Novelli at City Quays

After a long walk restaurant search trek through the downtown area, we ended back up at the AC Hotel. Lots of great places, but none of them seem like they would be as good as Novelli back at the Marriott where we started. I am so glad we decided to eat here. Really great food, and of course you cannot beat the great views. Regards, Dan

Beautiful food. Stayed for Christmas Eve, female staff member could not have been nicer or done any more. Food was absolutely perfect. Highly recommended. Updated 25/12/23 Having stayed at the hotel and dined at Novelli several times over the last few years it is forever impressive. Value for money is second to none in Belfast, staff always excellent, special mention to Billy, who loves a chat. I plan to visit several times in 2024, struggle to find any fault at all and very much recommended.

Everything was at the highest level.👍 Starting from the service to the very delicious food. For sure, if we have another opportunity to visit the city of Belfast, we will return to this restaurant. Thanks for the pleasant atmosphere to the waiters and the chefs for the delicious food.🙏👍👏We're sorry that we didn't manage to take pictures, but we certainly have a memory through the taste of the food.🤤I recommend this restaurant with confidence.🥂

The service at this place was amazing, made the difference for us and our two toddlers that walked in screaming and calmed down with their friendly reception and the children treats. Susan was espetacular and treated us like family. Our almost 3yo son came back to The Netherlands saying he wants to go back to “Ireland” to see Susan. Haha All the staff is friendly and helpful and we will definitely be back to this location (we stayed at the AC Marriot). Our first dinner we picked up food and took to our room and surprisingly it was the best lamb ever. It was delicious.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Novelli Belfast is outstanding! The atmosphere is stylish yet welcoming, the service flawless, and the food simply exceptional. Presentation was beautiful, flavours were bold and refined, and every dish delivered. As a fan of Jean-Christophe, the menu did not disappoint—this place truly has it all!

Enjoyed a delicious tapas lunch with friends. We had a lovely view across the Lagan and enjoyed live music and drinks in the afternoon.

We decided to take a chance on Novelli, our hotel restaurant, and we're happy we did as it far exceeded our expectations. The food was amazing; fresh, and minimally prepared in just the right way. I definitely recommend the Winter Superfood Salad and the Fish and Chips. Our server, Helena, was so pleasant and helpful and went out of her way to make it special for us. Top it all of with River views and very comfortable dining chairs! Definitely recommend this spot - 5 stars!

Stopped in for an early dinner in June 2025. Staff were helpful and welcoming. There is a separate kids menu which was useful, though disappointed at the lack of vegetables offered with mains and no vegetable sides. Would certainly come again. Lovely and relaxed atmosphere.

I was looking for pre theatre dining which was in walking distance from the SSE, although there were some poor reviews, we booked novellis with a bit of hesitation. I have no idea why the bad reviews! We could not fault this restaurant at all. Food was perfectly cooked and so tasty. The chorizo started was melt in the mouth and the 1980s prawn cocktail was lite on dressing with perfect king prawns. I had the 8oz rump steak...med/rare & cooked to perfection, the seasonal greens were fabulous. My husband had the burger with hallumi cheese, that little bit different, again delicious. Chunky chips were fluffy and crispy. Service was spot on and unlike some reviews we had a perfect time between starter and main course. The view across the lagan was great and the walk along the river added to our evening. I honestly could not fault this evening....les mis just finished our evening making it a fantastic dining experience and show. I would recommend this restaurant especially for your pre show dining! Thumbs up !

I really can’t say enough good things about the AC Marriott. I stayed for 5 nights, food was delicious, staff were lovely and friendly. The Friday night entertainment was exceptional, honestly the very best live singer I have ever heard!

Staying at the AC hotel, so this was a no brainer after a long travel day. Food was amazing and the service was top notch. The French onion soup was far from traditional, but amazing.

We celebrated my son's family Graduation Dinner in Novellis and it was amazing! The food was outstanding, the service was excellent & the whole evening was fantastic! Nothing was too much trouble for the staff. Thank you Novellis for making our special night so memorable. We will all definitely be back!

We celebrated a 30th birthday here with a meal for 15 people. All the staff, particularly Paul, were extremely attentive. The restaurant decor is beautiful. We ordered a range of menu choices. The food arrived quickly and everyone was very happy with it. It was lovely to have space to chat after the meal with no restrictions on time. We were pleasantly surprised at the cost of the meal and would recommend.

Novelli has a great location on the River Lagan, close to the City Centre. You're only a ten minute walk to City Hall. The restaurant is first class in my opinion with a boutique feel to it. Modern decor with plenty of light provided through the floor to ceiling windows with great views over the river. I like the smaller menu, kinda French style which means they do much less but do it very well. I would give five stars but the bar prices are a bit high, however it wouldn't prevent me from going again. Recommended.

