The Luxury Travel Magazine
The Luxury Travel Magazine
The city of Belfast has seen remarkable changes over the past 26 years since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended thirty years of violent strife between Northern Ireland’s loyalist Protestant and republican Catholic communities. The loyalist side were those who wished for the six counties that make up Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, whilst the republican side demanded secession from the UK and to join the Republic of Ireland. In place of checkpoints, security walls and armed British soldiers patrolling its streets, Belfast has been reborn as a dynamic city of new hotels, restaurants and culture. This vibrant city is a place for an unforgettable Afternoon Tea in Belfast.
In 2006, there arrived a grand new addition to Belfast’s hotel scene. The Merchant Hotel opened as a 63-room luxury hotel in what was the former Ulster Bank head office. standing proud in the city’s historic Cathedral Quarter.
Following its major refurbishment, the hotel retains many of the bank’s original features, and is now a Grade A listed building. Bedrooms come in two distinctive styles – Victorian Splendour and Art Deco Decadence, with a range of suites named after renowned local writers and poets.
The vision to turn an abandoned bank into a luxury hotel came from local businessman Bill Wolsey, who started out with one pub and now owns more than 50 establishments in the Belfast area. Wolsey’s Beannchor Group is the largest hospitality company in Northern Ireland and The Merchant is its flagship.
Wolsey and his wife Petra have a very hands-on approach to running The Mechant. Bill can be seen sitting in the lounge on most days, and personally welcomes each new member of staff, while his wife Petra is the Director of Marketing.
The Food and Beverage management is shared between two very experienced hands, Mauro Zanza, who has been at The Merchant for 10 years, and Marco Marro, formerly of The Dorchester in London’s Park Lane.
As soon as the hotel opened Marco insisted on creating a noteworthy afternoon tea menu. Its populariy grew rapidly and they currently serve between 600 and 800 afternoon teas per week, averaging between 120 and 140 on Saturdays when the city centre attracts many shoppers. Although a few experimental teatime offerings have been tried out, such as Asian and Indian themed afternoon teas, Northern Irelanders prefer to see more traditional items on the table.
Like The Merchant’s lunch and dinner menus, ingredients are seasonal and, wherever possible, produced within a short radius of Belfast. These include salmon from Glenarm on Northern Ireland’s north coast, duck from Armagh and local venison and cheeses. The afternoon tea menu reflects the changing seasons, with Head Pastry Chef Sarah Jade Jameson’s patisserie highlighting seasonal fruits and flavours. Lucky enough to visit in late September, I found the caramelised apple and blackberry tartlet and tonka bean and plum crémeux unusual and memorable.
The Merchant works with local tea supplier Suki Teas, who travel the world sourcing unusual tea blends. The selection of ten teas on offer include the ‘champagne of Indian tea’ Darjeeling Second Flush, as well as several green and Oolong teas.
A few steps up from the hotel lobby, afternoon tea is served in what was once the main business floor of the bank. It is now called The Great Room and is decorated in dramatic shades of gold, black and brown, still replete with Victorian arches and carved cherubs. Its huge centrepiece chandelier was created by Northern Ireland based glassworks, Tyrone Crystal, and takes a full two days to clean. However, the silver teaware and fine handpainted crockery come from London and can take up to 6 months’ to be delivered.
Now considered the grande dame of Belfast’s hotels, it has welcomed many celebrities and notables, and several of the key cast members of Game of Thrones have been spotted staying and dining there.
The Titanic Hotel is, as you would expect, located in the heart of the former ship-building area of Belfast, immediately opposite Titanic Belfast, one of the UK’s top visitor attractions.
Like The Merchant, the Titanic Hotel is also steeped in history, as it was the former headquarters of Harland and Wolff, the great Belfast ship-building company founded in the mid 19th century. In its heyday, the stomp of hobnail boots resounded through the building as 25,000 ship workers trooped past each day on their way to create the great wonders of the Olympic, Britannic and Titanic super liners. The noise of hammering thousands of rivets (workers were paid by the number of rivets they attached in a day) was deafening, and echoed round the entire area. After the Belfast ship-building industry died out, due to ships being built much more cheaply in the Far East, the whole area became a wasteland. A stigma pervaded Belfast about the tragedy of the Titanic, a ship built in its own dockyards, and the Harland and Wolff headquarters fell into disprepair.
By the start of the 21st century, interest in the Titanic had been refuelled after the locating of the ship at the bottom of the north Atlantic in 1985, the subsequent success of James Cameron’s eponymous 1997 movie, and the forthcoming centenary of the tragedy in 2012. The plan to regenerate the area, now known as the Titanic Quarter, was born.
Gerry, the Titanic Hotel’s Chief Concierge, who likes to be known as ‘Gerry from Derry’, is an enthusiastic historian and gives informative tours of the hotel, pointing out original artefacts from the Harland and Wolff days. As he opened one bureau drawer with a flourish, the group I was with gasped when they saw it contained the original hand-written letter of guarantee for the Titanic.
After the building’s extensive refurbishment, the hotel opened in 2017, and immediately offered guests afternoon tea. Food and Beverage Supervisor Laura Martin explained that ‘a lot of love and passion’ goes into the afternoon tea offerings.
Unusually, four different flavoured scones are presented, plain, fruit, cherry and apple and cinnamon. Patisserie includes peach cheesecake and blackberry with tahini and almond sablé. Vegetarian, vegan and dairy free menus are avalable, each with a good selection of items. Nine types of tea are offered, supplied by Thompson’s luxury Northern Ireland teas, ranging from a classic single estate Darjeeling or the Titanic luxury blend through to the more exotic Scent of a Rose and sweet Turkish Apple.
No visit to Belfast is complete without a visit to Titanic Belfast. The building’s shape is inspired by the prows of four ships, each 38 metres (126 feet) high, the same height as the Titanic. Once inside the building, life on board the largest liner of its time for the few short days of its fatal voyage are represented by moving and speaking holograms of characters set within displays of lavish staterooms and public areas. We read stories of great heroism among doomed passengers, and hear first hand recorded testimonies of the relatively few survivors.
There were so many what-ifs surrounding the Titanic’s calamity, such as the crew member in charge of the binocular store having disembarked the ship in Ireland, accidentally taking the key to the store with him. Thus the much-needed binoculars for the lookout post were out of use. And that the person manning the wireless of the nearest ship in the area of the sinking Titanic, the Californian, located only 19 miles away, had fallen asleep and not picked up the desperate SOS messages. In both cases the outcome for the 1,200 people who lost their lives in the cruel, freezing seas, could have been very different.
