Belfast Food Scene

My mother still does the Saturday walk to St George's with a pair of cloth bags, and so do I when I'm back in Bloomfield. We come home with too much, every time. That walk has changed more than almost any ordinary thing in Belfast over the last fifteen years — not the market itself, which is still the same Victorian shed, but everything that's grown up around it.

This isn't a list of every restaurant in town. It's the places I'd send a visitor, and the routes I'd send them on — the market first, a handful of neighbourhood cafés, the rooms in the Cathedral Quarter people actually go to on a Friday night, and the chippy near the Lough that's been frying the same way since the 60s. Caveat: nobody knows everywhere, and I'm forever finding places I should have been at years ago.

St George's Market: where to start

There's been a market in some form on May Street since 1604. The current Victorian hall opened in 1896. It runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and each day has a noticeably different feel. If you're going once, go Saturday for the spectacle. If you're going to cook, go Friday.

Friday: Variety Market & Fresh Fish, 6am–3pm

Friday is the cooks' day. Quieter, earlier, slightly less performed. Fish stalls are the main draw — mackerel from Kilkeel, langoustines from Portavogie, oysters out of Carlingford. I'll go Friday morning if I've a dinner to cook on the Saturday: queues are shorter, the fishmongers have time to talk to you about what's good that week, and they'll fillet to order without rushing. Try The Fish People if you've a fish in mind but no plan for it, or Long's Fish, three generations into the same stall.

Saturday: City Food & Craft Market, 9am–3pm

Saturday is the show. Over 150 traders, a band on a small stage near the south door, queues out the front by 11. The food is at its widest and the building is at its loudest. It's also when most of the city's good bakers and producers will turn up, so for visitors it's a one-shop tour of what Northern Ireland is actually growing, baking, smoking and curing.

A short list of stalls I'd walk in specifically to find:

• Ditty's Bakery — Robert Ditty's wheaten and soda from Castledawson. The white soda is, in my view, the best in the city.
• Sawers Deli — for whatever cured thing you didn't know you needed, and the coffee.
• The Rustic Crust — wood-fired pizza you can eat while still in the building.
• Tribal Burger — the burger to eat for lunch if you've still a long lap to do.
• Old Comber Distillery — small-batch gin and a sample.
• Clandeboye Estate — yogurts and ice cream from the dairy near Bangor.

Get there before 11 if you want the run of the place. By two, the better stalls are clearing out. Bring some cash — most accept cards, but it's friendlier and faster.

Sunday: Food, Craft & Antiques, 10am–4pm

Sunday is the gentler day. The food is still there but there's more antiques, more bric-a-brac, and usually a folk singer or trad session running on the stage from late morning. I treat it as a long browse rather than a shop. Coffee first, a slow lap of the antiques (I've found enamel jugs and a 1950s mincer at the cookware stalls), then I'll buy something for dinner on the way out.

Eating in the rest of the city

Irish and Ulster cooking, done well

The bigger occasion

The international scene

Cheap and quick

The Cathedral Quarter

The old linen warehouses around St Anne's are where the city's drinking, eating and live music gravitate after dark. Within a 200-metre square you can do dinner, cocktails, a trad session and a pint of stout without putting your coat on. It comes alive Thursday to Saturday and quietens off again by Sunday lunchtime.

Worth knowing in the quarter:

• The Muddlers Club — covered above, sets the tone for the area.
• The Merchant Hotel — Victorian opulence, afternoon tea in the Great Room, cocktails in the Cloth Ear pub round the side.
• The Duke of York — vintage signs all over the walls, mostly the same regulars who've been there forty years.
• The Dirty Onion — courtyard pints, live trad, the Yardbird upstairs for chicken.
• The Dark Horse — coffee in the morning, cocktails at night, music in between.
• Coppi — Northern Italian pasta, natural wines, and the right amount of noise. You'll be there longer than you meant to be.

For visitors, staying in or near the Cathedral Quarter puts you in walking distance of all of this. Worth knowing.

The things to actually try

The Ulster Fry

Bacon, sausage, eggs, black and white pudding, soda farl, potato farl, sometimes a tomato or mushroom if the cook is feeling continental. It is unapologetically large and, done properly, very good. The components matter — bad sausages or pale potato bread will ruin it.

Where I'd send you:

• Maggie May's (Botanic Avenue) — student-pricing portions, classic café, no nonsense.
• Home Restaurant (Wellington Place) — the polite version, with proper ingredients.
• The Lamppost (Lisburn Road) — family-run, regulars-only feel, the version locals queue for.

