Celebrating 1 Year of Belgo in Nottingham!

Belgo Nottingham, the brand’s first restaurant outside London, was one year old at the end of April. We went along to this unique venue in the Lace Market to celebrate with Belgian biers, rope grown mussels and other delicious treats off their brand new menu.

Chatting to the friendly team, we were blown away to hear that in the past year the restaurant has served up more than 11,000 kilos of mussels and 15,304 bottles of beer in Nottingham alone. It is fair to say that Nottingham locals and visitors alike have fully embraced the spirit of Belgo (who serve up 52 craft beers - each accompanied by their own drinking vessel)!

We went along to their birthday party on Friday 28th April, which was a Belgian extravaganza, taking over the restaurant and “Zot Bar’ upstairs. There was a cool DJ on the decks, canapés off their new menu and of course bieres aplenty!

Here are a few of our thoughts from the night and some recommendations from the Visit Nottinghamshire team:

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Sarah

First off I highly recommend booking as early in advance as you can so you can get a table upstairs in the window for optimum people watching, the views of city life are brilliant! My favourite things were the cheese and beer croquettes, I could eat them every day. Perfectly crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside. I’m also a really huge fan of mussels at Belgo, my favourites are usually the Thai however on the night I tried the new garlic and leek topped mussels – delicious. If you like mussels you’ll love them.

My final favourite thing about going to Belgo is the great service I always get, the team are so friendly. Our main waiter on the evening was Stevie, you couldn’t ask for a nicer waiter. Nothing was a problem and he had a laugh and a joke with our table – what a great night.

Kinga

It was my second visit to Belgo, last time I enjoyed dinner with a bunch of friends, and we had an amazing time. That time we were sat downstairs where we had the whole corner table to ourselves.

This time we were invited to the upstairs area where the birthday celebration took place. The whole floor was dedicated to the guests who were arriving to celebrate Belgo’s 1^st birthday. We were greeted with a choice of welcome drink, and proceeded to make ourselves comfortable at one of the tables. As soon as we sat down we discovered temporary tattoos on our table and we started playing with them, tattooing them on our hands, arms and…palms.

The atmosphere was great with more and more people coming through the door. I really enjoyed the strawberry beer – Fruli. If you don’t like the taste of regular beer then this one is an ideal choice. I also really enjoyed the black pudding croquettes. Thank you Belgo for inviting us, and once again – happy birthday!

Alex

Having never visited Belgo before, I was really excited to be invited to their first birthday party and to try some of their food and drinks, which I’d heard great things about!  There was a fab atmosphere as soon as we arrived and headed up the spiral staircase to where the party was taking place. There was a variety of party accessories scattered across the tables including tattoo transfers, jesters’ hats and masks, which were fun to get stuck into – my Belgo tattoo is still firmly on my arm and shows no signs of fading any time soon!

I decided to have a strawberry beer once we were settled at our table and loved it!  To say it was a beer, I found it really refreshing and super fruity. My favourite food from the evening would have to be the wild boar stew and the mussels. The stew was so hearty and unusually, quite sweet, which I really liked. The mash potato it came with was creamy and delicious too.

I’d definitely recommend going for a meal at Belgo – the staff are brilliant, there’s a great selection of Belgian beers and the food is tasty and unique.

Alistair

In just one year Belgo has become a heavyweight of Nottingham’s foodie scene, serving up delicious Belgian food, washed down with a huge assortment of carefully selected beers. Their first birthday party gave us a perfect opportunity to try out some of their varied menu - with canapés ranging from espresso cups of intense lobster soup to the trademark juicy mussels.

A couple of bottles of the strong Troubadour beer went down very nicely indeed, before I was recommended a pint of the cloudy Belgo Wit by the connoisseurs at the bar. It's more of an acquired taste, but Belgo's own wheat beer offers an unusual and satisfying lemony kick, and is well worth a try.

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Visit Nottinghamshire would like to wish Belgo a very happy birthday, we look forward to celebrating many more. Belgo’s new menu is available now, for more information on their location and opening times please click here.