The Antwerp Guide

Where to eat, drink, and shop — chosen honestly.

Not a tourist list. This is where we send guests staying at Frankrijklei, the Frankrijklei Penthouse and Amerikalei I — mostly within walking distance, chosen because they’re genuinely good, not because they’re famous.

PHOTO NEEDED · Breakfast

Tinsel, Sint-Paulusplaats

Breakfast

Start slow

Tinsel

Sint-Paulusplaats

Plant-forward, quietly popular with Antwerp’s own — worth going before ten if you don’t want to wait for a table.

The residence, in

Frankrijklei

Or don’t leave at all: breakfast service is included, from the bakeries we trust, not a delivery app.

Lunch

An hour, not an event

Charlie’s Antwerp

Volkstraat, Zuid

A Zuid institution set in a genuinely beautiful building — easy to treat as a coffee stop or a proper sit-down lunch.

Cobra House

Markgrave

Cobra’s second, softer chapter — a garden and patio, better suited to a long lunch than the original.

PHOTO NEEDED · Lunch

Charlie’s, Volkstraat

PHOTO NEEDED · Dinner

Cobra, Leopoldplaats

Dinner

The tables worth the call

Cobra

Leopoldplaats

Sharing plates, a lively room, and the reservation everyone in Antwerp is currently trying to get. We can get it.

Domestic & Éclair

Antwerp centre

Two quieter rooms for the nights you’d rather talk than be seen.

Wine

A glass, properly chosen

Bar Burbure

Antwerp centre

Sommelier-led, with a list that rewards asking questions — the elegant room and the terrace both work.

Botanic Sanctuary bar

Leopoldstraat

For something more formal, the hotel bar a few minutes from the residence.

PHOTO NEEDED · Wine

Bar Burbure

PHOTO NEEDED · Shopping

Komedieplaats

Shopping

The maisons, and the city’s own

Komedieplaats

Louis Vuitton & Delvaux

Both by appointment, a few doors apart, in Antwerp’s small quarter of maisons.

Nationalestraat

Het Modepaleis & the fashion district

Dries Van Noten’s own store, and the street that made Antwerp a fashion capital in the first place.