The Best Seafood Near Plein25, by the Record
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Rank 1. Kelderman
Seafood
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.
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Rank 2. Krevette
Seafood
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Rank 3. De Jonkman
Seafood
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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Rank 4. Rock-Fort
North Sea Seafood
North Sea fish and natural wines are the bedrock of this bright, elegant bistro in central Bruges. The menu leans hard into the coast, with langoustines, scallops, and whatever else came off the boats, given a subtle, sometimes spicy edge that keeps things interesting. The kind of seafood bistro where the wine list gets equal attention to the catch, and nobody at the table seems to be in a hurry to leave.
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Rank 5. La Maadeleine by Benoît Neusy
Modern Seafood
The dining room's sand-toned minimalism comes from MAArchitects, and the menu follows a similar logic: clean lines with the occasional surprise. Chef Benoît Neusy runs a modern seafood-forward restaurant in Mons where fish and surf-and-turf dishes carry most of the weight. He has a fondness for nudging classics sideways, like a vol-au-vent that arrives with sweetbreads and prawns folded into the familiar filling. Regulars who've been coming for years show no signs of stopping.
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Rank 6. Fish Tank
Seafood
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Rank 7. Beaucoup Fish
Seafood
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Rank 8. Cosmos
Seafood
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Rank 9. Spetters
Modern Seafood
Floor-to-ceiling windows look straight out over the Western Scheldt, where the boats you're watching probably caught what's on your plate. This Michelin-starred restaurant in Breskens sits between the fish market and the marina, and the chef leans hard into that geography, pulling Eastern Scheldt lobster and local lamb into cooking that reads as creative without trying to announce itself. International technique, Zeeland ingredients, no fuss about it.
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Rank 10. La Belle Maraîchère
Franco-Belgian Seafood
Shrimp fritters and saddle of hare on the same menu tells you exactly what kind of place this is: an old-school Franco-Belgian seafood restaurant on the Saint-Catherine square, nostalgic in the best possible, unironic way. The room feels like Brussels circa a much earlier decade, and nobody seems to mind. Fish arrives impeccably fresh, portions run generous, and the crowd is the sort that has been coming long enough to skip the menu.
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Rank 11. Vismet
Seafood
Vismet sits on the old fish market square at Place Sainte-Catherine, which tells you something about how seriously Brussels takes its seafood history. It's a classic seafood restaurant with an open kitchen and the kind of lived-in room that clearly predates the neighborhood's gentrification. The cooking is traditional and unshowy: pristine sole, properly made sauces, ingredients that don't need dressing up. Come hungry, not overdressed.
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Rank 12. Oesterput
Seafood
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Rank 13. Bar Bonk
Seafood
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Rank 14. Esmeralda
Classic Seafood
The seabass arrives encased in salt crust, which is about as classical as a seafood restaurant can declare its intentions. Esmeralda sits next to the Knokke casino and has been turning out honest, polished fish cookery for what feels like forever, the chef's long tenure showing in produce sourced mostly from the sea and handled without fuss. Sole meunière, shrimp fritters, nothing that needs a glossary to order.
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Rank 15. Njord
Seafood
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Rank 16. Subtiel
Seafood
A Michelin-starred seafood restaurant in a seaside villa near the dunes of De Panne, where parquet floors and a period fireplace set the tone before a plate of anything arrives. The cooking leans classical and confident, with a clear affection for the North Sea's catch. In autumn the menu tilts toward game, roast pigeon among them. The kind of room where lunch stretches longer than planned, and nobody seems to mind.
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Rank 17. Bar Misera
Seafood
Tightly packed tables, wine bottles wedged wherever they'll fit, and a menu built around sharing plates with a heavy lean toward seafood: Bar Misera is the kind of casual, slightly chaotic bistro that Nieuw Zuid locals seem to treat as a second living room. The format is snacks first, larger plates to follow, with sides chosen separately. The fish comes bright and acidic, the kind of cooking that makes you slow down.
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Rank 18. Brasserie David
Seafood
The soundtrack runs heavy on David Bowie, which tells you something about how seriously the chef takes fun. This is a brasserie in the classic sense, sole and shrimp and langoustine, but the kitchen is fully open and the side dishes do more creative lifting than most mains elsewhere. Coastal Belgian seafood done with a light touch of originality, in a room that's genuinely stylish without feeling precious about it.
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Rank 19. Julia
Seafood
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Rank 20. De Huifkar
Seafood
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Rank 21. Julia Fish & Oysterbar
Seafood
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Rank 22. Octopus
Seafood
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Rank 23. La Coupole
Seafood
Seafood restaurant in the heart of De Panne where the lobster comes straight from the tank and the crab is shown to you tableside before it arrives dressed with spicy mayo and salad. The menu runs the North Sea classics: mussels in white wine, fresh shrimp, cod in a buttery tomato and shallot sauce. The kind of room where the front-of-house knows your name by the second course and seems genuinely pleased about it.
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Rank 24. RAS
Seafood
Perched on the Scheldt waterfront at Ernest Van Dijckkaai, this modern restaurant wraps so much glass around you that the river feels like it's in the room. Charcoal sketches by Rinus Van de Velde hang against a sleek interior, which is a nice counterpoint to a menu that leans into crowd-pleasing classics. Fried sole, generous portions, and a terrace that empties slowly even on cold evenings.
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Rank 25. Het Nieuwe Palinghuis
Seafood
Old maritime photos cover the walls of this classic Antwerp seafood restaurant, and the kitchen has apparently not seen a reason to change much since it opened, which is a compliment. The menu runs to sole Véronique and eel in green sauce, the kind of dishes that show up in Belgian cooking textbooks and taste better here than the description suggests. Straightforward, unfussy, and very much the point.