Vegan Antwerp

Antwerp is named after a severed hand. Legend says the hero Silvius Brabo cut off the hand of the giant Antigoon and threw it into the Scheldt river, and the city still sells chocolate and biscuit Antwerpse handjes (Antwerp hands) in its shop windows. Any city that turns its founding legend into biscuits is my kind of city.

The plant-based eating here follows suit: Italian cheese boards and carbonara near the Grote Markt (main square), Middle Eastern mezze in Zurenborg, vegan Liège waffles and a bakery whose chocolate orange cake gets love letters. Many places keep short weeks, so plan your days around them. Once you have eaten your way through, there are more city guides waiting.

Vegan Antwerp at a Glance

• Best for a long Italian dinner: Spritz
• Best for mezze and a lazy afternoon: Humm
• Best for a special night out: and/or
• Best weekend brunch: HART and CLO
• Best Belgian waffle: IceLab
• Best cake: Antoinette
• Best home-style set dinner: Simone’s Kitchen

Best Vegan Restaurants in Antwerp

1. Humm: Middle Eastern Mezze on Dageraadplaats Vegan

Order the Durum 2.0, a stuffed flatbread wrap that diners recommend above everything else, and the Return of the Pitta alongside it. The sharing menu of two dips, three mezze and a salad arrives fast and fresh, and even the meat eaters at the table stop asking where the meat went.

Add sweet potato fries and an iced chai latte, which one reviewer called the best she had ever had. Humm dropped all meat and dairy in June 2021 and makes everything in house. It sits on Dageraadplaats, the tree-lined café square of Zurenborg, so a terrace table on a sunny day is the move.

💡 Tip: Humm is cashless and the kitchen closes at 9PM, even though the doors stay open until 11PM. The deli next door runs a take-out window if you want pitas for a picnic.

📍 Dageraadplaats 31/33, 2018 Antwerpen | Zurenborg | ☎️ +32 3 435 70 80 | 🌐 humm.love | 📸 @humm_antwerp

2. Spritz: Fully Vegan Italian near the Grote Markt Vegan

Get the cheese board or the misto board (a mixed sharing board) to share, then the spaghetti carbonara, which diners single out again and again. The amatriciana and the burrata bruschetta have their own fan clubs, and the classic tiramisu is the dessert people tell their friends about.

This is traditional Italian cooking with the animal products swapped out so well that first-time vegan diners leave converted. The specials board changes, so ask what the kitchen is excited about. It is a cosy, nicely decorated restaurant on a small street a few steps from the main square, and it fills up.

💡 Tip: Spritz only opens Thursday to Sunday, 6PM to 10PM. Book through their website, especially for Friday and Saturday.

📍 Stoofstraat 2, 2000 Antwerpen | Old Town | ☎️ +32 471 29 52 88 | 🌐 spritz-antwerp.com | 📸 @spritz_antwerp

3. HART: Weekend Brunch, Tapas and Pizza Vegan

Start with the blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, the dish that turns up in more reviews than anything else, or the scrambled tofu with spinach, mushrooms and peppers, which one regular called perfectly seasoned. Finish with the tarte tatin and ice cream if it is on, because it has its own admirers.

The menu runs from brunch into tapas and sourdough pizza, with a seitan shawarma pita and a paella that a vegetarian visitor could not stop praising. The owner is Chilean, which explains the empanadas with chimichurri. It is a small, warmly decorated restaurant on a quiet street, and the owners treat everyone like a regular.

💡 Tip: HART opens only on Saturdays and Sundays, 11AM to 8PM, so save it for the weekend and arrive early for a table.

📍 Minderbroedersrui 34, 2000 Antwerpen | Old Town | ☎️ +32 476 71 17 77 | 🌐 hart-antwerpen.be | 📸 @hart_antwerpen

4. IceLab: Vegan Ice Cream and Belgian Waffles Vegan

Order a waffle with a scoop on top. Visitors say they would never have guessed the Belgian waffles were vegan, and there is a Liège waffle (the dense, sugar-studded kind) as well as the lighter Brussels style. The ice cream is creamy without being heavy, and the yogurt flavour gets special mentions.

Everything is plant-based, down to the cones, cookies, cakes and whipped cream, and almost every flavour is gluten free with allergens clearly marked. Scoops cost a little more than elsewhere, but they are big. Add a vegan cappuccino or a slice of apple pie if you are staying, and say hello to the owner.

💡 Tip: IceLab closes on Wednesdays and Thursdays and opens at 2PM on other weekdays, 11AM on weekends. Hours can shift with the seasons, so check their Instagram before a special trip.

📍 Oudevaartplaats 38, 2000 Antwerpen | City centre | ☎️ +32 3 275 91 55 | 🌐 icelab.be | 📸 @icelabnicecreamcreations

5. CLO: Savoury Waffles and Brunch in Borgerhout Vegan

Get the savoury sweet potato waffle, the dish everyone seems to order, and the Greek pita stuffed with crispy marinated soy pieces and every topping going. The plant-based “salmon” bagel is another favourite with the morning crowd, and the cheesy croissant makes an unexpectedly excellent dessert with a second coffee.

CLO is a fully vegan coffee, brunch and lunch spot cooking fresh seasonal dishes, with loaded toast, French toast, breakfast bowls and tacos on the menu. Service is friendly and quick, the coffee is good, and the outdoor tables are lovely. The menu grows on weekends, so come Saturday or Sunday for the full spread.

