The Ivy Belfast Brasserie — Restaurant in Belfast

I booked a meal for 5pm, at the time, I made it clear that I was coeliac, they asked if it was a special occasion, yep, my wife's 60th, 'oh great, we'll do then inaudible'. When we arrived, the receptionist asked who was celebrating a birthday, yep, my wife. Again, I asked about the gluten free options, he told us to use the scan to find out. Shown to our table. Left for a while. then someone came to ask about drinks, so we ordered two glasses of Prosecco, and some still water for the table, they came with a bottle of water, but seemed put out when I asked for a a jug of water. We then ordered our meals, again telling the waitress that I am coeliac, she kept asking if it was ok for some cross contamination, not sure she knew anything about allergies and their side effects (some trains needs Ivy), my wife ordered the grilled seabass, I ordered the John Stone fillet steak, which had chunky chips and a side of peppercorn sauce. The drinks eventually arrived, as a starter, my wife had ordered the buffalo mozzarella and I ordered the fried duck salad, so I asked this member of staff (just to confirm) if the chips were gluten free, (lots of restaurants now cook their chips in a separate fryer, which makes chips naturally gluten free), I was told that the chips were fried in the same fryer as everything else, (what do they not realise about allergies?), but I could swap the chips for another side, like peas, broccoli stems, green beans, or the colcannon. I opted for the colcannon. She then told me that my starter wasn't gluten free, so I opted for the suffle'. I've never had one of those that rise up out of the ramekin. So the starters came, the mozzarella was lovely, my suffle' ended up being (I think) one of those pre-prepared twice baked things, what a let down. Had to go searching for a member of staff to ask for some more water, no real attention paid at any time to diners needs. Ev entually the mains arrived, my wife's fish came and was very nice. My steak came, on a cold plate, the jug of peppercorn sauce has a skin on it, the colcannon (a tragedy to call it this), it just tasted of grainy mashed potatoes with some cabbage through it, not creamy or silky, travesty. Had to hunt about again to find someone to order another glass of Prosecco. The stark was nice, but only just warm, so by the time I got to the end of it, it was cold. The plates were taken away, and got the normal, 'how was your meal?', but no thought of enquiring what was wrong when I just had to answer with a frown, shameful. We were then throw a couple of desert menu's, no chance to ask about gluten free options. Asked for the bill, THEY HAD ADDED A SERVICE CHARGE, astounding. I paid in cash with no extra tip, just wish I had deducted the service charge. In all, The Ivy Belfast should hang its head in shame shame if they are what The Ivy brand represents. Just a note to the owners, either up your game, or Belfast will; desert you. Anyone reading this, try Actons restaurant on Bedford street, they have a great gluten free selection and have great staff, the...

Firstly the food was beautiful and so tasty. 5 stars!! But the length of a wait to get it was ridiculous. We had a table booked for 6.15pm we were 10 mins early and sent to the bar. 4 staff on the bar yet no one asked us if we wanted anything and there were 4 of us??? 15 mins and never approached. We were then shown our table behind a pillar but with a lovely view of city hall. We waited for a server and she came and was a lovely young student. Food ordered at 6.40 and at 7.30 I asked when we could expect our mains. Two of the party ordered starter and it was 30 mins arriving. We finally had our mains at 7.45 after asking the server to check on it. Food was awesome and fine dining at its best but the wait was unreal. Asked for ketchup, had to ask again 10 mins later. Had to ask for water refills. Server was on about 6 tables at once. 5 mins after we sat down the lights went out possibly for ambience but people sitting with their phones torch just to read a menu and we had zero lighting apart from the street. I like to see my food. By the time the table was cleared and server came back with the dessert menu we had already chosen from the online menu to speed things up. Bit faster with the dessert which again was beautiful. Asked for the bill and nearly collapsed when we saw it for 4 people. Checked it and someone else’s drinks totalling £40 was on it. Queried the service charge a ludicrous 12.5% for the service we had, no way! We explained to the server the drinks over charge and that the service charge was exorbitant as we’d been allocated a table for 2.25hours and had waited one hour alone on a main course. Our entire sitting from entering the Ivy at 6.05 until leaving was almost 4 hours, and I had a main and a dessert. In all fairness the server took the bill, got it sorted and they waived the service charge which was only right. My advice, don’t go hungry and check your bill. Too many dressed up staff pushing elevator buttons and opening doors and pouring a little cream over desserts and too few actually serving customers and checking on their needs....

Having both experienced the wonderful Ivy Collection previously (Edinburgh and Brighton), we were super excited when we heard about one opening in Belfast. We attended in second week of opening...I am hoping this is the reason our food was soooo sub-standard.

The restaurant itself was as gorgeous as can be expected and the service was good...friendly and attentive. However, drinks did take ages to come and arrived pretty much with our food which was annoying and we had to chase up the water we had ordered.

The food was where the standard devasted us. Starters we had were the arancini balls...tasty but definitely needed some sort of dip and duck salad which was actually quite nice. However, for mains, I had the Chicken Milanese which was quite bland and unseasoned and my partner had the seabass which was also bland apart from an overly smokey/burnt flavour and was massively under seasoned, the fish itself was very thin and was actually mostly skin but even that wasn't crisp and tasted fishy and smokey. We had sides of chips (average) and creamed spinach which was quite frankly one of the most disgusting things either one of us had ever tasted...salty and oddly fishy. Nobody queried when clearing our plates away why so much food was left.

We decided to share a dessert which was the famous Ivy Chocolate Bomb...I remember having this in Brighton and it being one of the nicest desserts I'd ever had; chocolatey and indulgent but still light and airy. Belfast's version was tasty (I'm a chocolate fan with a sweet tooth) but was much heavier and quite unbalanced in it's sweetness.

We were double-charged for water on the bill but this was easily rectified and were charged £14 for service fee, even though we sat for nearly 15 minutes before getting anything to drink and we had to chase the waiter for the water we paid £5 for

We were both bitterly disappointed in paying over £120 for extremely below-par food and agreed that we would give it a year before returning to give them an opportunity to get the chefs and wait staff...