Blackfriars Restaurant

Stunning location offering delicious food, relaxed atmosphere and stellar customer service. My husband and I chose from the set (winter) menu which is available until 29/03/2025. Starters were leek & potato soup (vegan), mains were maple-roasted nut roast (vegan) and handmade pork sausage, followed by coffee & almond tiramisu (vegan) and sticky toffee pudding. Service was quick and friendly, staff were incredibly attentive without being overbearing and matched each table’s energy. They spoke highly and passionately of their own food which are all green flags in our book! Will definitely return, very much recommended. Total cost for meal, drinks (Diet Coke & bottle of Chardonnay) and coffees = £101 plus optional tip

The service and staff are perfect. The place is even more amazing. The restaurant is placed in a heritage building and well preserved. It is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Newcastle. The foods were amazing. It was well prepared with a great taste. The restaurant itself is clean and calming.

Visited for Sunday lunch. Relaxed atmosphere in a historic building. Service was great and didn't feel rushed. Amazing roast, sirloin beef was cooked perfectly with a large selection of trimmings. Stick toffee pudding and apple crumble were good too! Good selection of wines. Would definitely recommend!

Small group of 4, work's Xmas meal out. Service was absolutely outstanding. The atmosphere was great, and it's a lovely historic building. Food was excellent. 2 of us were driving and their non-alcoholic options were great. And we weren't rushed out the door either. Yes it's more expensive, but I'd say it's definitely worth it, especially when you consider how overpriced mediocre food/drink can be at this time of year. Thoroughly enjoyed it and can't recommend it highly enough.

We had a meal here recently, it was beautiful. We hadn't been before but both our kids had, spoke highly of it and bought us a voucher for a meal. The restaurant is great, lovely decor throughout, very old feel to it and rich furnishings 'proper posh'. The staff were all great, our server talked through the menu, explained how we use our voucher etc. nothing was too much trouble. We would highly recommend Blackfriars, well worth it for an amazing meal in a great atmosphere with great staff. We had the fish platter starter to share, very tasty and fresh. I had the venison which was beautiful, my wife had the fish with pasta, she loved that.

Blackfriars Winter Menu 2025 was delicious. Allergy matrix easy to read and identify swaps as necessary, order taken by a manager. Wine pairings with starters/mains accompanied by knowledgeable descriptions and interesting information about the choices and complemented the foods perfectly. Wide variety of food choices to suit most. Pre-ordered drinks took a little while to arrive but service was otherwise prompt and intrusive. Lovely atmosphere and a really relaxed feel for lunch, will definitely be back.

Really tasty food and great staff Really enjoyed my works meal in the private suite. I had the smoked salmon and prawn cocktail starter. It was a good size portion and very nice. The bread that came with it was rock hard though, as was the bread shared at the table. For main I had the beef welly. A reasonable slab of meat with good extras. The onion mash particularly was lovely. The side orders of roasties and root veg were great too. I had the chocolate almond gateux for dessert and that was excellent. Light sponge but very sweet. Not a fan of the coffee ice cream though! A fantastic venue and delightful service from all the staff. It's a popular place with my company so we're sure to be back again.

Great food poor service. The drinks we ordered during our starters only arrived as we were waiting to order dessert about 40 minutes later, and we got no explanation for the delay. We said we weren't interested in having them anymore (we'd long since assumed the waiter had forgotten to place the orders) and were told that they'd be removed from the bill, but they weren't so we had to ask again when paying. We had to eat our mains with just tap water and empty glasses on our table. Our waiter was nowhere to be seen for most of the evening and we didn't manage to flag down anyone else as staff seemed very hurried. No one checked if we were enjoying our food at any point during any course. A different waiter who brought our mains put the plates down at the wrong places even after asking who had ordered what. A 10% service charge seemingly exists just to rub salt into the wounds. It was a real shame to have such good food be let down by basic service mistakes.

Absolutely stunning building. Very clean and organized. This is easily an ideal location for any occasion. The food was truly exceptional. I almost forgot to take a picture because my dad ordered the same dish and immediately started gushing over how good it was so I got stuck in before I remembered to take a pic. Would love to make another trip here before we leave. I cannot stress how good the food was. Worth every penny! You will need to plan ahead for Sunday dinner though, this place was very busy.

We came here for a NYE experience. It was so much fun. They had two communal tables (maybe around 40+ guests in total) and had music playing throughout the affair. It started at 7pm and ended around 9pmish? Some of the music was live--with a couple musicians making their rounds playing bagpipes, the recorder, drums. The staff was all dressed up in medieval wear and some of the guests were too! My husband and I were in cocktail party wear: I wore a dress; he wore nice slacks and a button down. But some people were in more formal dresses and coats and ties. We felt perfectly comfortable with what we chose to wear. There were a variety of people there: my husband I are American, sitting across from us was a couple from Newcastle and Leeds, sitting next to them were Australians, sitting next to me was an English family, sitting next to my husband was a German couple. There was plenty of food and most of it was quite good. I especially liked the meat in puff pastry, cooked greens, Lima beans, and cheese plate. If you're wary about sharing food with strangers do not attend this event--they served most dishes per four people and we had to use our own utensils to serve ourselves off of those dishes. Drinks were water, a dark and light ale, and red or white wine. My husband enjoyed the beer and me the white wine, we just wish they came around more often to refill our drinks. The evening ended perfectly with them handing us mulled wine in to-go cups as we trailed out into the cold. If you've never done this before and are looking for something fun, easy and entertaining to get you out of the house for NYE this is a great idea!

Have wanted to try Sunday lunch there on many trips back to the Toon. Finally managed it last month and boy was it worth the wait. Atmosphere service and food were all top notch and a definite "must return to" next time I'm home.

