Cheap Eats in Antwerp and on Day Trips
Cheap Eats in Antwerp and on Day Trips
If you are basing yourself in Antwerp and riding out to Ghent, Bruges, or the coast, the good news is that Belgian food is broadly the same across Flanders and the prices barely move between towns. The real trap is the tourist-ringed square, where the same plate costs half as much a few streets back. Here is how to eat cheaply at your base and on each day trip.
At your Antwerp base
Anchor your cheap eating on the frituur: a cone of proper double-fried chips with a sauce runs €3-5, and it beats a sit-down lunch on both price and speed. A casual meal is roughly €12-20, a bistro dinner with a beer €25-35, and moules-frites €20-30 at a table or €12-15 standing at a fish bar. Order “een bolleke” for a De Koninck, Antwerp’s own amber beer, about €2.50-3.50 a glass. Antwerpse Handjes, the local butter-almond biscuit from Philip’s Biscuits, pack well if you want a snack for the train.
Ghent
Ghent is the best-value food day of the set. Skip the canal-front terraces on Graslei and walk into the Patershol quarter, where a lunch runs closer to €12-15 for something noticeably better than a comparable meal on a Bruges tourist square. Waterzooi, the creamy Flemish chicken or fish stew, is the dish to look for here.
Bruges
Bruges is where the tourist-square markup bites hardest: the restaurants ringing the Markt are priced and mediocre in equal measure. Head one or two streets off the main squares for a fairer bill, and treat a paper cone of frites as a perfectly good lunch while you walk the canals.
Mechelen and the coast
Mechelen is compact enough that a coffee and a light lunch off the main square cover a half-day visit cheaply. On the coast at Ostend, the draw is fresh North Sea seafood; a sit-down fish lunch is the one splurge worth planning for, and standing fish bars keep it affordable.
The rule that saves the most
Everywhere in Belgium, the food gets cheaper and better the moment you step off the postcard square. That single habit saves more than any discount card.
For the ranked list of these trips and their fares, see the Antwerp Belgium base guide ; for cheap eating in the city itself, the Antwerp cheap eats guide goes deeper on frites and jenever. To plan the days around meals, the 4 day Belgium itinerary sets the route. Carry a little cash; some smaller frituren and market stalls still prefer it.