Vive le Cabaret! - Cabaret Supper Club joins Belfasts Dinner Theatre Fraternity

People like going out for something to eat, and people like being entertained, so it comes as no surprise that in the last year - the year in which Belfast has most flourished - we see a growing trend towards dinner theatre type venues. We've seen Burt’s Jazz at the Merchant and Cabaret Teatro at Botanic, both of which serve delicious food and sumptuous entertainment.  The latest addition to this is AM:PM’s offering  “Cabaret Supper Club”.

Living Social

PastieBap recently went to Cabaret on a Living Social Voucher. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, Living Social is a deal based website (like the ever popular Groupon) where they team up with local businesses to offer you a great deal every day.  In this case it was £24 for 2 people to attend the Sunday brunch at Cabaret and have a main meal each.  You just buy the deal online, print out the voucher, book your place and then show up. This is a great way to drum up business especially during opening weeks and to spread the word of mouth from (hopefully) satisfied customers. 

The Cabaret Supper Club

Situated near the Corn Market area of Belfast and next door to City Hall, The Cabaret Supper Club is directly in the centre of town, just an easy walk from Victoria Square also (as seems to be oh so important these days). It is also fairly close to the new Titanic Belfast building and Titanic Quarter too.  If anyone has seen the old film Cabaret with Liza Minnelli or the more recent Burlesque you will know the sort of look they are going for. A kind of Parisian, decadent, slightly gaudy look.  Mirrors everywhere, red velvet on the walls giving it a fairly plush look.


So the first thing you see when you go in is a giant mirror, a poster for Cabaret and red velvet everywhere.  As you walk up the stairs to the first floor you are greeted by a concierge who then takes your reservation and seats you for the performance.  When you are seated in your booth, you will notice there is a small bell which looks like a gold door bell just behind you. 

This bell is a great novelty and is used to call the staff should you need them.  We attended a Sunday Brunch where we were treated to a main course and a show.  Our party was six people strong and they were able to seat us all together in front of the decadent stage.

The Food

So we sat down and we were presented with the menu.  From the menu I selected roast beef, others in my group had the chicken and the lamb and it was all described beautifully in a delightful looking menu.  The roast beef turned out to be more like a thin cut of steak served on mash with a slightly sweet gravy like jus. This was delicious and cooked to perfection.  One wouldn’t expect to get such a nice piece of meat being described as roast beef.  We then ordered some drinks.  We did order tap water and were presented with a kind of self-bottled water which they charged us £2.50 for. This was a bit of a niggle as when you ask for tap water, you expect to get water from the tap which is free, so we were a little bit disappointed when we got the bill for that. 

We had some wine, deserts and coffees all of which were delicious.  The coffee came out warm, not piping hot which wasn't to everyone's liking, but suited me just fine. The staff were fairly attentive and well decked out, in matching black and white uniforms and when we rung the bell they came quickly enough.

The Entertainment

The entertainment afforded to us on the Sunday was a Magician, followed by a man playing the grand piano. He played all the rat pack favourites and then a few contemporary tunes done in a swing style. 

The first of the entertainment was a magician/comedian.  I would say that he was more suited to nighttime entertainment than perhaps Sunday mid-day, but he did the best with what he had and his tricks were good, and he was entertaining. He tried to get audience participation which people weren’t really having, perhaps they were hungover or perhaps they didn’t want to be taken up on the stage while eating, but he then said he couldn’t find enough volunteers and had to strip a bit off his show.  The bits he did perform were really good though and as somebody who really enjoys magic I thought his tricks were traditional, yet well done, which made for an entertaining act.  After that a tuxedoed gentleman came out and tinkled the ivories on a grand piano which sat in front of the stage.  The grand piano was an impressive sight to see and to heart being played over Sunday lunch was great.  The volume was pretty good too, loud enough to hear but low enough to talk over should you want.

The Facilities

A pet peeve of mine is that a lot of places put great effort into the decor of the main room and neglect the toilet areas.  It kind of ruins everything they’re working towards, especially with a themed restaurant.  But the toilets here were done out in the same style as the restaurant.  The mirrors were framed ornately and lacquered in black which gave them a slightly gothic look. They were clean and well kitted out.

The Round Up

Looking around the restaurant, it’s quite a large place, it looked like it could seat about 200 at at time.  Every table looked individual, some of them had high backed booths, some of them had individual seats, some stools etc.  There were chandeliers around and all in all the place looked fantastic.  The waiting staff were quick to serve and my only gripe would be about the tap water.  I think it said re-filtered water and it was presented in a glass re-usable bottle.  We asked for the bill and received it promptly and paid the remainder of what we owed, the rest had already been covered by our purchase of the Living Social voucher, and all in all everyone in the group agreed that it was a great way to spend Sunday lunchtime. 

