Restaurant in Antwerp, Belgium
Michelin-noted seafood, no queue required.
Het Nieuwe Palinghuis is a Michelin Plate-recognised seafood restaurant on the Antwerp waterfront, holding the distinction in both 2024 and 2025. At €€€, it sits a full price tier below the city's starred fine-dining circuit while delivering consistent kitchen quality. Book for a special occasion lunch or dinner when seafood is the priority and you want reliability over theatrical ambition.
Yes — if seafood is your focus and you want a Michelin-recognised address on the Schelde waterfront without paying the €€€€ premiums that Antwerp's modernist fine-dining circuit demands. Het Nieuwe Palinghuis has held the Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, signalling consistent kitchen quality. At a €€€ price point, it sits in a more accessible bracket than Hertog Jan at Botanic or Zilte, while still delivering a level of cooking that Michelin considers worth noting. For a celebration dinner centred on fish and shellfish, this is a credible choice. For elaborate tasting menus or wine-pairing theatre, look elsewhere.
Het Nieuwe Palinghuis sits at Sint-Jansvliet 14 in Antwerp, a short walk from the Schelde riverbank in a neighbourhood that carries the low-key confidence of having fed locals for decades. The name translates to The New Eel House, which tells you something important about the kitchen's orientation: this is a restaurant with a clear product identity, built around Belgian coastal and river seafood rather than around a chef's personal reinvention narrative.
The Michelin Plate — awarded in consecutive years , is the right trust signal here. It indicates a kitchen cooking at a consistent standard without the theatrical ambition of a starred room. That is not a criticism. For a birthday dinner, an anniversary, or a business meal where you want the food to be genuinely good without the conversation being interrupted by amuse-bouches every twelve minutes, this kind of venue often delivers a better evening than a one-star operation where the pacing is controlled by the kitchen's agenda rather than yours.
The scent profile that Belgian seafood restaurants carry is distinct: brine, butter, and the faint sweetness of steamed shellfish. If that registers as comfort rather than as a restaurant trying to impress you, Het Nieuwe Palinghuis is likely aligned with what you want from the evening.
This is the most useful practical question for most visitors, and the answer at €€€ seafood restaurants in Belgium is almost always: lunch. Belgian restaurant culture is unusually well-developed at the midday service. Lunch menus at this price tier typically represent the kitchen's full technical range at a lower spend per head, and the room tends to run at a pace that suits a two-hour window rather than a three-hour evening. If you are visiting Antwerp for one day and want a strong meal without anchoring your evening to a formal booking, the lunch service at a venue like this is the more flexible and frequently the more economical route. For a special occasion where the evening atmosphere matters , a birthday, an anniversary that benefits from candlelight and a longer table , dinner is the appropriate call. But if the quality of the food is the primary objective, lunch is the more rational choice at this price point.
Compare this to Dôme Sur Mer, Antwerp's other prominent seafood address: both occupy the €€€ bracket and both carry Michelin recognition, making them natural alternatives depending on your postcode preference and table availability. Pont Neuf and Bar Misera offer different register options nearby if you want a lighter, less formal meal before or after.
Reservations: Easy to book by Antwerp fine-dining standards , no multi-week queues of the kind you encounter at Zilte or Hertog Jan. Book ahead for weekend evenings, but this is not a venue where you need to plan a month out. Dress: Smart casual is appropriate at €€€ in Antwerp; no formal dress code is documented, but the Michelin Plate signals a room that reads effort in the way guests present themselves. Budget: €€€ positions this in the 60-90 EUR per head range for a full dinner with wine; lunch will run materially lower. Groups: Contact the venue directly for party bookings; no confirmed private dining capacity is available from current data. Solo dining: A Michelin Plate seafood restaurant in this bracket is a sound solo choice in Antwerp's dining culture, which is comfortable with single diners.
Belgium's seafood tradition runs deep, from the eel preparations that give this restaurant its name to the classic grey shrimp croquettes that appear on menus from Bruges to the Antwerp quays. Het Nieuwe Palinghuis is part of that lineage in a way that more cosmopolitan Antwerp restaurants are not. If you have eaten at Gambero Rosso in Marina di Gioiosa Ionica or Alici on the Amalfi Coast and you want to understand what a northern European equivalent looks like , butter-led rather than olive oil, river fish alongside sea fish, quiet rather than showy , this is a useful reference point.
Within Belgium more broadly, the Michelin landscape that includes Hof van Cleve, Boury in Roeselare, Willem Hiele in Oudenburg, and Vrijmoed in Gent positions Het Nieuwe Palinghuis correctly: it is not in the starred conversation, but it is a consistently recognised address with a clear product focus in a country that takes seafood seriously. Bozar Restaurant in Brussels and d'Eugénie à Emilie in Baudour represent different points on the Belgian dining map if you are planning a wider itinerary.
Google reviewers rate Het Nieuwe Palinghuis at 4.3 from 167 reviews , a score that reflects genuine satisfaction without the stratospheric ratings that sometimes attach to trendier openings. That number suggests a reliable kitchen and a consistent experience rather than occasional brilliance. For a special occasion in Antwerp where seafood is the objective and overspending is not, that reliability is the argument for booking here over a more speculative address.
For further context on where this fits in the city's eating and drinking options, see our full Antwerp restaurants guide, our Antwerp bars guide, our Antwerp hotels guide, our Antwerp wineries guide, and our Antwerp experiences guide.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Het Nieuwe Palinghuis | €€€ | Easy | — |
| Hertog Jan at Botanic | €€€€ | Unknown | — |
| Le Pristine | €€€€ | Unknown | — |
| Nathan | €€€€ | Unknown | — |
| Dôme | €€€€ | Unknown | — |
| Bistrot du Nord | €€€ | Unknown | — |
How Het Nieuwe Palinghuis stacks up against the competition.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in available data for Het Nieuwe Palinghuis. At €€€ Belgian seafood addresses at this level, the format typically centres on table service rather than counter dining. check the venue's official channels via Sint-Jansvliet 14 to confirm seating options before arriving and expecting walk-in bar access.
No specific dietary policy is documented for Het Nieuwe Palinghuis, but the core cuisine is seafood-focused — pescatarians are well-served by default. If you avoid shellfish, finfish, or have a serious allergy, flag it clearly when booking: at a Michelin Plate-recognised address, kitchens at this level are generally accustomed to working around restrictions, but seafood is the entire proposition here.
No formal dress code is published for the restaurant. At a €€€ Michelin Plate venue on Antwerp's Schelde waterfront, neat and presentable is the practical baseline — Antwerp diners tend to dress with care without going black-tie. Avoid beachwear or overly casual clothing; beyond that, you won't be turned away for lacking a jacket.
The Michelin Plate recognition and seafood focus make it a considered choice for a solo meal, particularly at lunch when €€€ restaurants in Belgium typically offer better value per cover. Solo diners are generally comfortable at table-service seafood restaurants of this type in Antwerp — the atmosphere tends toward neighbourhood confidence rather than the stiff formality of the city's higher-starred rooms.
Private dining details are not confirmed in available data. For groups of six or more at a €€€ Antwerp restaurant, always call ahead — at Sint-Jansvliet 14, space constraints on the Schelde waterfront footprint may limit large party options. If a private room is a firm requirement, verify directly before committing the group.
Specific current menu items are not listed in available data, so no individual dish can be recommended with confidence. The restaurant's name references eel — paling in Dutch — which points to the eel preparations that anchor Belgium's seafood culinary tradition and are likely central to the menu. At a Michelin Plate seafood address in this category, the classic Belgian grey shrimp croquette, where available, is the standard benchmark dish to judge the kitchen.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
