Antwerp city guide

Consistently voted one of the world's most beautiful train stations, Antwerp-Centraal is known as the ‘Railway Cathedral’. Arriving under its vaulted dome for the first time stops you mid-stride as you admire the ironwork, the stone and the scale of it. It’s a fitting introduction to a city that takes beauty, art, and design seriously.

Antwerp's golden age was bankrolled by trade in textiles, spices and precious metals, money that went straight into the hands of painters like Rubens and Van Eyck, and that attention to craft is found to this day in the city. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which produced the Antwerp Six in the 1980s, still draws emerging designers from across the world. On a Saturday afternoon, you'll find them working out of studios above coffee shops off Nationalestraat, the city's fashion spine. In the evening, the old docklands at Het Eilandje pull a steady crowd to the waterside bars and warehouses that double as galleries. Park Spoor Noord, built on former railway land between the port and the city, is where people spend a Sunday morning and shows how adept the city is at reinventing its industrial past for greener, everyday use.

Mika Baumeister

Art and design in Antwerp

Het Eilandje

Het Eilandje is where Antwerp's port history and contemporary cultural life collide. The old docklands have been reworked into a neighbourhood of museums, waterside walking routes and cafés set in former port buildings, all flat and open and easy to cover on foot alongside the Scheldt.

The centrepiece is the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), a ten-storey red sandstone building that stacks box-like galleries on top of each other and houses over 600,000 objects. Its permanent exhibitions span the city's relationship with world trade, food culture from the sixteenth century to the present, and personal stories of Antwerp during World War II. Temporary shows range from Palestinian embroidery to the diversity of Antwerp's hair salon culture. Ride the escalators up the outside of the building first for a 360-degree view of the active port and the old city, then head in.

Frans Ruiter

A short walk away, the Red Star Line Museum sits in former shipping buildings that once processed people leaving Europe for North America. This was the departure point for millions of migrants, and the museum focuses on individual stories through letters, photos, and personal belongings. Go in expecting to spend longer than you planned, and be prepared for the stories to stay with you afterwards.

Julie Pittevils

KMSKA

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp holds one of the strongest collections of Flemish masters, with major works by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Symbolist painter James Ensor, as well as modern and contemporary works. Temporary exhibitions have ranged from a major Magritte retrospective to Antony Gormley sculptures and deep dives into Belgian Futurism. Reopened after an extensive renovation, the historic galleries have been restored to their original proportions with new white, angular spaces inserted into the building's core.

Belgium’s fashion capital

Six graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts arrived at a London trade show in 1986 and effectively rewrote the rules of European fashion. The Antwerp Six (Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Marina Yee and Dirk Bikkembergs) built an aesthetic rooted in deconstruction, poetry and craftsmanship. The Academy is still one of the world's most prestigious fashion schools, and its students continue to contribute to the industry. Raf Simons, Prada's co-creative director, and Pieter Mulier, creative director of Alaïa, both call Antwerp home.

Around Nationalestraat, studios, small labels and graduate designers sit beside established names. The Dries Van Noten flagship occupies Het Modepaleis, an 1881 landmark building, while Ann Demeulemeester stocks her clothing alongside her homeware collection at her Het Zuid store. Newer labels like La Collection and Julie Kegels are attracting attention from the fashion crowd. The MoMu Fashion Museum rotates exhibitions charting how the scene continues to develop, and nearby concept store and restaurant Graanmarkt 13 mixes emerging fashion labels with design pieces and books.

Lien Van Win

Eating Antwerp

The classics

If you want to understand how much Belgium loves fries, try Frites Atelier. It’s a premium stop for fries, a place to sit down and turn them into a real meal. The potatoes are cut thick, fried twice for a crisp shell and fluffy centre, and served in plated portions instead of paper cones. The sauces go beyond the usual mayonnaise, think beef stew spooned over the top, parmesan and truffle, or a sharp Andalouse with a bit of heat.

TheGoodEndedHappily/CC BY 4.0

For something sweet, look out for Antwerpse handjes (Antwerp hands). They’re small, hand-shaped biscuits tied to the city’s history, buttery, lightly crisp, and easy to eat on the go. 

Wyron A

First, coffee

Antwerp has handled coffee as a trading commodity for centuries, with the port storing more green beans than anywhere else in Europe. That relationship with the bean has contributed to one of the best and most underrated coffee scenes in Europe. Something to remember: in Belgium, a café refers to a beer pub, so look out for koffiebar instead.

Caffènation was one of the first koffiebars in the city to treat single-origin coffee with the same rigour as natural wine. Head roaster Jeff Verellen is a multiple Belgian and two-time World Aeropress Champion, and the beans, roasted in-house and listed by origin and flavour profile, are supplied to many of Antwerp's other coffee bars. Expect light roasts with real clarity, and a long espresso menu running from the house blend to rotating single-origins.

