Blog | Visit Gent

Hello Chat, what food is associated with Ghent?

13/03/2026

Blog

“Ghent has a whole range of typical dishes — some world-famous, others known only to locals. Would you like me to give you a nice complete list?” Go for it ChatGPT. Not least because I’m curious about what you consider world-famous. A reality check never hurts, right?

The best restaurant? Ask at your local bar

30/01/2026

How do you find your ideal place to eat in Ghent? There are plenty of lists, but how reliable are they? And who are they actually for? Tripadvisor has hundreds of entries, yet almost every spot has both lovers and haters. So who do you listen to? I've got a different suggestion: ask the locals.
The pimples of Joos Vijd

28/11/2025

Sometime in the 1420s, Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut commissioned an altarpiece for their private chapel. This would eventually become the greatest painting of the age — the result of years of intensive labour by one of the most acclaimed artists of the Low Countries. The couple must have paid a fortune for this work of art. So why did Van Eyck not depict them in a more flattering manner?
The conservation in three details

19/09/2025

The Ghent Altarpiece has been reborn in the past decade. The conservation campaign gradually revealed that the original had been heavily overpainted – to the extent that the hand of Van Eyck was sometimes hard to find. Perhaps the best way to illustrate our work is by giving a few examples.
Life as it is: the conservation of The Ghent Altarpiece

16/07/2025

Hardly anyone can develop as intense a relationship with The Ghent Altarpiece as we conservators. There we are, working face to face with Van Eyck, right down to each individual brush stroke. That captures your imagination, of course. People often ask me questions about what that feels like and what our working day is like. The answers are below!
Myth busting: 3 persistent fallacies about the Ghent Altarpiece

13/06/2025

Few works of art have such mythopoetic power as the Ghent Altarpiece. That is to say: soon numerous legends sprang up about it — and they continue to be shared by many people. Sometimes they are completely made up, sometimes they contain a kernel of truth. These are three of them.
What is depicted in the Ghent Altarpiece?

15/08/2025

Many stories surround the Ghent Altarpiece. Amateur detectives, for example, have been engrossed in the mystery concerning that one stolen panel for just under a century. But it might be a good idea to take a look at the seventeen other panels. What is actually depicted in Ghent’s most famous painting?

Our bloggers

Olly Ceulenaere

Olly Ceulenaere was at the bottom of his hotel-school cooking class. But the pull of the kitchen was strong, and he learned the craft in top restaurants – the hard way. The more experience he gained, the more he understood: it’s not about what you can do with a truffle. It’s about the experience you offer your guests. Today, he does that with effortless ease at Publiek in Ghent. He never asked for a Michelin star, but he got one anyway.
Jessica Palmer

The bioanthropologist Jessica Palmer directs the lab at the Ghent Archaeological Science Centre. Together with her colleagues, she examined the bones of a woman who had rested for more than a thousand years in front of the entrance to St Peter's Church in Ghent. Was this Judith, the first countess of Flanders?
Steven Vanderputten

Steven Vanderputten is a professor of history at Ghent University. He conducts scholarly research into our medieval society and culture, with a predilection for the period from the 9th to the 12th century – a period he is definitely does not wish to call ‘the dark Middle Ages’.

Discover our categories