The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Publiek

Olly Ceulenaere's Michelin-starred bistro in Ghent looks like an artist's living room, because that's essentially what it is: vintage finds mixed with designer pieces from friends, the original beer pump still behind the bar. The chef frequently brings the main course out himself, and the menu follows his mood rather than a calendar. Expect little-known vegetables over luxury ingredients, and natural wine pairings that lean toward the unusual.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

An Art Nouveau townhouse in Ghent where the chef's obsession with vegetables gets its own dedicated tasting menu, though the kitchen ranges from Flemish pheasant to white truffles he'll carry to the table himself. The cooking fuses French technique with fermentation and global influences in ways that feel considered rather than busy. Two Michelin stars. The sommelier leans toward the surprising, which fits the room.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

The chef's Italian-Brazilian roots and a kitchen team assembled from across the map give this Michelin-starred Ghent restaurant its restless, globe-spanning menu. North Sea clams turn up alongside Amazonian manioc, and the cooking chases a tension between sharp acidity and silky comfort that shouldn't work as often as it does. The setting is a 17th-century townhouse in the old city, dressed up with contemporary art, which at least gives you something to stare at between courses.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

The name comes from a Beck song, and the vintage turntable spinning in the corner means you'll figure that out before anyone tells you. DEBRA is a contemporary French restaurant where the cooking slaloms between classical technique and global instinct, whole roasts alongside sauces that arrive from unexpected directions. The room is warm and a little hip without trying too hard, which, in Ghent, is exactly the right register.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

Vintage floor tiles and an open kitchen firing a Josper oven set the tone at this share-plates restaurant in Ghent. The cooking runs international and deliberately unorthodox, with bold combinations that have no interest in playing it safe. The mood is loose and unstuffy, the kind of place where the food takes itself seriously so the room doesn't have to. It's connected to the Michelin-starred OAK, though it has clearly stopped caring about the comparison.

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

A walled courtyard in the Patershol and high ceilings inside make this Thai restaurant feel like a minor discovery every time. The kitchen leans traditional, with tom kha kai and massaman curry that smell like they've been thought about carefully. Portions are generous without being theatrical about it. The Michelin Bib Gourmand is about right for a neighbourhood spot that's been quietly doing its thing since forever.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Koji fermentation and dry-ageing drive the menu at this creative restaurant in Ghent, where the chef's Japanese technique shapes dishes built around umami and seasonal produce. The room is a post-industrial loft that somehow feels cosy, and the open kitchen puts the whole process on display. The wine and sake list is serious enough that ordering a glass takes a quiet minute. A place for people who think about where sauces come from.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A pintxos bar on the edge of Ghent that doesn't take reservations, so arrive early or embrace the wait. The menu runs through small Spanish plates with a modern lean, the kind of cooking where good produce does most of the talking. The vintage interior nods to Basque tapas bars, the room buzzes accordingly, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests the kitchen is earning its keep. Sister spot to Bar Bask, and worth the trek out to Ledeberg.

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2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A creative restaurant in Gent where the minimalist Japanese decor and leafy terrace lend the whole room a monastic calm, right up until the food arrives and demands your full attention. The chef works through fermentation, open-flame cooking, and sharp acidic sauces, with natural wines chosen by a sommelier who clearly has opinions. The kind of place where quiet surroundings and quietly ambitious cooking end up in an interesting argument.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Tucked into Ghent's cobblestoned Patershol quarter, Nonam is a restaurant where the set menu takes fusion seriously enough to turn the chef's grandmother's rice pudding into something involving koji ice cream. The room has a worn-in, vintage warmth that feels lived in rather than designed that way. Beetroot with blue cheese and umeboshi is the kind of pairing that either converts you or confirms your suspicions about modern cooking.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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Soft lighting, dark walls, and elegant mouldings give this modern French restaurant in Ghent's old Patershol quarter the feel of a candlelit library someone also happens to cook in. The chef bridges French technique and quiet Asian inflections without making a fuss about it, so hoisin and vadouvan show up alongside classic sauces as if they'd always been there. Portions are generous and flavors run bold.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The restaurant sits inside a hotel that leans hard into Louis XIV grandeur, though LOF keeps things comparatively composed. Modern French cooking with the odd Asian detour fills the menu, the kind of place where the kitchen thinks carefully about technique, cooking monkfish on the bone to hold the flesh together and layering lapsang souchong into the sauce. Polished without being stiff, and a good pick if you want serious food without leaving Hoogstraat.

