12 NI spots feature in 'great restaurants' guide by top food magazine (2024)

A number of Northern Ireland's top eateries have been featured in the 'Great Irish Restaurants' guide by top food magazine Food&Wine.

Food&Wine Ireland is the premier source and go-to guide for foodies, home cooks and wine connoisseurs alike recognising the breadth of talent in the hospitality industry both north and south of the border.

The 101 Great Irish Restaurants guide, sponsored by Nespresso Professional, includes restaurants from all over the country that "serve up delicious food, offer wonderful service and are well worth a visit".

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Twelve restaurants from around the country were chosen as the top picks from Ulster this year, highlighting the talent of our local food and drink industry.

Here are the restaurants in Northern Ireland that made the cut in the 101 Great Irish Restaurants guide:

Roam, Belfast

Every dark alley should have a Roam. Self-taught chef Ryan Jenkins, a talented footballer, is surprisingly fancy-fingered, creating hyper delicate and fragile amuse bouches and snacks which immediately raises the first time visitor’s eyebrows.

there is a flat iron, a lamb rump and sexy things like grilled greens with miso onion and beef sauce, chanterelles and turnip.

Artis, Derry

Derry doesn’t do fancy, high-fallootin’ posh dining. Except that it does, but doesn’t let on.

However, by and large, people here prefer informal, dressed-down quality. But where there are rules there are exceptions.

Artis unashamedly piles acres of pressed white linen and sparkling crystal on its tables so it looks and feels high-end, yet it also lets its hair down.

28 At The Hollow, Enniskillen

In recent years, husband and wife team Glen Wheeler and Zara McHugh have decamped from 28 Darling Street over to the town’s most photogenic pub, Blakes of the Hollow, beneath which lies a vaulted basem*nt and their restaurant.

Wheeler produces magnificent classic dishes including seafood risotto, confit of duck and pan-fried hake with red pepper orzo, confit fennel and Romanesco.

Waterman, Belfast

Everything about this dining room says Soviet hero workers’ collective tractor factory refectory, a place so democratic you’d be happy to eat alone wearing your overalls.

Yet this is a cool style illusion, and the former government building now adorned with a multi-framed city scape of Belfast by Colin Davidson is home to some of the best bistro food in the city.

Deane’s at Queen’s, Belfast

Still one of the airiest and most peaceful dining rooms in the north, Deane’s at Queen’s has been a go-to for family celebrations for years.

Head chef Chris Fearon is a fish master, and his whole John Dory, roasted crisp and perfectly moist and firm, is one of the best you’ll ever have.

Lir, Coleraine

There’s a friendly eccentricity lying just beneath the polished surface of Lir.

In the kitchen Stevie McCarry, the man who gave us Native Seafood in nearby Portstewart, is making intriguing monkfish sausage rolls.

Glorious in their austere presentation with only a dollop of fermented chilli ketchup as company, these are brilliantly executed – the pastry golden and flaky, the fish within firm and juicy.

Noble, Holywood

Covid couldn’t wipe out this tiny restaurant, which turned to Noble At Home boxes for survival.

Noble’s Sunday lunches are legendary, with baseball glove-sized Yorkies, but the steak tartare with Bloody Mary dressing and sourdough fried in beef dripping is not to be missed.

Wine & Brine, Moira

Consistency is king at Wine & Brine.

Chef patron Chris McGowan has the discipline of a headmaster and the creativity of an artist, as well as the slick delivery mechanism of a well-oiled machine in his dining room.

Stove, Belfast

Simon Toye, formerly of the Meat Locker, and Simon McCance, currently of Ginger Bistro, ignited a whole new world of hipsterdom on the Ormeau Road with their new joint venture.

It has an Uno Mas resonance but being in Belfast, is more modest in presentation.

But Toye’s food is a belter and his staff are among the best in town.

Ox, Belfast

Everyone knows Ox is outstanding, but we can’t talk about Belfast or Ulster restaurants and not mention it, because chef Stevie Toman has not lost any of that thirst for excellence and improvement.

Even if some dishes he prepares using fig leaves from the Ards Peninsula won’t convince everybody, his lunches and dinners are still the number one choice in the north.

The Muddlers Club, Belfast

A motorcycle chain swinging in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other, Muddler’s is like a hip, hard and happenin’ embodiment of chef patron and tattooed biker Gareth McCaughey.

Its colourful and moody dining room is attended by staff who understand hospitality.

The food is ever-changing and exciting, and McCaughey has created a unique blend of atmosphere and quality with zero self-consciousness.

Browns Bonds Hill, Derry

Chef Ian Orr was always ambitious and delivered the best quality dishes in the city.

Now Browns is back with turf-smoked beef tartare, tarragon and grilled sourdough, Inch House black pudding, pan-fried scallops and roast chicory, new-season lamb rump, braised shoulder, and lamb fat potato terrine with confit tomato.

For the full guide and to read more about the Ulster spots featured for 2024, see here

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