I went there for dinner, the place is superb, chic, modern and élegant.✨️✨️ It’s calm and relaxing 😀 If the weather is nice, ask to be on the terrace you will have a nice view of the port. (Titanic District)🚢 The waiter are attentive to my needs; I asked to be seated next to a plug; I was able to do it. And they immediately brought me a jug of water without me asking. I ordered the 3 dishes: “Frito chorizo ​​al vino” “Belfast black and brisket pie”🥧 "Creme brulée" The dishes that were served to me was very good😋 the cooking was perfect, meat was tender and the puff pastry of the "vol au vent" is like a work of art. I think that the value for money is justified. However, there is a bit of a lack of vegetables on the plates. for example for the starter to counterbalance the flavor of the chorizo ​​why not add a few grilled tomatoes🍅🌶🧄 with Herbes de Provence this would bring a little tangy juicy side which goes very well with the flavor of Chorizo... For dessert "Créme brûlée", add a small ramekin of strawberries🍓🍓🍓...it doesn't cost much and taste-wise it brings emotional benefits 😉✨️💥 (sorry for the rating, I would have liked to be able to rate you 4.5 and not 4 but the system lacks precision)

My daughter said this was the best burger she ever had, the pork chop was good, but they never brought me my chips with the pork chop. Other than that I would have given them 5 stars. French onion was good.

We booked a birthday dinner, such a cozy hall, foods are great, staffs are nice and helpful.

Very good food. The brownie and the coconut sorbet wasn’t so good

Nice hot buffet breakfast. Unfortunately the sausages were a bit of a let down. For the price of the breakfast (£20) would have been nice to get some proper butcher/farm shop sausages these seemed to be just your normal 'supermarket' own brand.

The food was excellent but don't go there if you want a nice wine selection. For example, only 4 red wines to choose from! In addition, two cheap and slightly different glasses were provided. That has never happened to me, certainly not at a Michelin star chef restaurant.

I am going to start with the positive, it's a beautifully designed contemporary hotel restaurant. We were warmly welcomed by staff and escorted to our seat! Very friendly and helpful! There was a live music played by a fella and his guitar in what looks like the Lobby/after food bar area which complemented the place. Then after a suggestion by one of the staff, I ordered the Daube of Beef😳 well, where do I start😬 it looked lovely, 'A' for presentation but I had to eat it and flip that thing needed a chain saw to get through😂 it was meant to be slow cooked and the meat falling apart well, my teeth were gonna fall out if I wrestled any longer(see pics🙈) it was as dry as a cardboard and I had to tap out after sweating buckets trying to get through it! I had said no mash potato initially to the server and he forgot which I was glad because the sauce and the mash was basically my dinner. My other half had chicken and totally enjoyed it, but you can hardly go wrong with Chicken😳

I was recommended to come here by a friend as apparently the lamb here is good. For starters we ordered gin cured salmon and duck rillete. The gin cured salmon wasnt really enjoyable and it didnt really pair with the overly sweet bread and the cheese didnt really help, the duck rillete was enjoyable and it had good flavour it was nice with the crunchy toast. For the main meal we ordered dry aged 8oz rump steak, the irish lamb and the roasted beef sirloin. The rump steak was ordered medium but it was closer to medium well and it was a bit dry and side of chips had nice seasoning but were personally a little to big. The irish lamb was tasty and it was juicy. The beef sirloin was also tasty along with the side of dauphinoise potatoes ordered seperately. For dessert we ordered winter berries vacherin, salted caramel tart and creme brulee. All of the deserts were very good. Unfortunately when we were examining our water glass, napkins and cutlery we noticed the cutlery and water glass had many streaks which were kind of noticable and hard to ignore the napkins also had a bit of dirtiness which is probably hard to notice in the photos. The water served had notable amount of chlorine flavour which was dissapointing. The overall cleanliness of this place was underwhelming especially the seating, the floor which had many crumbs and tables which seemed to be a little damaged too. The atmosphere wasnt particularly fitting to the food due to this. I would go again for the food but the dirty environment is not enticing.

Nice location, overlooking the water. Food was also nice although somewhat on the pricey side, and descriptions not always accurate; we ordered 5 tapas, 2 of which (prawns & meatballs) were described as "large plates". Do those meatballs look like they're on a larger plate than the other 3 tapas? I don't think so! They might have gotten a better rating were it not for the fact they overcharged (double-charged for tea & coffee) and whilst the server was apologetic I needed a refund from the manager at the front desk who literally didn't say a word to me - not even a "sorry about that" etc. Well rude! Needless to say they won't be seeing much return business from us.

Great service, food was well cooked but basic, lovely views.

