The 64 Best Places to Eat in Ghent

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
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

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

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

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

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.

1. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide
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.

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

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.

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

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.

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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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1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

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

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
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

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

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

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

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