The Mariner Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Newry, Mourne and Down District Council

The Mariner

An exciting new Bar & Restaurant in the heart of Newcastle, with superb sea views from the first floor Bistro, 'The View' at The Mariner has a great menu celebrating seasonal local produce.

We were shown to our stunning window seat by Cian, who chatted to us about the menu, and was very happy to offer alternative options to meet our dietary requirements.

While we decided what to choose for our meal, we had a couple of great aperitifs; “The Dead Rabbit”-a whiskey cocktail with apricot, lemon, honey & bitters, and “Kraken Punch” with rum, Campari, lime & pineapple.

To start, we had a portion of beautifully meaty mussels in a creamy cider & apple sauce with homemade bread to mop up the juices, and some perfectly pan roasted scallops with apple purée, confit apple, and foraged sea greens.

The main courses of pan-fried hake with broccoli and potatoes, in a light wine sauce, and the pan-seared chicken with fondant potatoes, pickled mushrooms & an absolutely incredible black truffle purée, were both inventive and comfortingly satisfying.

And speaking of comfort food, the dessert of Toffee Apple Crumble with Salted Caramel Ice Cream and Sauce Anglais was a lovely, warm bowl of fruity, caramelised deliciousness.

Many thanks to the chef and team at The Mariner for a thoroughly enjoyable evening of quality cuisine, great service and some of the best sea views from any...

We'd booked for 6.30 on Saturday and we're initially confused as the ground floor is a large and not particularly lovely bar. The stairs to the first floor restaurant were discovered and things got much better from thereon. The tables are well spaced, the ambience is pleasant and sufficiently lit, (I hate dark restaurants), the service was swift and friendly, but the star of the show, as it should be, was the food. My wife had the battered cod with chips and all the trimmings in very generous proportions. Delicious. I had one of my favourite dishes, beef cheek with mash and root veg. It was astonishingly good, probably the best I have eaten. The slow cooked cheek had more flavour than fillet steak and a texture that exactly hit the spot that makes this dish so unctuous. It was a huge portion and I savoured every mouthful. As an astonishing surprise we found that The Mariner restaurant was doing a buy one get one free promotion. This has to be our best ever value restaurant meal, but more than that was the quality of the food. Next time we're over in Co. Down we will definitely revisit this...

We attended a recent tasting menu event prior to Christmas. We were very excited to see this sort of event in Newcastle as we spend more and more time here now. The chefs were extremely innovative and clearly had a passion for what they do. The service was excellent from the staff on the ground. However there was one issue which unfortunately really impacted the night and that was the wine and drinks service which we later found out was led by senior management/the owner. When we provided feedback on the event privately, that we were left feeling excluded and unable to purchase drinks in the restaurant, we were accused of being drunk and imagining the issue and the respondent actually appeared to find it quite funny despite the feedback being given with positive intent. The feedback was therefore not taken on board. I felt it was important to highlight this for other potential customers. If you aren't known to the restaurant, your experience might be...