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1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Dry-aged beef, shared in generous portions, anchors this Ghent steakhouse where the menu is built around restraint rather than complication. The room pairs raw materials with warmth, and the pacing feels guided rather than accidental. A wine list heavy on Burgundy and Piedmont keeps up its end of the deal. Ranked 19th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, Gillis earns that placement the quiet way, by making the whole thing feel easy.

1. World's 101 Best #19 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

A refrigerated counter piled with raw seafood greets you at the door, and most of it ends up on the wood-fired asador grill. BASK is a Basque-inspired sharing-plates restaurant with the bones of a vintage dive and the energy of a concert venue. Pintxos come with your aperitif, then things get serious: grilled turbot, aged guinea fowl, sauces that make you slow down. Walk-ins can usually grab a bar stool near the kitchen, which is the best consolation prize in Ghent.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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Named for the district it anchors, this Michelin-starred modern French restaurant wraps gilded details around a casually warm room where you can watch the kitchen work through a glass partition. The menu moves between big-boned classical cooking and quieter technique, pigeon aged and sauced with the kind of seriousness that suggests the chef has thought about little else. A place that earns its star without seeming to try.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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Black marble, gilding, and a grand piano set the mood in this fine dining room tucked inside a Gent townhouse. The cooking is modern French with serious ambition, the kind where crab and Wagyu share a plate without anyone flinching. The wine list leans heavily into Château Pétrus, which tells you most of what you need to know about who fills these seats and what they expect to spend.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Michelin-starred fine dining room inside a period mansion on the edge of Ghent, where the renovation kept the historic bones and layered in enough contemporary polish to feel considered rather than cold. The chef draws on Zeeland roots and a restless technical range, running small plates through unusual combinations and international inflections. The sommelier runs the floor with the kind of ease that makes the wine pairings feel inevitable.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

Soft lighting and an open kitchen set the mood at this cozy modern restaurant in Ghent, where seasonal vegetables and punchy sauces do most of the talking. The chef folds in the occasional Asian note with enough precision that it feels like a choice rather than a flourish. Front of house knows the menu cold and will steer you through it without making you feel slow for asking.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A colonial-style villa on the Lys river, with a terrace that makes the food almost secondary, Patyntje is an old-school Belgian brasserie that takes its classics seriously. Eels in sorrel, vol-au-vent, carbonade flamande: the kind of menu that hasn't needed updating in decades and knows it. Table service runs with old-fashioned ceremony, and the room fills with people who've been coming long enough to order without looking.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Tuscan cooking with a Ghent postcode, parked between a Holiday Inn and a Marriott on the ring road in a setup that sounds unlikely until the food arrives. This is a proper Italian restaurant where the kitchen threads Florentine tradition through genuinely playful combinations, bagna cauda and sea urchin showing up where you least expect them. Set menus and à la carte both lean into the soul of the thing rather than performing it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The open kitchen is the first thing you see at this contemporary French restaurant outside Ghent, and it sets the tone: nothing is being hidden here. The team's cooking is clean and unfussy, built on French technique but leaning toward something quieter and more modern. Lunch runs straightforward; dinner stretches into more ambitious territory. The kind of place where the restraint on the plate is clearly deliberate, not accidental.

