The Great Room Restaurant is the name of the dining room of The Merchant Hotel in Belfast, where hotel guests take their breakfast, and where the public can take breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.  It really is a ‘great room’; the former central hall of the Ulster Bank HQ has an amazing, high, domed and ornately decorated ceiling, laden with cherubs and gold leaf. Words and pictures can’t do it justice, but I can say it is very impressive!  I found it inspiring and very amusing to be eating with a multitude of naked cherubs looking down on me!

With most of Belfast’s good restaurants not opened on a Monday, and a decent-looking menu on offer, we decided to eat in The Great Room this mild February evening.  We both had the tasting menu and its wine flight.

First to the table came an Amuse Bouche of a squash ball-sized fish ball, sitting on a nice acidic tartare sauce.  The fish ball looked lonely and uninspiring on a big white plate. Taste was “meh” 3/10

Our starter was a cut of smoked salmon, served with a couple of pieces of “heritage” beetroot and (pink) celeriac and a beautifully smooth horseradish puree. It was simple and pretty, but a little sparse and technically easy. More could have been made of the dish if the salmon were Irish, cured rather than smoked, and a thicker, more sturdy piece of fish (like a Bahlik fillet). 4.5/10

Next up came a “Duo of Duck” comprising smoked breast slices and foie gras brûlée, served with poached plum, plum puree and a cinnamon donut. The puree was lovely and the brûlée was innovative and packed with rich flavour, but it had too much burnt sugar on top. 8.5/10

The main course offered a choice between lamb and wild bass. We chose the latter and saw another quite small portion delivered in front of us. The fish was fine; it came with celeriac and burnt apple (both lovely) and a baby mussel sauce which, I was pleased to note, was not so strong in mussel flavour to overpower the fish. A couple of pieces of “crispy seaweed”/fried kale were delicious. 7/10

A palate cleanser of Champagne sorbet was made extra good by a sliver of candied orange. 8/10

For dessert we had “Azelia Chocolate Mousse” which had a bold chocolatey flavour, but I found it became sickly sweet after a while. A small ball of coffee ice cream was lighter and better for it. 5/10

I enjoyed the feeling of ‘special occasion’ in this impressive dining room. The menu looked good, at a very good price (our bill total was £203), but portions were small. I think we might have had a special ‘Belfast restaurant week’ menu at a lower price point than usual, but the trade-off for a cheap price was a meal of (mostly) simpler, less labour-intensive cooking and smaller portions. 6.5/10

Service was fine but unexceptional. There are better restaurants in Belfast, but they don’t open on a Monday!