Food was pleasant, main course was tasty. Dessert was very overpriced for what we got, I ordered the ice-cream with meringue and honeycomb - well there were a few crumbs of meringue and no visible honeycomb, and the three scoops of ice-cream were no bigger than teaspoon sized. Time waiting between courses was more that I would have expected as restaurant was not busy. Service charge automatically included, which I am not a fan of, I prefer to decide myself if service warrants an additional payment. Overall I am sorry to say I wouldn't return.

I was shocked by the poor quality of food on offer at dinner. The first photo attached was meant to be “gnocchi”, which was actually just fried potato and marinara sauce/ketchup. I sent it back and got the risotto, which was frozen peas and full of garlic clove butts (photos also attached.) it’s possible that this was just a bad day for the restaurant, maybe the chef wasn’t there. Both my breakfast and lunch service were really lovely and the staff for breakfast and lunch were really wonderful.

Don’t want to talk lots about service. Some advices for the young lady that 1. don’t stare at the customers. 2. Respect the customers but not yell at them. Prefer to talk more about the food. The burger is terrible. There is no any seasoning such as spices, sauce, salt or pepper, or there is too little. Burger meet was too thick so it tasted dry and solid like rock. Pickles just tasted like boiled cucumber, neither sour nor sweet. You really need to consider changing the frying oil frequently. It made the fries smell like gone bad.

They were sorely understaffed when we visited; our waiter disappeared mid meal never to be seen again. If you order French onion soup, it has delicious, plentiful onions but no cheese— who does that?

We had this restaurant one night while staying in the hotel. It was very underwhelming and over priced. The dining room was a nice setting but the service was poor. The staff weren't just inattentive but had poor attitudes as well. We also had breakfast one morning. Extremely overpriced and just okay. There are lots of cafes and restaurants within walking distance, I suggest going elsewhere.

Was not impressed at all with our dinner. My husband and I had French onion soup which was ok. Did not have very much flavor at all. My husband had a sirloin steak which he said was so tough and had so much gristle he couldn't eat it. His fries were cold. I had the chicken which was suppose to have garlic and herbs but I did not taste either and the chicken was so dry. The potatoes that came with the chicken were absolutely so dry they were inedible as well. It was very costly for the food that we received. Will not be eating there again

Disappointing Sunday afternoon visit. I booked online for 2pm on the Sunday of the late August bank holiday. We had been really excited as we had been before and the all-day fixed price menu was exactly the kind of food we love. On arrival we were very disappointed to be given the express lunch menu and told that was all that was available. Light bites and sandwiches isn't what we were expecting for Sunday lunch. We should at least have been told the fixed price menu would be unavailable when we made the booking.

The food was tasteless and bland. The burger had no seasoning and was way too thick. The onions or pickles were sweet and odd tasting. The rotisserie chicken was bone dry. Service, they would check on you and you would ask for something but they wouldn’t ever bring it to you. Asked for a vodka martini and it came with lemon in it. Not sure if that is the area or not, but it was terrible. For the price, I wouldn’t come back.

This place was suggested to us from leaving an event in the Harbour Commissioner Building. So we thought, yes, that sounds good. But...what an absolute disappointed with the service, food and pricing! Waiting to order was very slow, drinks were slow to arrive and as for food.... very very slow to arrive. When the food did arrive the only thing that was hot was the plate! My husband ordered a 10oz Ribeye with trimmings and i ordered the Fish in batter. Both meals were just lukewarm, the fish and portions of chips were soggy and 'bendy' when lifted with the fork. The fish just went into mush when i tried to lift it and as it was laid on a bed of peas it just mixed in with the peas, tartar sauce and 'mushy' chips. The entire plate was get a complete wet messy slop! My husband's steak was full of inedible lines of sinew, the mushroom and tomato were fine but the peppered sauce was really thin & tasteless. £32 for the steak & £18.50 for the fish plus an extra 10% service charge!!!! Absolutely disgraceful how anyone could serve up this low standard inedible sloppy food and at such cost. We'd pay double if the food was palatable and enjoyable. The food felt and appeared according to textures as if it had been sitting in a heated server for quite some time. We definitely will not be back and would not recommend this restaurant to any diner. Overall very very poor!!!