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1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The vol-au-vent and onglet à l'échalote are classic brasserie fare, but the izakaya-style decor and lounge terrace hint at something slightly off-script. This stylish brasserie on the Kortrijksesteenweg keeps its menu firmly rooted in French classics, cooked generously and without apology, while a sashimi option or bento box surfaces here and there for those who go looking. The cigar lounge and extensive wine list suggest nobody is in a hurry, which feels about right.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Aged Txogitxu ribeye with a made-to-order béarnaise is the centrepiece at this fine dining room in Lochristi, where the kitchen leans deep into classical French cooking with a particular fondness for matured meat. The Art Deco interior manages to feel romantic without feeling stiff, and the front-of-house team runs things with enough warmth to keep the whole evening from tipping into ceremony. The wine list spans South Africa, France, and Italy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A whitewashed corner building on Sint-Martens-Latem's picture-postcard village square, Amici is an Italian trattoria where the menu reads like a letter from someone's nonna: vitello tonnato, fettuccine with ragù, house-made tiramisu. Nothing here is trying to surprise you, which is precisely the point. The wine list leans Italian and stays sensible on price, and the room fills with the easy noise of people who showed up hungry and left happy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A restored presbytery turned modern dining room, which turns out to be a surprisingly apt setting for cooking this considered and precise. The chef builds plates around vegetables and foraged herbs, and the side dishes get as much attention as the main event, an upside-down pumpkin pie alongside pheasant being the kind of detail that sticks with you. Lunch is a good time to come.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

An open fire in winter, a terrace in summer, and a vol-au-vent that lands like a warm hug, this is a brasserie that takes classic Belgian cooking seriously without taking itself too seriously. The menu leans into familiar flavors, fish fingers with tartare, eggs done Ostend-style, dishes that feel like they belong here rather than anywhere else. The front of house runs warm and spontaneous, which sets the tone for the whole room.

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The conservatory is the table to request at this classic French restaurant tucked into the Meetjesland countryside. The kitchen runs a confident double game: sole meunière with fries sits alongside plaice finished with smoked eel and yuzu beurre blanc, the familiar and the unexpected trading places on the same menu. It reads like a chef who gets bored halfway through tradition and can't quite help himself, which keeps things interesting.

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A converted farmstead outside Ghent that seats only couples, with a private room for anyone who needs to explain why they brought friends. This is an intimate, modern French dinner spot run by two people, one in the kitchen and one in the dining room, which keeps the whole thing feeling personal rather than performative. The cooking leans into luxury ingredients and bright, acidic counterpoints, the kind of pairing that makes rich things taste less heavy.

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A renovated farmstead on the quiet edge of Sint-Martens-Latem, Deboeveries is the kind of classic Belgian restaurant where the garden terrace fills with regulars who already know to come on Friday for the North Sea sole. The kitchen leans into rich, traditional cooking, game terrine in season, sole meunière with properly hot fries, the sort of food that doesn't need explaining. The wine list runs mostly French.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A converted farmstead in the Flemish countryside, this two-Michelin-star restaurant carries the weight of being a culinary landmark with impressive ease. Floris Van Der Veken took over from his celebrated mentor and kept the elegant codes intact, from the composed welcome to the dessert trolley that regulars plan around. The kitchen treats a leek and a turbot with equal seriousness, which tells you most of what you need to know.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

A Michelin-starred villa restaurant outside Ghent where the garden alone does half the work, setting a summer-holiday mood before the food arrives. The chef's style is quiet and precise, leaning on vegetables and spices to build flavors that take a moment to reveal themselves. The room pairs rustic warmth with soft pastels, and the whole operation has a calm, unhurried quality that feels genuinely considered rather than merely slow.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Chefs still wear starched toques here, which tells you something about the tone. This Michelin-starred French fine dining restaurant occupies a restored farmstead in a small Flemish village, and the setting is genuinely lovely, all warm colors and countryside quiet. The cooking leans into classic French technique, rich sauces, top-drawer ingredients, with the occasional exotic note slipped in to keep things honest. The sommelier actually knows what they're talking about.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A former linen factory in Zele that now turns out Michelin-starred modern cuisine, the kind where every vegetable arrives as though it was measured with a ruler. The chef's cooking is classical at its core, with quiet creative detours that keep things interesting. Dishes favor a few strong ingredients and let them do the arguing, which takes more confidence than it looks. Small, spare room; the food is doing the decorating.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A light-filled fine dining room in Aalst, overlooking a manicured garden, where the front-of-house sets a warm, unhurried tone from the moment you walk in. The kitchen leans toward seafood and treats classical French technique as a native language rather than a costume. A cheese trolley still makes the rounds, which tells you something about how seriously they take the full meal. Kelderman holds a Michelin star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A Michelin-starred fine dining room in a quiet Flemish town, where the pared-back elegance of the space lets the cooking do the talking. The chef's approach is minimalist in spirit but classical in technique, running from spit-roasting to Binchotan grilling, with the kind of food-and-wine pairings that make you want to take notes. Dress well and expect a long, unhurried evening.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A bar shaped like a ship's bow sets the tone for this lively French shellfish restaurant in the small fishing village of Philippine. The house mussels are the draw, prepared from family recipes that have been around forever, alongside Zeeland lobster and oysters so briny they taste like the North Sea smells. Shrimp croquettes and Zeeland lamb keep things honest for anyone not on the seafood program.

