Before visiting Belfast, I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what I was going to find.
This was a city shaped by the Troubles, with a complicated past. It was a place of shipyards, once a powerhouse of industry. With all of that going on, I wasn’t expecting the Belfast food and culture scene to be so lively and exciting.
Over a few days, my husband and I found ourselves eating our way through the city, listening to music on every street corner, and learning how Belfast has slowly come to terms with some of the more complicated chapters of its history.
Belfast surprised us in more ways than one, and I loved that this isn’t a place that wants to choose between its past and its present. It embraces both.
Surprise #1: Belfast Is a Food City
We didn’t expect to eat this well in Belfast. We’d both traveled to Ireland before, so our expectations for the food scene weren’t exactly sky-high.
A food tour through the city with Taste & Tour quickly proved that we’d seriously underestimated Belfast. We started at St. George’s Market, one of Belfast’s oldest markets and one of the best places in the city to sample local food and local energy.
Photo by Agnes Groonwald
It’s open Friday through Sunday, and you can expect a wonderfully chaotic mix of food, antiques, art, and local products. We started with a “wee snack” here in the form of a Belfast bap.
These enormous sandwiches, piled high with eggs, sausage, bacon, and brown HP sauce on crunchy rolls, seemed to be a favorite of working men in the city. Thankfully, ours was shared. This was the first stop, after all.
At Sawers, which dates back to 1897 and describes itself as Belfast’s original grocery store, we sampled cheese with chilli jam, a little wine, smoked salmon, bread with Irish butter, and black butter. Black butter isn’t butter at all, but a spiced apple spread produced here. It’s made from slowly cooked Armagh Bramley apples, which have Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status.
Photos by Agnes Groonwald
Then came The Morning Star. We assumed this was our run-of-the-mill Irish pub moment. Instead, we learned that it’s a family-run Belfast institution that’s been around for over four decades. We had chips and beef, cider, and, naturally, more wine.
At Mike’s Fancy Cheese, we tried locally made Irish cheeses, including a Stilton-style blue cheese made in County Down, as well as a goat cheese. There was no cheddar in sight, and that’s intentional. The shop is helping Belfast locals discover just how much variety there is in Irish cheese beyond the familiar.
Photo by Agnes Groonwald
At this point, I was convinced. Belfast is a food city. It’s also a city that loves the craft involved in good food, whether that’s local traditions or a more modern approach.
Surprise #2: The Music Is Everywhere
We happened to be in Belfast while Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Ireland’s biggest traditional Irish music festival, was taking place. The festival celebrates traditional music, song, and dance, bringing musicians and performers from across Ireland and beyond together for a week of events. Belfast will host it again in 2027.
Our timing meant we got an unusually concentrated look at the city’s musical culture. The streets were packed with people playing and enjoying music, everywhere we turned.
Kids sat on sidewalks with banjos, fiddles, and pan flutes. Bars had signs posted welcoming musicians. At the Titanic Slipways, we watched a group of girls perform from the Molly Smith School of Highland Dance, the youngest of whom was five, and a marching band featuring a Lambeg drum, a traditional drum known for making a sound that can carry for miles.
Photo by Agnes Groonwald
Later, we watched the SíFiddlers, an all-woman fiddler group from Donegal that got the crowd dancing despite the wet weather.
But the most memorable musical experience came from the Comhaltas National Folk Orchestra of Ireland. Their ticketed performance, “By Lagan Stream,” told the story of Belfast through song, touching on the Titanic, World War II, and the Troubles.
Photo by Agnes Groonwald
Toward the end, folk singer and activist Tommy Sands came out and performed “There Were Roses,” one of the best-known songs about the Troubles. At that moment, the festival felt so much more significant. The Fleadh seemed to bring together people from all over the island to celebrate what they share rather than what divides them.
Everywhere we went, people asked what we thought of the festival, almost as though they were waiting for reassurance that Belfast had pulled it off. It had. And with so many kids out on the streets playing and performing, it felt like these traditions would be carried forward in very safe hands.
Surprise #3: The Titanic Isn’t Just a Tourist Attraction
Photo courtesy of Tourism Ireland and Chris Hill
Before visiting Titanic Belfast, I assumed we were going to see a museum about the familiar story: the world’s most famous ship, its ill-fated voyage, and the disaster that followed. We’ve all seen the movie. But the story of Titanic Belfast is really a story about Belfast itself.
For years, the Titanic wasn’t an easy subject for Belfast. The city had built the ship, but its sinking had become an uncomfortable part of its history. Our guide told us that it wasn’t until after the peace process that Belfast began looking at the Titanic differently, seeing an opportunity for a boost in tourism and to reclaim the story of the city’s shipbuilding heritage.
Titanic Belfast has exceeded expectations if we’re talking about the tourism draw, but it doesn’t just focus on the ship or its sinking. It puts Titanic into the context of the city that built it, its shipyards, and the industrial history that made Belfast what it was.
It was another example of a city that isn’t pretending its complicated history doesn’t exist, but figuring out how to tell it in a way that makes sense for the people here.
Where to Stay: The Bedford
Photo by Agnes Groonwald
The Bedford Hotel Belfast was a comfortable place to come back to during our time spent in the city. While the hotel itself is new, it occupies the former Scottish Mutual Building, which dates to 1904. The restoration kept much of the building’s original character, including ornate architectural details throughout. That blend of old and new is part of what makes historic hotels so appealing.
The hotel sits right on Donegall Square South, near Belfast City Hall, making it easy to get around the city on foot. That was especially useful during the Fleadh, when Belfast was at its busiest.
It also has its own restaurant, The Nineteen Hundred Restaurant & Café Bar, which was convenient when we wanted dinner without going far. Led by Northern Irish chef Noel McMeel, the restaurant focuses on local and seasonal produce, with views of the comings and goings of Belfast outside.
Photos by Agnes Groonwald
Perhaps best of all, the soundproofing is excellent. Once inside our room at the end of each night, we didn’t hear one note from the festival going on just outside. It was exactly what we needed after our busy days in Belfast, plus a cup of tea and a few cookies.
Belfast’s Biggest Surprise
I arrived in Belfast on our trip to Northern Ireland expecting its troubled history to be the thing that stood out, perhaps alongside a round of golf or two for my husband, but instead, I found myself thinking about its future.
I thought about the kids playing fiddles and banjos on the sidewalks during the Fleadh. I thought about people listening to that song about the Troubles, moved to tears by a story they knew so well. I thought about the food producers and family-run businesses keeping local traditions alive and about a city that has found a way to tell its stories on its own terms.
Belfast’s history is complicated, but that might be why the city’s current energy is so interesting. There’s room for the difficult stories, but there’s also plenty of room for tasty food, live music, laughter, new businesses, and a generation of kids learning traditions that they’ll carry forward.
I traveled as a guest of Tourism Northern Ireland and Tourism Ireland. For more information on planning a trip to Belfast and the region, visit Ireland.com or Discover Northern Ireland.