💡 Tip: CLO is a daytime place: 10AM to 4PM on weekdays and 9AM to 4PM on weekends, closed on Wednesdays.

📍 Kroonstraat 172, 2140 Antwerpen | Borgerhout | ☎️ +32 469 47 12 45 | 🌐 clo-antwerp.be | 📸 @clo_antwerp

6. Simone’s Kitchen: Home-Style Set Dinners with Rooms Upstairs Vegan

Book the three-course set dinner. Diners describe it as intimate, home-cooked vegan food from an open kitchen, fresh and full of flavour, with dishes crafted with care. The menu changes every three weeks around organic whole-food ingredients, so you will not know exactly what you are getting, which is half the fun.

Pair it with a glass of wine, which gets compliments of its own. Simone’s Kitchen runs as a non-profit, the Good Food Institute, training people to cook and serve plant-based food, and the welcome is warm and personal. There is a bed and breakfast upstairs, so you can eat dinner and walk up to bed.

💡 Tip: Dinner is served Thursday to Monday, 6PM to 10PM. Reserve through their website, and book a room in the same place if you want the easiest night in Antwerp.

📍 Breughelstraat 32, 2018 Antwerpen | South of the Stadspark (city park) | ☎️ +32 472 19 16 14 | 🌐 simoneskitchen.com | 📸 @simoneskitchen_antwerp

7. and/or: Vegan Fine Dining at the Chef’s Counter Vegan

Go for the Chef’s Choice, two savoury dishes and a dessert for €57, and let the kitchen decide. Diners describe creative, beautifully presented plates, big portions and a range of flavours that has more than one reviewer calling it worthy of a Michelin star. I would add the black truffle toast with cashew cream.

The menu changes often and leans on local and wild ingredients. Sit at the chef’s counter if you can: the open kitchen is the show, and the chef often comes over to explain each dish. Plenty of meat lovers have left delighted, so bring your sceptical friends here first.

💡 Tip: and/or opens Friday to Monday from 5PM. A few counter seats are kept for walk-ins, but book ahead for a table.

📍 Haantjeslei 1, 2018 Antwerpen | ☎️ +32 3 283 79 55 | 🌐 andorantwerp.com | 📸 @andorantwerp

8. Antoinette: The Vegan Bakery Behind the Chocolate Orange Cake Vegan

Buy a slice of the chocolate orange cake, which one visiting mother and daughter called the best they had ever tasted. The cookie dough brownie and the raspberry cheesecake are both rich enough that nobody guesses they are vegan, and the chocolate cupcakes come topped with dried petals and a glossy, decadent icing.

Everything is plant-based and baked by the owner, from pear and ginger cake to cherry chocolate brownies, with a few gluten-free cakes too. The cinnamon buns are excellent with a take-away coffee. It is a small shop on a historic street near the Grote Markt, and even the packaging is pretty.

💡 Tip: Antoinette opens only Thursday to Saturday, 10AM to 4PM, and the best cakes go early. Order whole cakes ahead through their website.

📍 Lange Koepoortstraat 72, 2000 Antwerpen | Old Town | ☎️ +32 468 48 55 79 | 🌐 antoinette.store | 📸 @antoinette_antwerpen

Zurenborg: Antwerp’s Belle Époque Streets

Before or after lunch at Humm, walk the streets around Dageraadplaats. Zurenborg was built between the 1880s and 1910s, and its houses mix Art Nouveau, neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance and Greek-style fronts on the same block. Cogels-Osylei and Waterloostraat are the showpieces, with turrets, mosaics and wrought-iron balconies on almost every house.

The whole quarter is a protected heritage area, and it still feels lived in: kids on bikes, neighbours on stoops and café terraces filling up on Dageraadplaats in the evening. It sits right behind Antwerpen-Berchem station, so you can arrive by train, walk the architecture for an hour and then sit down to mezze.

Vegan Antwerp: What to Know Before You Go

• Plan around short weeks. HART opens only on weekends, Antoinette only Thursday to Saturday, Spritz Thursday to Sunday, and and/or Friday to Monday. Thursday to Sunday gives you the most choice.
• Many frituren (chip shops) fry their frieten (fries) in beef fat. Ask “in plantaardig vet?” (in vegetable fat?) before you order.
• Mayonnaise and most frietsaus (a lighter fries sauce) contain egg, so ask for ketchup, curry ketchup or a sauce the shop confirms is vegan.
• The Antwerpse handjes (hand-shaped biscuits and chocolates) sold all over town usually contain butter or milk. Read the label before you buy one as a souvenir.
• Trains from Brussels take about 40 to 50 minutes to Antwerpen-Centraal, and the station itself, with its domed hall, is one of the sights.
• Antwerp has a low emission zone (LEZ) covering the centre. If you drive a foreign-registered car, register it online before you enter.

When to Visit Antwerp

May to September is terrace season, with long light evenings that suit IceLab, the Dageraadplaats cafés and a walk along the Scheldt. June also brings the Royal Academy of Fine Arts fashion show, when the city’s famous fashion school puts its graduates on the runway.

December has a Christmas market on the Grote Markt and Groenplaats, and cold, grey days are good for long dinners at Spritz or Simone’s Kitchen. Rain turns up in every season, so pack a light jacket whenever you come.

Vegan Antwerp FAQ