One of Belfast’s best-known restaurants is entering a new chapter with the launch of SHU Bistro, a new lunch and dinner offering designed to bring greater choice and flexibility to dining at its Lisburn Road home.
SHU opened in 2000 and celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. Over that time, it has become a fixture of the city’s restaurant scene, earning a reputation for classical French and modern European-inspired cooking, attentive hospitality and a dining experience that has drawn guests back for more than two decades.
Its standing extends well beyond Belfast. SHU was named Best Restaurant in Northern Ireland at the UK National Restaurant Awards for three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2014, and has previously been listed among the Top 100 Restaurants in Ireland.
The introduction of SHU Bistro builds on that history while giving guests more ways to enjoy the restaurant, whether dropping in for lunch, meeting over a few dishes and a bottle of wine, or settling in for a full evening.
At lunchtime, the Bistro offering ranges from lighter dishes and sandwiches through to more substantial plates, while the evening menu offers snacks, starters, smaller and larger pasta dishes and an extensive selection of mains.
The approach is intended to make SHU work for more occasions, including those that might be decided on the day rather than planned weeks in advance, while retaining the quality of food, service and surroundings that have defined the restaurant for 25 years.
The dinner menu reflects the breadth of SHU’s kitchen. French-inspired dishes such as foie gras and chicken liver parfait and confit duck leg sit alongside Korean fried chicken, seabass with Goan coconut curry, and wild mushroom mafaldine with sage and brown butter. There are familiar bistro favourites too, including steak frites, chicken Milanese and beer-battered haddock with hand-cut chips, alongside regularly changing specials.
Alan Reid of SHU said: “Reaching 25 years gave us a chance to reflect on what SHU means to people. We’ve been part of celebrations, family gatherings and evenings that guests have remembered for years. That is something we’re incredibly proud of, but it also made us think about how people want to dine today and what the next chapter of SHU should look like.
“We know there are people who have always wanted to try SHU but perhaps saw it as somewhere to keep for a special occasion. SHU Bistro is an invitation to experience the restaurant on your own terms. You can still make a whole evening of it, but equally you can come in because it’s Thursday, you fancy good food and a glass of wine, and you want someone else to do the cooking.”
The launch comes at a time when diners are increasingly considered about where and how often they eat out, with value becoming an important part of the overall restaurant experience.
For SHU, the response has been to create greater flexibility across both food and wine without compromising the standards on which the restaurant has built its reputation.
Alongside the new menus, SHU is also developing its wine offering, building on the popularity of initiatives such as its Monday Wine Club with a greater focus on specially selected wines at attractive prices. The aim is to encourage guests to explore the restaurant’s wine list and discover something new without wine having to be reserved for a major occasion.
Alan added: “We’re very aware of the pressure on household budgets, and we understand that when people choose to eat out, it has to feel worthwhile. Value doesn’t mean compromising on quality. For us, it means making sure someone leaves feeling they’ve eaten exceptionally well, been looked after and had an experience that justified what they spent.
“That thinking extends to the wine list too. We want to have some really interesting wines available at prices that encourage people to try them. A great bottle of wine and good food on a Monday or Thursday night should be reason enough to go out.”
The new Bistro approach also gives SHU’s chefs greater scope to balance the restaurant’s established style with dishes that are more relaxed and familiar.
Alan continued: “Our chefs have put a huge amount of care into the menus. We wanted genuine choice – something familiar, something unexpected, something quick at lunch or the option to linger over several courses in the evening.
“SHU has always been about the whole experience, and that isn’t changing. What is changing is the number of ways people can experience it.”
SHU has continued to evolve throughout its time on the Lisburn Road, including a major expansion and redesign in 2020 that brought its dining experiences together under one roof.
The introduction of SHU Bistro represents the latest stage of that evolution, opening the restaurant to a new generation of diners while giving its longstanding customers fresh reasons to return.
Alan said: “A restaurant only reaches 25 years because people keep choosing to come back. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported SHU over the years, and now we’re equally excited about welcoming people who perhaps haven’t walked through our doors before.
“We want SHU to be somewhere you can celebrate the big moments, but also somewhere you can decide to go for lunch, meet a friend for a glass of wine or simply have dinner because you don’t feel like cooking. There should be a place for all of those occasions here.”
The SHU Bistro lunch and dinner menus are available at SHU Restaurant on Belfast’s Lisburn Road.