Kolonel Koffie, in the Het Zuid neighbourhood near the galleries and boutiques, keeps a focused selection of single-origins from Kenya, Ethiopia and Costa Rica on the brew bar, roasted on their own Probat. The terrace fills up fast on weekends.

Andy Roasters takes a more playful approach. Their flagship in the south of the city is fitted out like a 1950s diner, and the menu reads like one too, with four filter options ranging from the reliable "Not So Fruity" through to the experimental "Pink Series" alongside the daily espresso. The Indonesian beans are impressive.

Morrec/Visit Antwerpen.be

Sustainable bites

Flanders was one of the first regions in Europe to promote weekly meat-free days in public institutions, and that filters through Antwerp's food scene, with local produce and low-waste cooking taking centre stage across the city's restaurants.

Camion and Camionette show how it’s done in one space, with two different experiences. By day, Camion is a neighbourhood spot set in a former military hospital building, serving plant-based breakfasts, lunches and specialty coffee using ingredients grown on their own rooftop farm. By night, the same room becomes Camionette, an intimate fine dining experience with five or six-course seasonal menus built entirely around plants. The tables fill up with everyone, not just committed vegans.

Antwerp in liquid form

Order a Bolleke, and you're ordering Antwerp in a bottle. De Koninck's amber ale has been brewed here since the 19th century, and it's served in its distinctive round glass, which gives the beer its nickname. Lightly malty, gently bitter, and a bit too easy to drink.

Alf van Beem/CC0

De Koninck City Brewery in Berchem might look like a production site from the outside, but inside it's a working brewery with a taproom and courtyard terrace where you can taste De Koninck fresh alongside limited releases brewed on site.

For something stronger, Elixir d’Anvers has been produced here since 1863. It’s made from a closely guarded blend of herbs and botanicals, deep amber in colour, complex and aromatic without being sharp. The best place to try it is at Dogma Cocktails, a snug, speakeasy-style bar, where you can have it poured neat in a small glass or worked into balanced, herby cocktails. 

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp

To stay

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp

Once a 15th-century monastery, Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp has reinvented itself as one of the city's most indulgent stays beside the botanical garden. The spa offers herbal saunas, a hammam, acupuncture and an apothecary stocking traditional lotions and perfumes. There are four on-site restaurants, including Michelin-starred Fine Fleur. Rooms retain original vaulted ceilings and exposed beams alongside calm, natural finishes, and some come with their own mini spa. The overall feel is a high-end, pastel-hued orangery that also happens to have a whisky club in the basement.

Sapphire House

Sapphire House Antwerp

Sapphire House is a fully plant-based hotel. Housed in a 16th-century building. Sustainability is key to the hotel’s operations, and the restaurant serves a seasonal vegan menu. Inside, the interiors are inspired by gemstones. Expect plush velvets, muted walls and marble bathrooms, with a nod to Antwerp's diamond history in the detailing. 

Hotel De Witte Lelie, SLH

Hotel De Witte Lelie

Hotel De Witte Lelie takes three 17th-century gabled townhouses and fills them with leopard-print sofas, floor-to-ceiling botanical murals, psychedelic wallpapers, and Bisazza mosaic bathrooms, which sit alongside marble fireplaces, high ceilings, and exposed beams. Tucked downstairs, the Bronze Bar is gold-tiled with leather club chairs. There's a courtyard for warmer days, and Restaurant Lilium, for when you're ready to eat. 

Daniels Joffe

Where next

Hankering for more art and design after Antwerp? Brussels is 45 minutes away by train and is the birthplace of Art Nouveau, home to Victor Horta's UNESCO-listed townhouses, Paul Hankar's polychrome facades in the Ixelles neighbourhood, and Gustave Strauven's elaborately ornamented balconies. The comic-book mural trail adds a more modern artistic touch to Belgium’s capital, with Tintin and Spirou among the characters painted across the sides of buildings popping up throughout the city.

If you love Antwerp's sustainable food scene, then Ghent should be your next stop. Thirty minutes down the line, it has one of the best plant-based food scenes in Europe, built on years of city-backed initiatives, including a weekly veggie day in public institutions. Madam Bakster is the place for brunch, a vegan café known for spelt and buckwheat pancakes served with clotted cream and baked apples. The city is more storybook than Antwerp, with St Bavo's Cathedral, the Belfry and St Nicholas' Church rising above medieval canals, and a livelier vibe thanks to its large university population.

For something slightly further afield, Lille is an hour away by train and shares Antwerp's Flemish heritage, yet sits just across the border in France. The estaminets of Vieux-Lille are the place to start: cosy, wood-panelled taverns serving carbonnade flamande, beer-braised beef, and Le Welsh, a regional staple of mustard-spread toast, ham and molten Maroilles cheese, baked until golden. The first weekend of September, the Braderie de Lille takes over the city, Europe's largest flea market with over 10,000 vendors lining 100 kilometres of streets.

Take a short break to Antwerp by train, or check out our other slow travel trips to Belgium. 

Read about the art of slow travel, or why we love to take the local train.

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