The Best Seafood Near Renée, by the Record

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.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

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.

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

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.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

A small hotel-restaurant wedged into a coastal village between two famous capes, La Plage leans hard into the Opal Coast's larder: sea bream, mackerel, pollack, whatever came in. The chef's plating is careful without being precious, and the menu strays into poultry and slow-braised things when she feels like it. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, which tells you the math works out well at the end of the meal.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A seafood restaurant in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where the catch is the whole point and the kitchen's commitment to sustainable fishing isn't just a menu footnote. The name nods to the fisherman's wife, a fitting tribute in a port town, and the cooking follows tradition without getting stiff about it. Leave room for the soufflé, which the team has made their signature, and which earns that status without any help from marketing.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A seafood restaurant right on the Broadstairs seafront, with a dining room lined in mirrors, an open counter, and shelves of house preserves and chilli sauce. The menu follows the daily catch, so what you order depends on what came in that morning. The staff are the kind of relaxed but attentive that takes years to pull off without looking like it. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant