Thoroughly enjoyed our evening in James St - it was the best dining experience of our trip!
We had been looking forward to this dinner as we had a few hit n miss dinners over the course of our trip back to Belfast. We were not disappointed and had the most fabulous evening.
We were greeted and seated quickly. The place is lovely and spacious. Busy and ambient. The bar is great and would love to come back just for drinks at the bar sometime.
We ordered cocktails immediately. An Irish gin negroni and a traditional old fashioned. My negroni was absolutely excellent. I think the old fashioned could have done with using real sugar cubes and not sugar syrup, but it wasn’t too bad.
We were quick to select our wine. We chose a red, the Cline, Old Vine Zinfandel, 2019, a lovely juicy red.
To start we had the Ham Hock Terrine with Piccalilli & Champ Bread and some Scallops with pork belly. The ham hock dish was the best ham hock I’ve had. The homemade piccalilli was something else. Really lovely crunchy and spicy sharpened to help cut through the ham hock. And the champ bread was deliciously crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. The scallops and pork belly were disappointing as they lacked any salt or real flavour or texture between them. We did still eat it and shared the rest of my ham hock.
We both decided to go for the Co. Tyrone 270g Fillet Steak with sides of Champ and Truffle & Parmesan Chips. Red wine jus and peppercorn sauce.
These were fantastic steaks. I honestly didn’t think I’d finish mine, but I did. I made the right choice with the jus and the truffle chips. They went so well together, the dryness of the Parmesan and sweet, slightly smokiness of the jus. The steaks were cooked perfectly. One medium and mine medium rare. Fantastic flavouring on the grilled exterior of the steak and lovely texture when you bit through. We both agreed that the champ was the best champ we have ever tasted. It was piping hot, soft, so well flavoured with hot butter melting on the top of the copper serving pot. It really was the most incredible champ.
I was too full for dessert. But my pattern ordered the Sticky Toffee Pudding Sundae. The team were kind enough to make me an Espresso Martini, which was both decaf and no sugar syrup. It was brilliant. We both managed to work our way though a surprisingly light sticky toffee Sunday dessert.
The team were fantastic. Very friendly and chatty to us. The bar team did not stop, I was lucky enough to face them
And watch them make a great array of drinks and cocktails. The waiting staff were also very friendly when serving and checking in on us at convenient points to make sure we were ok. We felt very well looked after. The service was paced very well, we didn’t feel rushed by anything, it felt like such a leisurely treat of a time in this restaurant.
When we do come back to Belfast we will absolutely be back again. And we will most definitely be recommending to others. Thanks team.