Restaurants

Amidst the upcoming grandeur near ‘t Eilandje is a small restaurant that reflects everything the neighbourhood should be about: small, cozy environment with a touch of quality and finesse: L’ile d’ Anvers.

One thing is for sure, the guys who run this restaurant are passionate about their business, and that will be about eight years now. Anyway, I felt comfortable and relaxed from the minute I entered.

They have friendly service with a big honest smile. And the food is great! They serve the slightly better dishes here and charge the right price for that. After dinner you can enjoy the nightlife around the docks and yacht club.

When I’m abroad, I try to avoid restaurants near the train station. Restaurants with menus outside in 5 different languages, sometimes with pictures of the dishes…seldom a successful strategy for a good meal.

But I would recommend this Indian restaurant near Antwerp’s Central Station to anyone. By now, I’ve grown fond of their little ornamental postures still wrapped in plastic foil. The owner more or less knows what I’ll order by now, which makes me feel quite welcome.

After my gin tonic, I prefer the Kashmiri Chicken, a mild dish with lychee and mango based curry. A portion of peshwari naan, filled with raisins and coconut….mmm, delicious. I’ve also tried some of their fish dishes, which are also nice. Or Ghost Malabar, a lamb dish, also nice and recommended by the chef. 

When the weather allows, I’ll sit on the outside terrace where I enjoy the relative calm of the colourful square with restaurants from all over the world located here.

You can also order take out, so it’s also perfect for when I just feel like staying home and not bother cooking.

With over 164, Antwerp is second to Amsterdam and leaves New York as a third in number of the amount of different nationalities in one city. So there is no good reason to be eating Brussels sprouts or waffles everyday. On the contrary.

In Antwerp’s diamond district you will find a lot of Jewish shops. One of my favorite restaurants/takeaways is Hoffy’s. The three Hoffman brothers and their staff cook kosher, Yiddish food. I always take out, but they have plenty of room in the restaurant.

Even though I mostly have a clear idea about what I want to order, so does the staff and they will always try to convince me of a combination that they think would work better. They have a lovely cold pasta with cabbage salad, you pay the cold and warm vegetable dishes per pound, so you can decide for yourself when enough is really enough. I’m also fond of the stuffed pepper with meat or Sefardic chicken. Unfortunately no cheesecake because of the kosher aspect. But no worries, I’ll find some on the way back home!

Dafisj is one of my favorite places to have breakfast. When it’s a sunny day, the square in front of the terrace will be packed with children playing some football or basketball.

With its lush trees, picturesque church and no cars passing, the Dageraadplaats is unquestionably the nicest square in Antwerp. It’s the center of what’s also one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Antwerp: Zurenborg. 

‘Dafisj’ is a phonetic way of spelling ‘poster’ in Dutch. The walls are indeed covered with old movie posters. The owner has quite a collection and if you want, you can buy one from him. It gives the place an air of nostalgia which I really like.

So that would get me in the perfect mood for some more tradition: a classic full English breakfast or afternoon tea with freshly made scones and clotted cream. Every now and then we also pass by for lunch because my girlfriend is really fond of their BLT sandwich.

I go to Desingel for various reasons. First of course they have an exciting program of theater, dance and music productions. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, my favorite dancer/choreographer is a resident artist at Desingel. I am committed to seeing all his projects, so this alone brings me to Desingel a couple of times a year. But every now and then I also get tickets for a theater production or a classical music performance. What I like is that the quality of the venue is excellent in terms of acoustics and seating and with under a 1000 seats, both the blue hall and the red hall remain relatively cosy.

It took me a while to discover the “Grand Cafe Desingel’ housed in the same building. But now I like to go there for a luxurious breakfast. A bit expensive (€ 24.90) but worth your while, believe me! Champagne, croissant, crostini, soft boiled egg, fruit salad with yoghurt…there’s no end to this one.

They also have a ‘big breakfast” for € 15.90, but I tend to go with a voucher that I got for my birthday or so. Hence no reason not to indulge!

I also like to go there before a show to eat something. I like the fact that you can choose between the more simple dishes of the bistro part or the more fancy stuff of the restaurant part. Both will leave me very happy. If they have ossobuco on the menu, I will definitely order that.