwerpsesteenweg 330
https://www.instagram.com/djangogent/?hl=en-gb

13. HAL 16

HAL 16 is the craft beer capital of Ghent, a combination of food hall and tap room for local Dok Brewing out in the docklands, about ten minutes from the centre by bus or twenty on foot. It is honestly one of my favourite places in Ghent and since discovering it I’ve never visited the city without giving it a try. My first visit was in January 2019, when I think it had just opened, but it and the complex around it have gone from strength to strength on every successive visit.

I turned up on a Wednesday evening around 6 o’clock after buying some beer at the excellent De Hopduvel just around the corner, and the place began to fill up almost immediately after, the long tables being taken by group after group of young, cool, happy urbanites. None of them were saying dreary stuff like “but it’s a school night”, and they were probably drawn by the colossal range of beer on offer. Thirty lines on keg, many of them by Dok Brewing but with a number of guest beers including stuff you just wouldn’t otherwise see. On my most recent visit I got to try a sharp, peachy sour by tiny Trial & Ale Brewing, from Edmonton, Alberta, and I really loved it.

But the booze isn’t the only draw, because HAL 16 also has three terrific food traders to make sure you stick around. One, Officina Raffaelli, does pizza, pasta and antipasti and the stuff I’ve had from them has been decent. A second does burgers, and I’m sure they’re excellent, although I’ve never tried one. But the reason for that is that the third trader, RØK, does some of the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten – better than anything in the U.K., and for my money better than Copenhagen’s Warpigs. In the past I’ve raved about their pork chop, rhapsodised about their lamb neck.

But on this trip, although I liked my confit duck leg and absolutely adored Zoë’s beef rib, smoked for 10 hours, the standout dish was a vegetarian one – cauliflower, brick-red and sticky with a savoury marinade, its perimeter blackened and crispy from the grill, the whole plate festooned with a zigzag of curry mayo. Even writing this makes me hungry and sad because we only ordered one dish of it, shared it between two and then moved on somewhere else. This is how you get people to become vegetarian, by offering something this good so everyone wants their own, reluctantly sharing some beef rib into the bargain just to keep up appearances.

HAL 16
Dok-Noord 4b, Gent
https://www.hal16.be

14. Stadsbrouwerij Gruut

Gruut is the city centre’s only working brewery. It’s far more central than Dok Brewing and far more trad – they serve an amber ale, a blonde beer, a wheat beer, a brown ale and a triple and that’s it, no sours or lambics or more esoteric stuff. And they have a rich brewing heritage – their little booklet shows you that founder Annick De Splenter, who began the business in 2009, comes from a veritable family tree of Belgian brewing expertise.

So it might not surprise you to hear that it’s a really lovely, quirky and slightly eccentric place to while away some time. I tried their amber ale, which I really enjoyed, on a quiet weekday afternoon when the weather wasn’t quite nice enough to take advantage of their outside seating: a British delegation, seemingly from CAMRA, were camped outside before 2pm waiting for the place to open and had no such qualms. It’s a lovely place and I could happily have dallied there longer but I had places to go, food to eat, other beers to drink and, ultimately, a guide to write. Plus they charge you fifty cents to use the loo, according to one of the signs, and who carries cash any more?

Stadsbrouwerij Gruut
Rembert Dodoensdreef 1, Ghent
https://www.gruut.be

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