I visited this restaurant on the 11th of August to celebrate my birthday, expecting a pleasant dining experience. The ambiance and outdoor seating were indeed charming, and the food itself met my expectations. However, the positive aspects of my visit were overshadowed by the glaring issues with service that turned what should have been a special occasion into a frustrating ordeal. I had reserved a table for 4:00 PM, but despite arriving on time, I did not leave until 6:20 PM. This wasn't by choice—I spent the majority of my time waiting for each course to be served. The delays were unacceptably long, and it quickly became clear that the restaurant was severely understaffed. Watching other tables experience similar delays only added to the sense of disorganization and poor management. The experience took a further downturn when we received the bill. My partner noticed that we had been charged full price for each dish, rather than the £28 special offer for a three-course meal that we had selected. This mistake could have easily gone unnoticed, and it’s concerning that such an error occurred in the first place. While the issue was corrected after we pointed it out, it left me wondering how many other customers might have been overcharged without realizing it. To add insult to injury, we were also hit with a £9 service charge. Given the painfully slow service and the overall disarray, this charge felt like an absolute slap in the face. It’s one thing to pay for good service, but to be charged extra after enduring such a disappointing experience is simply unacceptable. The lack of staff, the billing errors, and the audacity to impose a service charge despite these issues suggest a serious need for management to reassess their operations. This was supposed to be a memorable birthday dinner for all the right reasons, but unfortunately, it will be remembered for all the wrong ones. I hope the management takes these concerns seriously because, as it stands, I cannot recommend this restaurant to others, nor am I likely to return myself. Kind regards Anthony

The wine was the best part of our dinner. The children’s ice cream and roasted chicken came in for an honorable mention. After that it was all down from there. The only time our server was available was to take our initial order and when we waived to them to bring our kids deserts. Our food was brought by someone else. The Pear salad - stay away!! Not sure what was going on with it but it had a weird chemical taste to it. Maybe things were so bad because the staff was starving- at least half the staff were openly eating in the kitchen while preparing the customers dishes. And then it took forever to get our bill. I’ve see many good reviews, so I can ONLY assume tonight was just one of THOSE nights. Hopefully you have a better experience than we did!

My family and I ate at Novello on Saturday and the food was awful, my daughter ordered a steak medium it was very well done, I ordered a pear and blue cheese salad. The pear was poached and had no flavour and the blue cheese had been melted so the whole dish was greasy and flavourless. My main was a BLT ordered on granary bread, what arrived was a cheap supermarket brown bread sandwich with awful bacon and oven chips. Overall the experience was terrible and I would not recommend this restaurant to anybody and will not be returning. £120 for 4 people, overpriced and not worth it!

Three of us ordered from the prix fixe menu. Two of us ordered what we thought was salmon pate but what we got was smoked salmon with two tiny bobs of something green that must have counted as the pate. I'd ordered the fish which came with "pommes allumettes" which are matchstick potatoes, i.e. thinner than french fries. What turned up were potato wedges. I tried to be helpful and explained to the waiter that we hadn't got what we expected and he actually argued with us. Then the dessert that my two colleagues had ordered turned it to be unavailable. Why did they let us order it then? If you absolutely must eat here, for example if every other place in Belfast is closed (and that's the only reason I'd eat here again), ask the staff to explain what each option on the menu actually is. Don't rely on what the menu actually says.

Sat for nearly an hour with no food after order. Guy finally came over and asked if we'd like dessert... We entertained ourselves swatting fruit flies landing in the balsamic served with the bread we ordered. Humuus - never got it. Onion soup - never got it. Got what I think was tomato basil, didn't eat it. Beef bourginone ordered - got a burger instead. When beef finally arrived it was tender, underseasoned if you didn't get a forkful of sauce. Sea bass - very nice. Lamb - weirdly different from the plate served at next table, less and arrived in a bowl so everything was mushed in middle. While we're 50 minutes in, waiting, only the bread had arrived. Watching 2 bowls sit at the window the entire time. Those turned out to be our house salads served with onions, which had been declined. Fully dressed with vinaigrette despite asking for blue cheese on the side. Exasperated, hungry, severely disappointed. They didn't charge for what never arrived & added a discount for what did. Restaurant was NOT busy. An enormous party arrived after we'd finally eaten, I wonder how THAT went?

Atmosphere: 2 competing music, live and then over the speaker Service: Waited 15 minutes for a water refill and then after 50 minutes we were asked to see the dessert menu BEFORE GETTING THE MAIN COURSE which is hilarious and absolutely ridiculous. Then they mistook Beef borgenuion for a burger. Absolutely dreadful. How much did I spend? Too much. No leadership, no coordination, no clue Food: don't know, still waiting after an hour

I visited for an evening meal and while the food quality had potential, the experience was overshadowed by extremely poor management service. I understand mistakes happen in any restaurant, but what defines a place is how those mistakes are handled. Unfortunately, this situation was managed so badly that I felt disrespected enough to leave before finishing my meal. My steak arrived well done and dry as anything, despite being ordered differently. I initially mentioned it to the waiter but chose to continue eating as I did not want to create a scene. After a few more bites it became clear the dish simply was not worth the £36 price. When I politely raised the issue again, instead of receiving a professional response I was met with sarcasm from the manager, including the comment that “in Belfast that would be considered medium rare.” Regardless of location, cooking standards are universal, and dismissing a customer concern in that way felt insulting and unnecessary. I rarely complain and would have been satisfied with a calm, respectful conversation. Instead I left feeling embarrassed, frustrated, and disappointed by how the situation was handled.