Ghent invented waterzooi, declared Thursday meat-free before any other city on earth, and still sells its mustard from a 1790 shop with no jars on the shelf. Three days here run from tripe stands and canal-side breweries to a Michelin-starred kitchen.
Ghent's oldest market square has traded since 1199 and still fills every Friday 07:30–13:00 with Flemish farm cheese, smoked eel and East Flanders apples. The surrounding cafés open early — order a koffie verkeerd and watch the stalls go up around the Jacob van Artevelde statue.
The old vegetable market is now Ghent's charcuterie corner. Try bloedworst (blood sausage with apple), kop and Gentse zult — pressed head cheese eaten cold with mustard. Butchers and stalls run roughly 09:00–18:00, closed Sundays.
Open since 1790 on the Groentenmarkt, this is a working mustard shop where the product is still ladled from an oak barrel into a stoneware pot in front of you. Sharp, unpasteurised, no preservatives — it separates within weeks, which is the point. Mon–Sat 09:00–18:00.
A 1980s institution on the Vrijdagmarkt with 500-plus Belgian beers. Order the Max — a 1.2-litre horn glass — and you surrender a shoe, hoisted to the ceiling in a basket until you return the glass. Kwak, Delirium and Gentse Tripel all on the list.
Belgian abbey cheese starts here: Grevenbroeker blue, Chimay à la Bière and the washed-rind Père Joseph. Ask for Grijze Monnik — the 'Grey Monk' — an ash-rubbed cow's cheese matured in cellars, eaten in Ghent with dark bread and Tierenteyn mustard.
Housed in a 19th-century townhouse with stained glass and marble-topped tables, Amadeus serves one thing: unlimited marinated spareribs with baked potato and salad, around €22. Loud, chaotic, and full of Ghent students rather than coach parties.
Patershol is the medieval tangle of alleys behind Gravensteen and the place to eat gentse waterzooi properly — chicken poached in cream and egg yolk with leek, celeriac and potato, served in a copper pot. Expect €24–32 a plate at the classic houses.
Michael Vrijmoed's two-Michelin-star kitchen builds tasting menus around vegetables and Flemish fish, with a famed all-vegetable menu treated as seriously as the meat one. Set menus roughly €95–190; booked out weeks ahead.
The cuberdon — 'Gentse neus', a purple cone with a hard shell and liquid raspberry heart — has its own street-stall feud in Ghent. Bought fresh they stay soft for about three weeks, unlike supermarket versions. Around €3 for a paper cone.
Ghent's frietkot orthodoxy: potatoes cut on site, fried twice in beef fat, served in a paper cone. The local sauces are stoofvleessaus (beef-stew gravy) and andalouse. A medium cone with sauce runs about €4.50.
Ghent was the first city worldwide to declare an official weekly veggie day, in 2009, and Avalon has fed the movement since the 1970s from a stepped-gable house facing Gravensteen. Lunch plates around €16–20, garden seating in summer.
Annick De Splenter brews without hops, using a gruit herb blend as brewers did before the 16th century. Five beers on tap in the riverside taproom, brewery tours by arrangement, tasting flights served with local cheese and salami.