Millar’s Grill & Seafood
1D Lanyon Quay,
Belfast,
BT1 3LG
028 9049 0873
millarsgrillandseafood.com
As far as these things go, discovering that you can’t eat oysters any more really does deserve its own wing in the First World Problems Hall of Fame.
But still – no more craggy-edged tempura, or overflowing po’boy sandwiches. No more beef pies studded with slippery treats or spiky mignonette bringing alive a briny half-dozen perfectly pert shots of the sea, next to a black pint of stout.
Not that any of these were a regular occurrence but the realisation that oysters just don’t agree with me any more – stridently and vociferously, however much I’d love us to get along – makes seeing them on a menu a wistful, longing experience. First World Problem indeed.
So, you’ll have to take my word for it as I take another’s word for it that the oysters at Millar’s Grill and Seafood are everything you want them to be, whether grilled under a little duvet of garlicky breadcrumbs a la Rockefeller or as they come, raw and fresh and – I’m told – delicious.
It’s the second spot for chef Chris Millar after his eponymous restaurant in Finaghy in the south west of the city, this time located in the heart of the city, formerly home to the long-established Tedford’s Kitchen and staring squarely at the Waterfront Hall.
Opened with business parter Matthew Roman-Wilkinson, with Sarah Humphreys running the kitchen as head chef, it’s sleek and cool with the requisite dark wood and filament lightbulbs, as well as splashes of greenery and wildlife portraits staring you out from the walls.
Steaks feature prominently – from a £24 sirloin to a whopping cote de boeuf and all sorts of bits and pieces to share for £75 – but here, down by the water, it’s the seafood half of the Grill and Seafood that stands out.
But first (if you don’t count the oysters), some raw beef. A disc of steak tartare is immaculately constructed, the little chunks of meat studded with fresh crunch from onion and gherkin, with a shard of crisp toast sticking out like a sail on a boat bobbing in the nearby Lagan. Pickled shimeji mushrooms and blobs of truffle dressing finish the top-notch starter.
Better still is the trio of perfectly cooked scallops and a sphere of crunchy crab fritter sitting in a rich, coral pink bisque under a tangle of samphire. Bang on, apart from a few strands of entirely unnecessary coriander cress in there, as there were on the tartare.
Seriously, restaurants, coriander without warning will only annoy people. Don’t do it. Especially when it’s going on plates as otherwise perfectly put together as these.
There’s less showiness in the main courses but no less flavour. A tuna steak comes treated as you would a beef steak. Simply with chips and a pot of bearnaise sauce. It works well because everything is straight to the point. A piece of fish raw as it should be in the middle with a bare perimeter lightly kissed by the grill. The chips are crisp and hot, the sauce is wobbly and pungent.
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There’s a lot more going on across the table, but it’s all a little clunkier.
The skin in the sea bass has the barest suggestion of crispness – a waste of fish skin to be honest – but the flesh underneath is pearly white and on point.
It’s a beast of a main in total and super value for £19, with a generous heap of crushed potatoes, fennel and broccoli and a cracking bright orange romesco sauce.
There’s also an overwhelming chunk of chicory that’s almost as big as the fish and could have been cut in half while detracting nothing from the plate.
If you can get past the virulently bitter blobs of orange gel that are mercifully small on the fragrant orange, honey and pistachio posset you’ll find a tasty dessert but a better bet in the baked Alaska: a fiery ginger cake, caramelised biscuit ice cream and a peak of blowtorch-licked meringue. This isn’t a dessert, it’s a sweet and it’s a bloody good one.
Just as Millar’s Grill & Seafood is a bloody good addition to Belfast’s dining landscape. Oysters and all.
