Why Antwerp should be your next city break

In a sleepy side street around the corner from Centraal Station, there’s a restaurant I return to whenever I’m in Antwerp. From the outside it doesn’t look like much – a perfunctory shopfront, more like a takeaway café – but inside it’s charming, like eating in someone’s home. Welcome to Hoffy’s, a cosy Yiddish enclave renowned for comforting, nourishing cuisine in the centre of this flamboyant, unruly city.

For me, this kosher restaurant sums up the spirit of Antwerp, a cultural crossroads since the Middle Ages, a refuge for outsiders of every sort. It’s run by the Hoffman brothers, three big amiable men with long grey beards, and it was founded by their parents, who came here in 1945 to make a fresh start after the Holocaust. They opened a fish shop on Lange Kievistraat and then this restaurant. The fish shop is still there, right across the street, still going strong.

Every time I arrive in Antwerp, I walk into town along Lange Kievistraat, past the kosher groceries and bakeries, past old men in big black hats and boys with skull caps and ringlets. I walk on, through the leafy Stadspark and into the historic old town beyond.

This intricate cluster of baroque buildings is one of Europe’s architectural glories, but although there are usually a fair few sightseers around, it’s never overrun by coach parties. Antwerp isn’t a tame touristic theme park, like Bruges. It’s a gutsy metropolis, with plenty of grit beneath its fingernails. For me, it’s got a bit of everything – streetlife, nightlife, fine art… so why don’t more Britons come here? 

After all, getting here could hardly be any easier. Travelling from London St Pancras by Eurostar, you can do the entire journey in three hours, with one easy change in Brussels. Buy an Any Belgian Station ticket from Eurostar, which covers both the London to Brussels leg (two hours) and Brussels to Antwerp (under an hour). There are direct trains from Brussels Midi to Antwerp every half an hour, a few minutes’ walk from the Eurostar terminal.

Antwerp is Belgium’s second biggest city, after Brussels, but it’s primarily Flanders’ biggest city, a capital in all but name. This is a Flemish city with a Flemish identity. You won’t hear any French spoken here. Most visitors flock to the old town, but my favourite spot is the subdued suburb of Zurenborg. Tucked away behind Centraal station, overlooked by most tour groups, it’s one of Belgium’s best-preserved areas of Art Nouveau.

I returned here for the reopening of Antwerp's Royal Museum of Fine Arts, or the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen as the Flemings call it (a bit of a mouthful, even if you speak Flemish – locals shorten it to KMSKA). Last time I visited this palatial gallery was 11 years ago, and since then it’s been closed for renovation.

Eleven years! I asked various people why it had been shut for so long and never received a convincing answer. Never mind. It’s open again, at long last, and the permanent collection is spectacular: lots of Flemish masters – Bruegel, Jordaens, Van Dyck and, above all, Rubens – plus a super display of paintings by the enigmatic Belgian artist James Ensor.

James who? Precisely. Ensor is celebrated in Belgium and beyond as one of the leading artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but although he’s well known on the continent, Britain has some catching up to do. If you’ve never seen his work before, you’re in for a treat. His haunting, beguiling pictures encompass a wide range of genres, and KMSKA boasts the biggest collection in the world.

I’ve been to Antwerp half a dozen times, but this was my visit since the pandemic. Consequently I'd expected to find it looking a bit run-down (empty shops and suchlike – the enduring legacy of lockdown) but if anything, it seemed even smarter than before. Sure, it has a few rough edges – as Europe’s second biggest port, after Rotterdam, that’s bound to be the case – but the shopping streets were buzzing: not just chain stores but plenty of independent outlets too.

Antwerp is a hub of the European fashion scene and if you’re hip to that sort of thing (more hip than me) it’s a brilliant place to buy clothes. Start your shopping trip at Het Modepaleis – literally, the Fashion Palace – a grand old building which houses Dries Van Noten’s flagship store. Across the road is a lovely old glove shop called Ganterie Boon, here since 1884. Their beautiful handmade gloves will last you a lifetime and the shop is an artwork in its own right.

If you’d rather just sit around and stuff your face, you’ll be spoilt for choice. Flanders is renowned for its fine food and the standard here in Antwerp is especially high. I had a delicious dinner at Fiera, a new restaurant in the ornate old stock exchange building, but I’ve eaten just as well in countless other places. I’ve never had a bad meal here. There are loads of lively bars, and even if you just pick one at random I doubt you’ll be disappointed. For somewhere special, try Het Leienpaleis, a newly restored mansion that's recently reopened after a stylish refurbishment by Flemish interior designer Gert Voorjans.

And if you need to stretch your legs after all that grub, Antwerp is a great walking city. With half a million inhabitants, it’s fairly compact – and though the tram system is superb, you probably won’t need to use it. The big modern attraction is the renovated docklands, but I prefer the diamond district. Wandering these shabby streets, where precious gems are bought and sold behind deceptively drab facades, you feel as if you’ve stumbled into the opening scene of a Flemish film noir. A man comes out of a diamond shop and hurries off towards the station. For one mad, fleeting moment you’re tempted to follow him – but that would probably be taking things a bit too far…

The author travelled to Antwerp via Eurostar. For more info go to Visit Antwerp or Visit Flanders.