Melter Facebook: Cheese toasties aren't to be looked down on, they're the future

Melter Facebook: 18 Shore Road, Holywood, open 8am-4pm

Just how many things can you do with a humble toastie? Melter has the answer and turned the humble grab-and-go snack into a fully fledged business

Cheese please: Chef Pearson Morris and Restaurant manager Saul McConnell in Melter

Joris Minne Twitter

April 10 2021 08:00 AM

I often think of the last conversations chefs might have had with their former bosses before they leave to chase their destiny and open their own restaurant, because these must happen a lot.

Just think of the restaurant ecology of Belfast alone. In the beginning (1989) there was Nick's Warehouse and Roscoff.

Two generations later and Belfast has an international reputation as a foodie destination thanks to its broad portfolio of fabulous bistros and restaurants and Michelin awards. That's a lot of people over the years leaving to go on to do their thing.

Paul Rankin employed people like Robbie Millar who opened his own Michelin-starred Shanks. Robbie employed Danny Millar who now has his own restaurant, Stock. And so on.

I can imagine a fantasy conversation which chef Pearson Morris and restaurant manager Saul McConnell might have had with their former bosses as they ran out the door announcing a new joint venture with the words ringing in their ears: "You'll not be fit to make cheese toasties in a Holywood shack never mind run a restaurant!"

But of course, Morris and McConnell went on to do brilliantly. They opened Noble in the upstairs space formerly occupied by the much-loved Iona, to immediate acclaim and haven't looked back since.

In fact, they've looked forward and for them, the future is a cheese toastie shack.

Downsizing is the new destiny. Imposed by months of lockdown, takeaway businesses have evolved, street food has become the new fine dining and many of us have survived the cold turkey sweats of giving up restaurant-going and have come out the other side, dribbling a little, but otherwise grand.

Now we content ourselves with more affordable wines from the offies and the fancy dinner kits made available by those very same restaurants. And while the kits and heat-at-home menus have provided a lifeline for restaurants, the parallel emergence of the street food outlets has given us relatively cheap and exciting alternatives.

The cheese toastie phenomenon has gripped us. Toast Office in Cathedral Quarter proved the point and now Morris and McConnell's Melter has taken it a stage further.

Melter is a beautifully branded affair, the kind you can imagine springing up in every town centre across the country. The menu is straightforward: there's only so much you can do with a cheese toastie before it becomes something else.

Melter concentrates on the cheese toastie!

There's the classic at £4.50, a five-cheese blend with parmesan butter crust, a breakfast melter with sausage and bacon (and red or brown sauce), a ham melter, chorizo melter, burger melter, chicken melter, vegan melter and a "wee melter" - just cheese, no crusts.

The bread is gluten free and has just the right structural resilience to withstand the George Foreman squeeze. The cheese blend which includes gouda, cheddar, mozzarella and others melts to the perfect consistency. The butter and parmesan mix which is coated on the outside of the toastie turns into a golden crispy tan so the textures complement each other.

My friend and I showed up last week and somehow got into the wrong queue. Once we corrected this our order was taken quickly. But the promised 15-minute wait turned into almost half an hour which for a lunch break is unsustainable. This will be resolved, however, when they double the number of grills in the coming days.

It just goes to show you that running a complex restaurant is one thing but operating a takeaway with its focus on speed and volume is another. I can just hear the old, seasoned takeaway owners, appalled at the number of restaurateurs encroaching on their territory. "See when this Covid is over, will you bugger off back to your fancy diners and leave this to us?"

But I hope Melter survives the return to normality. It deserves to.

Ham Melter: £6.50

Burger Melter: £6.50

Total: £13.00

Melter Facebook: Cheese toasties aren't to be looked down on, they're the future

Melter Facebook: 18 Shore Road, Holywood, open 8am-4pm

Daily Headlines & Evening Telegraph Newsletter

Most Read

Top Videos

Shankill church to close its doors next month after almost 150 years

Watch: NI charity shop combating fast fashion and cost of living crisis

Watch: Video of two women fighting in Primark goes viral

Latest Joris Minne

Latest