We are determined to bring our readers value for money, so this week I'm reviewing three places for the price of one. All three are within a few yards of each other, which means I am able for the first time to enact the Belfast Fantasy Menu I publish each week...
There is a lack of pubs which serve good food in Belfast. When Meghan and Harry "nipped" into the Crown Bar for lunch last month, many of us swallowed hard in disbelief.
The smug faces around east Belfast's Ballyhackamore district would put you off your dinner. Now that they have been told that their barrio is the best place to live in the Western hemisphere, Ballyhackamorians are strutting around being impossibly self-satisfied.
If Beatrix Potter had ever gone into the catering business, she would have opened a cafe just like the Jolly Sandwich Shop. Nestled in the heart of Enniskillen town centre, the shop isn't really a shop at all. It is a classic, ting-a-ling, old school cafe restaurant, the kind...
Jumon is one of the most exciting new restaurants to open so far this year. Its interior is explosively youthful, the menu is like nothing you've ever seen here and the service is as polished as you'd expect in a more conventional, more established place.
The signs of a collapsing civilisation are upon us: self-service check-outs in supermarkets, automated pumps at petrol stations and online banking services amount to a collective rejection of human contact. Automation is the avoidance of compassion, the reverse of...
People can be divided into two groups. Those who love their food and those who don't. The most depressing conversation I can have is with the moron who regards food as fuel. "Don't know what you're on about, mate. Food's something to keep you going." Or:...
Even though Belfast's international foodie destination reputation basks in the glory of its two Michelin-starred assets, Ox and Eipic, there has always been a debate over which one is better. Their prices are similar, the food in both is of international standard...
Nothing prompts sneering cynicism among certain classes than super-pubs, restaurant chains and small-town night clubs. Those of us who enjoy nothing more than our living room pre-ing, followed by taxis to PizzaExpress, or Zen, and ending the night in Lavery's, or the Errigle, avoiding the police and the drunks on the way home, know what to expect.
Belfast has evolved in two decades to claim its rightful place at the top of a glittering array of foodie cities and destinations from across the world. Which other city, I ask you, of barely 350,000 people, can claim two Michelin-starred restaurants, a rich seam of excellent mid-range bistros and brasseries, country house pubs and some of the best fast-food outlets available.
In a recent household survey, food came out in front of sun, sea and sand as the single-most important consideration when booking a holiday. The survey, conducted in my house, reveals that if you go to any destination in the Mediterranean basin, the weather will...
Years ago when the Irish hospitality sector was an inconceivable concept, I went to the Lobster Pot in Strangford. In those days there were plenty of pubs and a handful of places which served crisps. But the 20th century Irish lounge bar was not always a...
One of Belfast's top curry restaurant owners, Ali Askir also happens to be the founder of the Irish Curry Awards, the only food awards on the island of Ireland to have received international Asian broadcast attention thanks to the TV station ATM Bangla and its global audience. (As head judge of these awards, my co-judges and I are unexpectedly big in Bangladesh.)
Belfast and Dublin's restaurant portfolios differ radically. They reveal a character in both cities distinctive from each other, yet mutually very attractive. Belfast may be much smaller and grittier than grand old Dublin, but its restaurants have, perhaps, a broader appeal. Also, it costs less to eat well in Belfast than it does in Dublin.
You wait three years for a decent Thai restaurant to open and then two come along at the same time. Towards the very end of 2017, both new restaurants, Bo Tree Kitchen and Banh, opened coincidentally within weeks of each other after a stasis of three years since the closure of the popular Bo Tree Thai in Belfast's University Road.
Ever since the doors closed on the Bo Tree Thai restaurant, Belfast has been left in a kind of Siamese limbo with little if any access to authentic gai pad ped, tom yam het or kung pad prik pao.
Putting together a list of the top 10 restaurants in Northern Ireland is an invitation to getting your head kicked in. Even as I go through the list of 52 reviewed restaurants of 2017, an intractable argument rages in my head over who should or shouldn't be included. This...
Burgers. You can't live with them and you can't live without them. The simplest of foods, anyone can make them. A burger is a sandwich and as long as the sandwich features a bun or bap split in two and a patty, pretty much anything else can be added.
Successful country house hotels and restaurants, bars and bistros work because they conform to a notion of rural life lifted straight from the pages of coffee table magazines found in city centre apartments and homes across the posher parts of cities...
I'm getting tired of inflamed sensitivities when it comes to favourite restaurants and takeaways. You make one claim about the best fish and chip shop in Belfast (undisputedly John Long's) or Indian takeaway (Asha in Bangor) and the crazed hounds of Cu...
Graze in east Belfast has carved out a sound reputation for consistency in service and food in the four years of its existence. Despite drivers entering the restaurant unannounced (a nice convertible Jaguar crashed through the front door last year) and the growth nearby of a restaurant culture, Graze has maintained and indeed built on its success.
The cradle of the culinary arts is in Lyon, France, where food is regarded as high art. It boasts a raft of Michelin-starred restaurants and is home to Paul Bocuse. Even the best restaurant in Paris, owned by legendary chef Alain Ducasse, is called Aux Lyonnais. An ancient and tiny bistro, it is the perfect encapsulation of everything you ever thought of as being a typical French café restaurant...
In tourism terms Belfast has gone from sticky-carpeted, ring of steel, smicked-out, club-land, fag butt, to hotter-than-South Beach, Michelin-starred, celestial plain of abundant joy and a hundred thousand welcomes city break destination. In less than two decades we have radically changed our tone and outlook. Would-you-drink-up-now-please! has been replaced by: would-sir-prefer-the-61-or-82-...
