Shu Restaurant Belfast — Restaurant in Belfast

Saving the best, or at least our friends’ favorite for last, we went to Shu on Lisburn road, the coolest, trendiest neighborhood in Belfast, right before heading out for our flight. Again our friends knew everyone there, so we had the best seat in the house, though we may have ended up with the same anyway as it was fairly empty on a Tuesday for lunch.

Shu has won a huge number of awards and focuses on simple, fresh, seafood and steak. The previous chefs left some time ago, and the new chefs set out to redefine the menu and put their own touch on it. They removed everything, but due to so many customer requests, had to add back this salted chili squid starter to the menu. Again all four of us got it.

The squid itself was something akin to the best fried calamari ever, but very chewy and crispy without being rubbery. The sauces added nice spice to it and the creamy one helped put out the fire. This is the must try dish of the restaurant, if not all of Belfast.

The steak and frites, which looks much smaller in the picture than real life, perhaps due to the immensity of the fries, was good enough to restore our friend’s faith in steak after a few rough meals. It was the first piece of perfectly cooked pink, or medium rare steak we found in the city. The secret according to the waitress was that they, unlike most other restaurants around, slow cook the meat so that the fat melts, rather than burning off or searing. Regardless, it was equal to the steak we had on our visit three years ago which I fondly remember as one of the best steaks I’ve had.

The salad was even delicious with flakes of parmesan cheese. The chips were good but a bit boring and a bit too thick for my taste, but the green monster foam went well with them. It must have been intended for the fries because the steak had no need for it.

The extremely photogenic dessert, if I do say so myself, was a banana and dark chocolate brownie with yogurt cream. We had to get this as it was made with Valrhona chocolate which we always get ourselves for Christmas each year. The quality has declined in my opinion in the last two years, but it didn’t seem to effect the brownie. The yogurt was so good it got us thinking about how we could get an ice cream machine to make something similar.

Apparently whoever supplies honeycomb for Belfast has worked out a great deal with every restaurant in town because each menu featured an ice cream with honeycomb item. Still, the texture and flavor differences make for a...

Updating the review: since the initial feedback below, the restaurant manager was kind and proactive to reach out to doscuss our feedback. He was very receptive of the feedback and provided great customer service to make amends. We had dinner at the restaurant last night and it was lovely, back to the Shu we know. We had a squid and crispy duck starters, cod and fillet steak for main course and a pavlova desert to share. The steak was delicious and the garlic that came with it was so creamy inside. Champ was great too. The service was very good - thank you.

Initial review: I booked this for a birthday celebration, which happened to be on Sunday. Since we sat at the table it took the staff about 20 minutes to take our orders. We even went to say that we're ready to order, but were told that someone will be with us as soon as they can. As part of the order we asked for 1 small glass of wine. The waiter came back to say that the manager said it is not possible, but we can take 1 full glass and 1 empty glass, and split the full glass in half... It took them another 10 minutes or so to bring our drinks order. All this time we just had water and butter on the table. There was a table next to us that had finished their meal and left, no one of the staff came to clean it for at least 40 minutes! Our squid starter was nice. The bread was nice and home made too, even though it was meant to arrive once the order was made, but arrived just before the starter, about 30 mins later, which was too late. We ordered lamb, pasta and kids chicken goujons for main. I asked at least 3 times to take peas out of the lamb, but lamb arrived with peas. Pasta wasn't great as bread crumbs were added on top, which destroyed the dish, and chicken arrived when we were already in the middle of eating our pasta and lamb, and was also quite dry. Someone from the staff was organizing the cuttlery, between that, and people talking, it was too loud around the restaurant and the music was barely there. All in all, I started having a headache, everyone was frustrated and hungry, and we couldn't wait to go home. We didn't even want to get the dessert. Deeply disappointed with such an experience for such an occasion. Their main courses have always been a bit funny and hard to choose from, but now the service is also the worst I've...

I am very disappointed by the standards of service I received from Shu which is a Michelin Rated Restaurant. We booked at 12.15 pm for a table of four and three members of the party arrived five minutes early. The last member of the party to arrive hadn't even been sitting down for two minutes when a member of staff asked them if they would like to order a drink and a meal. He should have noticed that my friend had only just come in and hadn’t had time to look at the drink and food menu. He should have approached the table asking my friend "would you like to order a drink or would you like a minute to look at the menu?" My friend was forced on the spot to order a drink.

When we got our starters the same member of staff approached our tables several times to check if we had finished. As an experienced waiter he should have an idea how long it would take a table of four to finish their starters. Instead, he made us feel uneasy. The same went for our main course; we got the same treatment by the same staff member. It was as if he couldn’t wait for us to leave. When it came to the other tables I noticed he didn’t give them the same treatment, rushing them to order drinks etc. He was so intent on rushing us that he didn't he notice two members of the party had empty glasses.

We felt we had to rush our main course quickly because he was putting pressure on us. When he collected our mains he didn’t even ask us if were finished. He just grabbed the plates. The plates were empty but we still had food in the middle of the table. When he grabbed the first plate from my friend we had to pretend we were finished.

After the plates were collected he asked us if we wanted dessert or coffee. We said no because after rushing our starters and mains we wanted a break before ordering. Then less than a minute after we had declined dessert or coffee he got us our bill and just abandoned us. We felt we had to leave immediately and were definitely not happy with the service we got.

We booked the table for 12.15 pm and left at 1.30 pm. We just wanted to enjoy our time catching up with our friends. I understand that the hospitality industry is under a lot of pressure these days but this is really...