Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp – a monastery hotel in the botanical garden

In the centre of Antwerp, on Leopoldstraat, a brick wall hides one of the oldest working sites in the city. Monks founded a monastery here in 1238 together with the St Elisabeth hospital, and for centuries the place cared for the sick, grew medicinal herbs and, from the 19th century, kept the city's botanical garden on its doorstep. Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp is what that complex became after a restoration of roughly five years: 108 rooms and suites spread through five historic buildings, a three-storey spa, two restaurants with MICHELIN stars and a 15th-century chapel, all arranged around cloister gardens. It opened to guests in 2022 and was the first hotel in Antwerp to join The Leading Hotels of the World. The MICHELIN Guide gives it two Keys, for an exceptional stay, and singles out the variety of the rooms and the quality of the spa.

Here is how the old hospital works as a hotel today – which room to ask for, where to eat, and why the garden is the place to start.

01The house

The history is layered rather than grand. After the monastery and hospital of 1238 came an infirmary and a chapel in the 1400s. In the 16th century the pharmacist Peeter van Coudenberghe set up an apothecary in the hospital and planted a medicinal garden – the seed of what is now Den Botaniek, the city's botanical garden next door. Antwerp's Board of Almshouses took the hospital over in 1798; the front building and main entrance followed in 1836, a new apothecary in 1847 and a large extension on the Sint-Jorispoort side in 1856. In the 1990s part of the old monastery was turned into a hotel and congress centre.

The present hotel belongs to the Belgian developer IRET, led by the husband-and-wife team Eric De Vocht and Maryse Odeurs, who signed a 99-year lease on the roughly 20,000-square-metre site in 2017. Working with the City of Antwerp's conservation department, they stripped away later additions, restored the historic fabric and linked the five buildings – Sint-Joris, Monasterium, Sint-Elisabeth, Alnetum and the Filips Van Marnix Huis – with glass conservatories modelled on the hospital's 19th-century canopy. The Victorian apothecary survived almost intact, original cabinets and all, and now sells the Viennese Saint Charles range.

02Rooms and suites

With 108 keys in five buildings of different ages, no two corridors feel alike. The Classic Rooms run from 18 to 25 square metres and the Deluxe Rooms from 25 to 40, some with a deep-soaking bath; the Deluxe Rooms with Terrace look over the monastery grounds. Families are steered towards the duplexes set in the oldest part of the monastery, and the One-Bedroom Suites have a living room, a temperature-controlled wine cabinet and a view of the courtyard or the garden.

Insider tip

Hertog Jan opens only two weeks a month and closes in August – plan the stay around its dates.

At the top of the range, the Spa Suite and the Diamond Suite each come with their own small spa – a Finnish sauna, a whirlpool, a treatment table and a Technogym bike – and the Botanic Suite, 68 square metres, has a private rooftop terrace, a deep-soaking bath and a walk-in shower. Materials are stone, wood, silk, linen and wool, the furniture and lighting were made for the house, and the suites are fitted with air-filtration systems.

03Where to eat: Hertog Jan, Fine Fleur and Bar Bulot

Hertog Jan is the reason many guests come. Gert De Mangeleer runs the kitchen and Joachim Boudens the dining room, and the restaurant won two MICHELIN stars within about seven months of opening here. The format is omakase: a chef's-choice tasting menu that blends West Flemish produce with techniques from further afield and draws on the hotel's own herb garden. Lunch and dinner are served Tuesday to Saturday, but only for two weeks each month, and the restaurant closes in August – so the dates decide the trip, not the other way round.

Fine Fleur, led by Jacob Jan Boerma and Thomas Diepersloot, holds one MICHELIN star and cooks with seasonal and regional ingredients. Bar Bulot, from the Hertog Jan pair, is a Franco-Belgian brasserie with an à la carte menu, and Henry's Bar and Bistro takes its name from Henri-Ferdinand van Heurck, a 19th-century director of the botanical garden. Afternoon tea comes from the pastry chef Roger van Damme and is served in the old monastery kitchens; his Het Gebaar sits in the botanical garden itself.

04Botanic Health Spa

The monks and nuns grew herbs for remedies, and the spa takes its cue from them. Designed by Heinz Schletterer, it spreads over 1,000 square metres and three floors, with an 18-metre panoramic pool, a panoramic Finnish sauna with herbal infusions, a Himalayan salt-stone sauna, an infrared sauna and a steam bath, plus a Kneipp walk, an ice fountain and a relaxation gallery. There are ten treatment rooms, two of them for couples, and the Botanic Health Club on the top floor is open around the clock, free for hotel guests.

05The neighbourhood

The hotel's main entrance is at Leopoldstraat 26, beside Den Botaniek: just under a hectare, laid out in its present form in the 19th century by the surgeon Claude-Louis Sommé, protected since 1950, home to about 2,000 plant species and free to visit every day. From here the old centre is on foot – the shopping street of the Meir, the Rubens House and the cathedral – and Antwerp Central Station is about 20 minutes' walk away, with direct trains to Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.

06Making the most of a stay

Build the stay around Hertog Jan's calendar and book the table when you book the room. Ask for a Deluxe Room with Terrace or a garden-view suite, swim in the morning and leave the afternoon for the botanical garden and tea in the monastery kitchens. Look into the 15th-century chapel, now deconsecrated and used for concerts and weddings, and the Victorian apothecary on the way out. Antwerp is a low-emission zone, so check your car before you drive in, or use the hotel's valet service.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.