1. Lekker 500 2026 · Lekker 500
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The cobblestone alley off Dendermonde's Grand-Place looks like a period drama forgot to wrap. Inside this creative seasonal restaurant, the kitchen runs on live fire, with the chef coaxing smoke and char into scallops, grilled fruit, and vegetables in combinations that keep you guessing course to course. The menu reads as playful without being precious, which is a harder balance than it sounds.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The building looks like a concrete cube dropped on a Flemish roadside, which makes the precision cooking inside feel like a deliberate provocation. This is modern French fine dining with two Michelin stars, where the sauces do most of the talking. The chef trained with serious people and it shows in every reduction. Desserts arrive almost too composed to disturb. Come dressed for the room; the front of house keeps things properly elegant.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

A Basque barbecue grill anchors the open kitchen of this calm, stylish townhouse tucked into a working-class neighborhood near the Grand Place. The surprise menu follows whatever the market brought that morning, with the chef working closely with local producers and running a low-waste kitchen. Counter seats let you watch it all come together. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A white villa set back from a busy boulevard, with a glazed wine cellar that stops people mid-sentence. De Bakermat is a Michelin-starred modern French restaurant where the chef's instinct runs toward contrast: lobster with nori, foie gras pushed somewhere richer than you expected. The sommelier clearly enjoys their job, and the wine list is long enough to make the decision feel consequential.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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The kitchen garden sits across the road, the Westerschelde is visible from the window, and by the time dinner arrives the distance between the two feels very short. This is a Michelin-starred French restaurant in rural Zeeland where the chef runs a nose-to-tail kitchen built almost entirely on what the surrounding flatlands and nearby waters can provide. Bold, briny flavors get a precise, refined treatment with the odd exotic note folded in to keep things interesting.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Lekker 500 2026 · #17 · Lekker 500

Filip Claeys, grandson of a fisherman, runs this two-Michelin-star creative restaurant outside Bruges with a near-evangelical focus on North Sea fish, including species most chefs quietly pretend don't exist. The menu names the boats that caught your dinner. Sauces are delicate, classical in training but personal in execution. The room is stylish with warm wood, and the whole thing feels more like a dinner party than a tasting menu ordeal.

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The terrace sits on the banks of the Leie, secluded enough that you half-expect a drawbridge. This modern French restaurant in Deinze runs a menu that moves freely between dim sum, shrimp fritters, steak tartare, and vol-au-vent, which takes some confidence. The kitchen pulls it off with a looseness that feels less like fusion and more like a chef who cooks whatever he finds compelling that week.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Michelin-starred modern French restaurant in Sint-Niklaas where the chef pulls from Japanese and North African flavors without making a fuss about it. Trusted local suppliers, from a specific butcher to a specific asparagus grower, keep the ingredients doing most of the talking. The room is genuinely stylish, the terrace inviting, and the whole thing carries a warmth that doesn't usually come with this level of cooking.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Fire and fermentation run the show at this converted barn outside Geraardsbergen, where picture windows frame open countryside and a counter seats you directly in front of the charcoal oven. The cooking pulls Japanese seasoning and citrus into big barbecue flavors, with fermented touches adding a quiet, persistent depth. Natural wines and house-made kombucha complete the picture. A Michelin Selected restaurant that smells like woodsmoke before you even sit down.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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