We would all love to go back on a weekend night, when they have the full bill of entertainment, like the burlesque dancers, singers, magicians, and fire breathers, so it is definitely a place we will be re-visiting and a welcome addition to Belfast’s dinner theatre scene.

The Caberet Supper Club webpage
Living Social Belfast

Titanic Day Out!

Last weekend PastieBap took a field trip to the new Titanic Belfast building in the heart of the Titanic Quarter. After all the hype of this year we were really looking forward to seeing this mammoth building for ourselves - up close and personal. So in order to beat the queues we booked our tickets ahead of time (it’s pretty much vital to do this as most weekends are already sold out – tickets can be booked here) and turned up first thing in the morning.

It goes without saying that the outside of the £90 million building is extremely impressive. The building which was built to look like the famous ship is 14,000 sq.m and is twice the size of Belfast's City Hall. The first thing that you notice about the 'the world's largest Titanic visitor experience' from afar are the 3,000 individual silver anodised aluminium shards which make up its external façade and seem to always catch the sunlight, and the second thing that you notice is that at least three of its four 90ft 'hulls' are in view at all times; this coupled with the  reflective pools of water which surround it give the impression that the building could sail away at any moment.

With such an impressive exterior, the Titanic Belfast really had a lot to live up to with its interior, and it didn't disappoint. As you enter the building it's hard to miss the rust effect panels which line the walls, and the compass rose on the floor - giving the modern structure an antique air which is fitting with the theme of the Titanic.

The exhibition portion of the building consists of ten galleries: Boomtown Belfast, The Shipyard, The Launch, The Fit-Out, The Maiden Voyage, The Sinking, The Aftermath, Myths & Legends, Exploring the Wreck and the Ocean Exploration Centre - each of which contain a series of interactive exhibitions.

As you enter the exhibition space, you learn a lot of interesting facts about Belfast's industrial past including the linen and rope works and the production of cigarettes. The center-piece of this section is the interactive map of Belfast which you hover over with your hand to learn more about the individual sections of Belfast's history. This is great for kids who love to get their hands on anything and for adults who want to learn a bit more about the past of this great city. You also learn how to send a distress telegram and can look at miniature models of areas of the shipyard itself.

You exit this part of the exhibition through the original gates of Harland and Wolff and you enter the drawing rooms and planning offices of the shipyard which have an interactive floor.

Visitors ascend a replica of one of the huge pillars of the Arrol Gantry and then they embark on the Shipyard Ride. When PastieBap was there, there weren't any queues for the ride and we got on straight away, but at busier periods there may be a slight wait. You climb aboard a futuristic car and are transported back in time to the Shipyard of the 1900s. The ride uses special effects, animations and full-scale reconstructions to really give you a feel of how the Shipyard would have been at the time of the Titanic's construction. The sights and sounds really do the trick and we really enjoyed the ride. There's also the option of skipping the ride and simple reading the information.

As you exit the Shipyard Ride, visitors are met with a huge window which looks down at the slipways themselves where the Titanic once resided. As you watch a short film of the Titanic being launched the state-of-the-art glass in the windows uses electrodes to switch from the real view to a superimposed image of the Titanic resting on the slipways. This is one of the most impressive parts of the entire building and is really a unique and novel way of recreating the buzz of 31st May 1911.

The fourth gallery is the fit-out of the ship and features a four minute video projected onto three walls which shows visitors a CGI recreation of the ship as you go on a journey through the engine rooms, dining areas and the famous staircase. You can also see replicas of first, second and third class cabins and examples of the types of carpet and linen used on board.

The fifth gallery introduces visitors to some of the passengers on board and we learn about the types and amounts of supplies brought for the Maiden Voyage as it stopped off at Southhampton, England; Cherbourd, France and Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland before setting sail across the Atlantic.
The sixth gallery confronts the horrors of the Titanic's final hours and atmospheric sounds and lighting is used to recreate the night of its sinking alongside transcripts of the communications and distress signals on that fateful night. You then descend the stairs to learn about the aftermath and the enquiry which took place and then you use an interactive touch screen display to find out more about the myths and legends associated with the ship.

Just when you think the exhibition is over, you enter through a set of doors and are confronted with a multi-level gallery with seating in the top half. If you sit for a while you can watch high-definition footage of the wreckage with commentary from the divers. This eerie imagery is coupled with water-effect lighting on the walls to give the impression that you're a part of their journey. Down a flight of stairs is a glass floor with a projection of the wreckage as a whole which is very impressive and below this is the final gallery, the Ocean Exploration Centre in which visitors can access the technologies which modern ships use.

Overall, the building is extremely impressive and a lot of fun and we'd recommend leaving yourself about 2 or 3 hours to really get a feel of the whole building. Finally, Belfast has something to attract visitors from across the globe and which we can really be proud of.

You can explore the building here.