Soda and potato bread

Soda is the buttermilk-and-bicarb loaf cut into farls. Potato bread (or fadge, depending who's asking) is a flat griddle bread made with mashed spuds. Fresh from a decent baker, both are revelatory. Stale, they are construction material. "Buy it the day you eat it," my granny used to say, and she was right.

Buy from Ditty's at St George's or in Castledawson, or Yellow Door Deli on Rosemary Street, which bakes both every morning.

The fish

Belfast sits at the head of the Lough with the Irish Sea on the doorstep. The fish is good — langoustines from Portavogie, oysters from Carlingford, herring and mackerel in season. The first place to eat it is Mourne Seafood Bar. After that, the chowder at The Merchant, or fish and chips at Long's on Athol Street — same family, same chippy, since the 1960s.

Where I drink coffee

Belfast's coffee scene has come along quickly, mostly led by a small group of roasters and a generation of café owners who actually care about it. Three I'd start with:

If you want it organised for you

A few outfits run reliable food tours of the city:

Belfast Food Tours does a walking tour of the Cathedral Quarter, hitting six or seven venues for tastings. The guides talk about the buildings as well as the food, which is the right approach. Daily, booking essential.

Taste & Tour Belfast does private tours focused on St George's and the surrounding streets, which is the right scale for small groups who want time to actually talk to vendors.

The Merchant Hotel's Ulster Fry Experience is a cooking demo with a bit of history and a fry at the end. It's the kind of thing visitors expect to feel touristy and end up enjoying anyway.

Where to buy something to take home

Outside the market, a handful of shops are worth the detour:

• Sawers Deli (Fountain Street) — local cheeses, cured meats, the right olive oil.
• Yellow Door Deli (Rosemary Street) — artisan produce, lunch to take away, breads as above.
• Arcadia Deli (Lisburn Road) — gift hampers and slightly more international.
• Ursa Minor Bakehouse (multiple) — the city's specialist sourdough place.

Beer and spirits

The local craft scene has grown a lot. I'm not the expert here (my husband is) but the rooms I'd point people at:

Breweries

Hercules runs a taproom in the Cathedral Quarter with the core range and a rotating seasonal. The stouts are very good.

Boundary in East Belfast opens for weekend tours and tastings. The neighbourhood around it has become a quiet craft-beer district — three or four taprooms within a walk.

Bullhouse Brew Co does Belgian-inspired beers, has a taproom with food, and the farmhouse ales are the strongest end of the menu.

Distilleries

Belfast Distillery Company near the Titanic Quarter runs tours covering the distilling process and finishing with a tasting flight. Their gin uses local botanicals.

Titanic Distillers in the old Pump House does whiskey, gin and vodka. The tour finishes at a bar overlooking the dock.

If you can time a visit

A few food events to plan around:

Belfast Restaurant Week (February and September) — prix-fixe menus across the city. The way to do EIPIC, Ox or Muddlers without remortgaging.

Belfast Maritime Festival (June) — three days at Titanic Quarter, seafood stalls, tall ships, street food, music.

Culture Night (September) — free, citywide, includes food demos and venue specials. Very local in feel.

The Continental Christmas Market at St George's (November–December) — European producers in the hall, mulled wine, gift shopping in your gloves.

Some practical bits

• Book. For the bigger rooms — Muddlers, EIPIC, Ox — Thursday to Saturday goes weeks ahead. A weekday is your friend.
• Lunch is the value play at the upscale rooms. Same kitchen, half the bill.
• Service charge is sometimes added (10–12%). Check the bill so you don't double-tip.
• Dietary requirements are well handled in most kitchens. Vegan options are far better than they were five years ago.
• Don't dismiss the pubs. Some of the best food in the city is in pubs, not restaurants.
• Cash for the market. Cards mostly work but it's faster, and some traders prefer it.

If I had to send you to three places

Saturday at St George's, lunch in the market or onwards. Dinner at Mourne Seafood Bar or The Muddlers, depending on budget. Brunch on Sunday at Home, Established or Café Conor, depending which side of town you're on. After that you can pick your own routes.

The thing I notice when I bring visiting friends around Belfast is that almost all the rooms I rate are run by people who used to work in another one of them. The kitchens here are small and the people are familiar. Once you've eaten at three or four places, the same names start coming up — Gareth, Niall, Robert, Stevie — and you realise the scene is mostly one extended kitchen with very different rooms. That's the bit I'd like visitors to come away with, more than any one meal.

For more on where to stay in Belfast and the wider food and drink guides, have a browse around the site.