Belgian food in Bruges is excellent, and the challenge is finding good restaurants amid the concentration of tourist traps around the main squares. The key dishes to seek out are waterzooi (a creamy stew of chicken or fish with vegetables, originally from Ghent but eaten all over Flanders), stoofvlees (beef braised slowly in Belgian abbey beer), moules-frites in season, and grey North Sea shrimps which are sweet and very different from the large Atlantic prawns served everywhere else.
For mussels and moules-frites, the restaurants on Huidevettersplein near the canal are a reasonable choice. The streets behind the main tourist circuit — Langestraat, Predikherenstraat, the area around the Augustijnenbrug — have a higher ratio of places where local people actually eat.