I spent four wonderful days in Belfast recently, walked the streets for hours, and only when I returned home did it occur to me that in that time I didn’t see, or at least register seeing, a single policeman. What reminded me? On the flight home an old Irish duffer, apparently inexperienced in modern travel, lit a cigarette, and four beefy New Jersey cops met him at the door on arrival. And why do I mention it? Because if you’re planning to travel to Ireland and Belfast is not on your itinerary, rethink. Your reluctance could be based on a vague unease, memories of the Troubles. Knock wood, toss salt or whisper a prayer: the peace is holding, the city is welcoming. More on that in a minute.

Belfast doesn’t have the international feel that Dublin exhibits, but it does have a hard-to-define youthful vibe that this New Yorker relishes. It’s a vibrant city (some of my fellow travelers called it gritty, in a good way). A ship-building center, Belfast is where the Titanic was built, and you can see the drydock where it was constructed, deep, it seems, as the Grand Canyon. (“It was fine when it left Belfast,” the natives are fond of saying.)
Sleek modern buildings stand side-by-side with 19th century ones—the city was heavily bombed in WWII and has been rebuilt piecemeal. So it’s Old World meets New, block after block.

I was exposed to the contrast, staying at The Merchant (originally the Ulster Bank, built in 1860) and the freshly built, newly opened Fitzwilliam. Though the Merchant was clad in ye olde grandeur, both hotels were very modern, with all the services for the business traveler. The bartender at The Merchant, who is as brilliant as he is shy, will make you the Most Expensive Cocktail in the World: a Mai-Tai made with a Wray & Nephew rum—only 17 years of age, but it’s one of two remaining bottles the original Trader Vic used to make his. It’s $1,400 for one drink—and bragging rights, if Trader Vic experiences are what you tend to brag about.

One thing that did surprise me was the beers on tap in the pubs: very standard, not a lot of variety. A colleague remarked that as long as Guinness reigns supreme there, the situation won’t change. The Guinness is damn good, though.

The wine lists at the fine dining restaurants I visited won’t bedazzle you, but the food definitely will. Don’t confuse Ireland and England (please!): in Belfast you’ll find fresh, beautifully presented, refined dishes. Game and seafood, in particular, are prepared with all the delicacy required, while also evoking unexpected, delightful flavors without gimmickry. You won’t necessarily know the best restaurants from outside appearances. Approach the Mourne Seafood Restaurant along its narrow alley and you’d swear it’s a bare-knuckle pub, and nothing more. But it’s divine. (Step into a diner and order blind, as I did one morning, and you’ll have the opposite experience.)

One chef in particular I need to mention: the Michelin-starred Michael Deane (left, mid the lassies). He owns four restaurants, in Belfast and elsewhere. At Deane’s, my tablemates swooned over the halibut and the duck; I did too but I couldn’t believe what he achieved with a parsnip.

Now, about that unease: The Northern Ireland peace agreement was signed in July, 1998, and the peace is holding. The tensions between Protestant and Catholic are still there; it is manifest in the political murals, including images of black-masked, automatic-weapon toting gunmen, and in the barbed-wire-topped Peace Wall constructed by the British to separate Catholic and Protestant enclaves. And it no doubt lives behind closed doors in those enclaves. But it does not manifest in action. Everyone, everyone, everyone I spoke to said the same thing: they remember how it was and never want to go back. Americans are so mired in the Sunni-Shiite conflict, which seems as if it will never end, that it’s hard for us to understand how people could actually put their weapons down and back away. Very inspiring. Sad too.

Melancholy and uplift? How very Irish. 

Here’s to a long life and a merry one;
A quick death and an easy one;
A pretty girl and an honest one;
A cold beer — and another one!

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