🇬🇧Belfast, Northern Ireland

The Chowder Pilgrimage

Fresh from Strangford Lough. 40 minutes from the airport. Worth every mile.

Photo: BBC Food

Example Extreme Day Trip:🛫 From Multiple UK airports💰 From £19 return⏱ 1h 10m flightShare to WhatsApp

Why this dish?

Belfast sits at the mouth of Belfast Lough, minutes from Strangford Lough and the Mourne coastline. The seafood that comes out of these waters - oysters, mussels, crab, hake, cod, langoustine - is extraordinary, and the city's chefs have been quietly turning it into one of the UK's great seafood destinations for the past decade. A bowl of Belfast seafood chowder - rich, cream-based, loaded with plump local mussels, flakes of smoked haddock, and served with soda bread still warm from the oven - is a bowl that tastes like where it was made.

Belfast has become, largely unnoticed, a serious food city. It is also one of the cheapest and easiest flights from anywhere in the UK. This pilgrimage is the best-value trip on this entire site.

Our Picks

Mourne Seafood Bar

Address: 34-36 Bank St, Belfast
What to order: Seafood chowder with soda bread. In season, the Strangford Lough oysters are unmissable.
Book ahead: Book ahead for the lunchtime two-course deal at £24 - it sells out.
Pro tip: If oysters are on the specials board, order them. Strangford Lough oysters are among the finest in the British Isles.

Holohan's Pantry

1 Lock Keeper's Inn, Union Lock, Belfast

A family restaurant hidden away near the waterway, beloved by locals for using entirely local Northern Irish produce. The chowder here uses fish from Kilkeel harbour. Quieter than the city centre and more authentic.

What to order: Seafood chowder with wheaten bread. The pan boxty if you want a main.

Good to know

Belfast's seafood scene has improved enormously in the last decade. The Cathedral Quarter and the riverfront are where most of the best kitchens are concentrated. St George's Market on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning has a seafood stall worth visiting before lunch.

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