Fiskebar takes up numbers 11 to 13 on Marnixplaats, the round square at the top of Antwerp’s Zuid district. Lonely Planet describes the premises as a former fishmongers’ shop, and the restaurant has stayed in the trade: fish on the plates, fish in the name, which is Scandinavian for fish bar. The company that runs it, Fiskebar SRL, was registered in November 2006, is still trading twenty years later and had 19 people on its payroll in 2024.

Its co-founder is Nikolaj Kovdal. The French guide Le Fooding names him as the man who started Fiskebar and, with Sen Kulanthaivelu, the younger Fiskeskur on the Eilandje. The company register makes the family tie plain: Fiskebar’s director is now a company called Fiskeskur.

The rule that defines the kitchen is about geography. Fiskebar puts only European fish and shellfish on the menu, Elle Belgium reports, with local, seasonal organic vegetables beside them and wine chosen on the same ecological terms. The American guide Indagare lists sea bass, lobster, oysters, whelks, mussels and shrimp. Fodor’s describes three ways in: a fruits de mer platter, fish grilled with hand-cut chips on the side, or the bouillabaisse, which it calls always excellent. Lonely Planet adds organic salmon, cooked on one side only and served with ratatouille, and a starter of beetroot and scallops. The current dishes are on Fiskebar’s own website, with the menu and the table bookings.

Keeping the fish European is the right decision, and the more interesting one. It means the kitchen cooks with what boats from the North Sea to the Mediterranean bring in, which is how bouillabaisse was made in Marseille before it became a restaurant dish. A seafood menu with a border on it is easier to trust than one that promises the whole ocean.

The room is small. Fodor’s calls the restaurant perennially popular, though tiny, and the French magazine Yonder found a discreet, Scandinavian-inspired interior with the feel of a neighbourhood place, where locals fill the tables at lunch and dinner and booking is close to essential. In 2015 Yonder put a main course at €25 to €30 and a meal without wine at about €50, with generous portions. Lonely Planet noted one house policy that more restaurants could copy: still or sparkling water at €2.50 a head, with refills.

The first version of this article recommended a Fiskeburger on a homemade bun and promised meat dishes for the unconvinced. None of the guides that have reviewed Fiskebar mention either. The dishes they do name are the bouillabaisse, the platter and the salmon, and Elle Belgium adds the oysters from the suggestion menu, which it found fresh and well sized.

The address helps. Marnixplaats is one of the squares the city drew when the Spanish citadel on Antwerp’s southern edge came down from 1874; a royal decree fixed the Zuid’s street plan in 1875. Eight streets run off the square, and in the middle stands Schelde Vrij, a monument of about 20 metres by Jan Jacob Winders, put up in 1873 to celebrate the 1863 agreement that ended the Dutch toll on ships sailing up the Scheldt. Neptune, with his trident, stands on top. The square is named after Philips of Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde, who was mayor of Antwerp when the city fell to the Spanish in 1585. Fiskebar’s neighbour at number 14 is Vitrin, the bar that has held its corner of the square since 2011.

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Kovdal’s later restaurant took the idea north. Fiskeskur, Danish for a fisherman’s cabin, sits in a former customs post at Kattendijkdok-Oostkaai 20b, with a greenhouse for winter and a terrace on the dock for summer. There the fish goes over an open fire, under a sign that reads “This fish is on fire”, with vegetables from Ferm, a farm in Hombeek. Le Fooding listed six Irish Mór oysters at €27 and plates from €11.50 to €49. Elle calls it a rock and roll fishermen’s bar, which makes Fiskebar the quieter of the two.

The published accounts show a small, steady business. Fiskebar SRL filed a profit of €96,701 for 2025 on a gross margin of €988,938, and its staff has moved between 16 full-time equivalents in 2022, 25 in 2023 and 19 in 2024. Twenty years on one square with one rule about fish is a record worth keeping.

Neptune still holds his trident above the square. Below him, the fish only comes from his European waters.