The people of Oostende

On Thursday the harbour wall told us not to say goodbye. These are the people we did not say it to.

The couple on the cover were dancing on the Wapenplein on a Sunday at eleven, to a band playing for free from a kiosk that has stood on that square since 1895. We do not know their names. After them, in the order we met them: the book stall, the Saturday market where Ipek’s hand hovered over the olives and the fruit man worked a queue, the two men in the rotisserie van, the people at Café Stad Aalst who still read the newspaper, the terrace at ‘t Leeshuus, where the books are second-hand and the people serving you are volunteers, the man who works the free harbour ferry, a reader with his back to the church. Then Ostendaise, the weekend the city’s chefs cook on the seafront: Elin at Haut with the steamers going, Kiss the Chef plating on a banana leaf, Olivier Willems, Gault&Millau’s chocolatier of the year in 2021, in a tent the same summer his shop moved to the Groentemarkt. And last, the woman at Mangetout’s stall, two thumbs up, before we had asked her anything.

We went to watch, not to eat, and came home with more people than plates.

Ostendaise, North Sea Food Fest: seafront, free entry, next edition 26 and 27 June 2027

Kiosk concerts, Wapenplein: free, Sundays in season, programme on visitoostende.be

Kiss the Chef, daorung.kaenphutsa: Visserskaai 41, 8400 Oostende

Olivier Willems Chocolatier, olivierwillemschocolatier: Groentemarkt 20, 8400 Oostende

Do you know the couple on the cover? We would like to give them the photograph