What’s not to like..?

Calvin Holohan’s quirky little Irish eatery at the riverside in Belfast is currently riding high on a wave of Trip Advisor adulation – but he’s adamant that good food is only a part of keeping the customer happy…

Any idea which among the burgeoning ranks of Belfast best restaurants is currently top of the pile on the internet’s most popular venue review and rating site, Trip Advisor?

Well, if you don’t know already, the chances are you won’t guess the answer correctly.

Since January – and, in fact, for much of the last couple of years – online reviewers have consistently nominated Holohans at The Barge in Belfast as their favourite city eatery.

That’s no mean feat in a place where diners have grown accustomed to the regular appearance of new fine-dining restaurants – and in a month where two of our most exclusive venues have secured the longed-for return to Northern Ireland of the Michelin Star.

But 31-old Calvin Holohan would be the first to admit that his family-owned restaurant – currently moored on the Lagan at Lanyon Quay – doesn’t rely on opulence to guarantee its evident popularity:

“We’re very much focused on the concept of providing our clientele with great food and the very best of Irish hospitality” the London-born restaurateur told LCN recently.

“We are fortunate to have an amazing array of suppliers, from small organic farmers and artisan cheesemakers right up to the biggest and best purveyors of food and drink Northern Ireland has to offer,” he says.

There’s no doubting Calvin’s assertion that Holohans is a family business. His uncle Pearse, who has just arrived in Belfast from Australia, is the new operations manager. Mum Jane, whom he describes as “very much the matriarch of the family”, is closely involved in the business. His sister Emir, a former Miss Ireland, heads up marketing, events management and PR. Calvin works alongside Jane’s husband, Derek and even the family grandchildren are being schooled in the art of hospitality!

Calvin’s parents are from Dublin’s Southside, but it was his Mayo-born grandmother, Sheila Holohan, who stirred in him a love of all things Irish and a passion for attention to detail.

Sheila spent much of her early working life in England and trained in silver service at the BTH Club. She taught each of her children and grandchildren how to set a table well, always using the best linen and providing them with a sample of every type of glass used in the drinks industry. Sheila was at the heart of the home and the kitchen. She introduced him to what is now Holohan’s signature dish, Irish Boxty, using the best cuts of meat available to her and she created her own version of traditional stews and pot roasts.

Calvin laments, “We seem to have moved away from our rich culinary heritage. Nanny Sheila gave me a love of traditional Irish food, she could produce flavoursome dishes from the less popular cuts of meat and in this way we learned the basis of good ethical ‘peasant cooking’, sometimes born out of necessity but always sympathetic to the animal and the environment. This principle sits at the heart of the diverse, contemporary menu that we offer on the Barge today.”

I think I’ve been a bon vivant since the age of eight or nine, Calvin says with a laugh. In his late teens, when he’d finished with school, he took to travelling and trying his hand at a variety of jobs which included a brief stint as a psychotherapist. But his love for hospitality, good food and wine inevitably brought him back to his one true love.

As a mature student he completed an honours degree in culinary arts management at the University of Ulster and a series of ‘odd jobs’ within the industry followed as he looked for a suitable premises in which to launch his own venture.

The Barge where Calvin’s business is now based, was formerly home to The Galley Café and during a chance conversation there in early 2013 the seeds of a plan to lease the restaurant were first sown:

“We’d never intended to open our restaurant on a boat,” admits Calvin. “We felt at the time, and still do, that the food would be its unique aspect. But the fact is, that people do come here now because we’re the only riverside restaurant in the city.”

He concedes that ironically, the location is a “huge factor”:

“It helps to bring people in for their first visit, but getting them to come back again is a different kettle of fish,” he adds. “Sheila always said “when you open your restaurant, remember to treat customers as you would a guest in your home and that’s the ethos we strive for”.

Calvin says that he’s sometimes disappointed by aspects of the service he receives in some of the places he visits. He mentions one high end Belfast restaurant where a waitress couldn’t recommend wine for his meal because she didn’t drink herself.

He recommends Tony O’Neill’s Coppi in St. Anne’s Square for those who crave good food, properly served in relaxing surroundings:

“I call into Coppi once a week if I can,” he says, “I think that Coppi is one place where they do everything really well. The service is always great, the staff are lovely and the atmosphere is good. That’s what I’m talking about, being good means doing everything right rather than doing one thing absolutely brilliantly.”

Calvin is pleased with Holohans success on Trip Advisor, although he emphasises that it wouldn’t happen without hard work and consistency:

“Of course we’re eager to retain our coveted place on Trip Advisor but we enjoy the healthy competition and camaraderie among our fellow restauranteurs, it keeps us all on our toes.”

While Calvin is focused on consolidating business at the barge, he also has an eye to the future and is shortly to open a second Holohans which will be known as ‘The Pantry’. This time it’s on dry land at 43 University Road and the provisional opening date is October 16. It will seek to emulate the success of Holohans at the Barge by offering the same high standards of food and service but with its own unique aspect and ambience.

In the long term, he sees diversification as the likely route for the brand:

“Sometime in the future, we’d like to explore a few of the other ideas we have for the restaurants,” he adds. “It’s all about differentiating yourself, no easy task in today’s vibrant and talentfilled industry

“Being able to do what I want to do, that’s what’s really important. All of us here love this job, we get to come in here in the morning and spend all day talking about food and wine, so what’s not to like about that…?”