It's one of the most charming little pubs in the North. Behind the tiny door is a tiny lounge with hobbit furniture and flagstone floor. It's compelling and beautiful and just the job for visiting family and friends who may still have certain views about the North.
What Belfast really needs is a Spanish restaurant. The city is brilliant at the good quality, mid-range, mid-price bistro and informal, casual dining thing, so you'd think a Spanish restaurant would be the perfect fit.
The vegans are coming. Until a few years ago in Belfast and the broader north, veganism was a marginal lifestyle chosen by people who didn't drive cars and sent their children to school in Crocs and black socks and with mushroom sandwiches.
We are very squeamish about veal. Wee calves tug the heartstrings much more effectively than, say, wee lambs, whose legs we happily remove, roast and devour. In my book, both are equally cute, yet calves must have a better PR agency because we don't...
It was inevitable. The health police were going to get us in the end. Too much fat, excessive sugar and an abundance of red meat over the last 20 years or so have left us reeling in our gyms and gasping for breath in our Nike trainers.
Belfast's Botanic Avenue has suddenly become a culinary United Nations. Barely 600 yards long, the avenue is home to 29 restaurants and cafes.
Richhill lies a mile off the beaten track which is the main road linking Armagh with Portadown. In all the years I lived in Armagh I never made it into Richhill principally because there wasn't anything in it that didn't already exist in the home city.
Restaurants come in three categories. Regardless of price range or star-rating restaurants can be classed under the three headings: "Deserves to succeed", "Should be placed on life support", or "Avoid".
Brunel's, the restaurant above the Anchor Bar in Newcastle, should have been included in the recently published Good Food Guide, a Waitrose publication. Mysteriously, it wasn't.
Freshii, the fast health food chain, has popped up on the corner of Donegall Square and Wellington Place, all lush, glowing and green. It was only a matter of time before somebody would take the concept of healthy eating seriously and provide the punter with quick and easy access to fast raw food.
The Muddlers Club is about to mark its second birthday. In the 24 months since it opened it has impressed a long list of fusspots and difficult diners to become so beloved and respected it is now considered by many as a sort of OX alternative.
Restaurants either have greatness thrust upon them or are not great at all. A good example of one which was the latter and is now the former is the Harbour Inn in Annalong. For too long, the Harbour Inn may have traded heavily on its position overlooking the impossibly beautiful and tiny harbour and the views beyond to the Irish Sea. Whatever the weather, this view is one of the best and most...
Trends are as exciting as they are a pain in the neck. In fashion, they change every few minutes to allow the adventurous to risk their reputations and lead the way by wearing flares, drain pipes, orange, black, kaftans or real fur. The clothing industry relies...
What's going on at Stormont? The visitor car park is full, there's a buzz about the place and the security measures are still in force. The Executive might be absent but you'd never know it if you tried to get a table for lunch in the Members' Dining Room, which is...
The dirty food movement has taken firm grip in Northern Ireland. We love a bit of culinary filth, particularly when out for the evening in a large group, and possibly the next day too, when nursing a hangover.
When it comes to the business of holidays, the north has been plagued by a collective lack of confidence. We aren't quite there yet with the promotional sure-footedness of Failte Ireland's proposal to take you on a tour of heaven on earth, a place so wondrous...
It's July and Northern Ireland's holiday lights are all switched on. Tourism chiefs are nervous about the marching season and how it may look to outsiders when things go wrong (remember: it's the battle, not the bottle), tour operators are now hauling hundreds of foreign visitors around the country in search of Game of Thrones experiences, golf rounds or outdoorsy adventures, and hoteliers,...
Afternoon tea is a funny little meal that at first sight seems terribly Edwardian and English. When you look at the average intake of food by the English upper classes in the first half of the 20th century - lamb chops and potatoes among the classic breakfast dishes of the day, elevenses, lunch and, before dinner, afternoon tea - it's a wonder anyone got as far as supper.
Opulence is not a Belfast trait. We resist the lure of bling and luxury more successfully than, say Dubliners, Mancunians and Essex folk who love everything that glisters. It's something to do with the inbuilt sense of modesty and humility of northern Catholics and Presbyterians, both of whom share a common desire not to attract attention to themselves. "Who does he think he is?" is not the...
Most restaurants make sense. Despite the growing trend for replacing plates with bedpans and roof tiles, dispensing altogether with cutlery and service, which includes servers who will sit beside you while you order, I prefer restaurants that stick to their principal raison d'etre, which is to provide hospitality, sanctuary and fortification in the form of comfort, service and a starter, main...
Successful businesses flex and bend with the ever changing commercial environment and economic climate. They are permanently adjusting their course and the way they work to keep up with technology developments, market trends and staff...
Michael Deane is a formidable force in the restaurant sector.
Restaurants, bars and cafes operating as social enterprises can be a bit worthy. Unless there is something particularly attractive about the experience, the punter will find themselves supporting it and spending money there simply as an act of charity. I suspect for some operators it won't matter if the food, service or environment are amateur: it's all in a good cause.
Belfast's upper Ormeau Road is in constant flux. Like an experiment in social engineering, the road recently started sprouting cool restaurants and cafes such as Root & Branch, Le Petit Ormeau, Kaffe O, Soul Food, Shed, General Merchants and Bodens.
Magherafelt is quietly becoming one of the most desirable towns in the north. Judging by the Beemer and Merc count, there's plenty of money about.
Ashley French and family have been gently shouldering their way onto the Belfast restaurant stage for some years now. It started with their buns and cakes supplied to outlets across the city. Then they opened their own cafes in Stranmillis and eventually Botanic Avenue, as well as catering operations on board HMS Caroline and elsewhere. Then last year they went up another notch and...
The Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) has been criticised for its failure to promote gender equality in the food industry, after instating an all-male panel for its annual Restaurant Awards.
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