We visited Blackfriars with a friend who was in town. The restaurant is a beautiful old building with lots of charm, with a dining area, a great hall (for functions) and a bar in a separate building across the way. Our meals were lovely, as was the service. The ambience of the restaurant area is relaxed and laid back. It's just a beautiful place to dine! Downsides were we had to wait a little longer than expected for our meal (the lovely waiter brought us across some drinks to soften the delay) and my vegetarian friend was limited in her choice, as despite being advertised as vegetarian-friendly, there were only two veggie meals on the menu. The cost for the main meal for three, a nice bottle of wine, plus three desserts, was £140. Definitely not a budget option, but the food was lovely and service great. Diners before 7 pm can choose from a separate set menu which we didn't try, yet seemed good value.

Came in for lunch and had a roast basil and tomato soup, a pan fried salmon with a tomato, chorizo, and cannellini bean stew, and a small assortment of homemade sorbets. All this came up to £26 with a glass of white wine. TLDR: great food (but not perfect), great value, great selection of wines and beers, you won't be disappointed. The roast tomato basil soup feels very rustic in style. Smooth, slightly sweet, slightly sour, it a brilliant dish to whet the appetite. I did feel it needed some black pepper to round off the dish and smoothen out the acidity, but other than that it's a great, stomach warming dish. 7/10. The salmon and stew was one of the more 'out there' dishes on the menu and so it caught my eye. The first thing you notice about the dish is the wonderful smell of the perfectly cooked salmon and savoury scent of the chorizo. The next is the colour: the green of the garnish and the pesto drizzle, the lovely char they put on the salmon skin, and of course the wondrous red-orange of the stew. So it looks and smells fantastic, but how do they balance the fine flavour of a salmon with the strong and loud flavours of a stew with tomatoes AND chorizo sausage? Damn near flawlessly. The slight acidity and porkyness of the chorizo lends itself wonderfully to the stew. A dish which, in my mind shouldn't work, does. The use of the cannellini beans fills in the role of more traditional carbs like rice or pastas, and is the perfect choice for the job. The dish isn't perfect however. The spinach used have lovely thick, juicy stems which works against it in this instance. It water-filled stems clashes against the stew, but the leaves alone, lend just enough flavour to further tie the salmon and stew together. The chorizo cubes are extremely tasty, but that works against the salmon and overpowers it. If you can avoid eating a piece of salmon with a piece of chorizo you'll get around this problem though, so it's not too bad, and I honestly can't think of a way to make a chorizo stew without plating any chorizo on the dish without leaving the customer feeling robbed. 7/10. The sorbet flavours were cherry, cucumber/mint, and mango/pineapple. The cucumber/mint sorbet is, as you'd expect, very refreshing. Unfortunately all of them were quite icy, which might sound like an odd thing to complain about when speaking of sorbet, but you shouldn't be biting into small pockets of flavoured crushed ice when eating sorbet. 6/10 Overall a good meal, a more simple or traditional main course would be better as the execution of the dish was perfect, just the idea is a little adventurous, and although well thought out, could use some small refinements.

Peaceful location, as is expected from a former refectory of a 13th Century priory, this informal eaterie offers diners a range of British dishes created with the help of locally acquired produce and the simple ingenuity and craftsmanship of the cooks. Understated dishes using subtle ingredients producing a pleasant dish for all tastes. Diners can escape the Gothic interior (all flickering candles and long tables) for the fresh open spaces offered by the courtyard outside (perfect for summer picnics). Contemporary presentation in relaxed, historic surroundings.

If you are looking for a thorough British food experience, this is the right place for you. Although a little too hard on your wallets, this is a place that anyone who comes to Newcastle has to visit. It has the most authentic British food and the service is great. If I go here again, I would order the lamb stew.

I think this is one of the best restaurants in the NE. Food is always top class and deeply tasty with more than a nod to English cuisine. There are also plenty of regional ingredients in the menu, keeping provenance close to home. The restaurant is tucked away by the old city walls just off Westgate Road in the original Blackfriars monastery. The atmosphere is cosy and intimate and staff are friendly and knowledgeable.

We'd heard this was one of the best restaurants in Newcastle, so my boyfriend and I stopped in for Sunday lunch. Blackfriars dates back to 1239 (not as a restarant obviously, but as a friary). The space is beautiful and elegant, and the perfect place for a special meal. The set menu is a good deal, at 15 for two courses and 18 for three. I started with the carrot and coriander soup, and my boyfriend got the duck ham with cherry chutney. The soup was velvety and luscious, my only wish being that it had some more spice. My boyfriend loved his appetizer too, I tried some of the duck ham (seriously, what is duck ham? I don't know) and it was amazing. Sort of like....prosciutto made from duck. So delicious but not porky. He got a Sunday roast which I thought was a boring choice but he said it was one of the best roasts he'd had. I got the salmon with potatoes and sea vegetables which was simple but lovely. Poached salmon is so soft and appealing, and the potatoes were crispy and the veggies were fresh. We only had room for one dessert, so split the dark chocolate fondant. It was way too rich for me but was nonetheless amazing, especially the peanut butter ice cream! The menu features updated versions of British classics and a lot of the ingredients, as many as possible, come from local farms and waters. On the menu, you can see a map of the area and actual locations where certain animals were raised and veggies were grown. Pretty impressive! The taste definitely reflects the freshness, and the presentation is lovely. I'd come back here whenever I'm in town for another great Sunday dinner!

Been there twice. The first time we found it accidentally and was amazed by the service and the food. The decor is unique and vintage. It's like eating in a dungeon, in a nice way. And the food is vet delicious and it makes you want to keep coming and try the new menu. The menu changes over time and you can always find the thing you want to have. It's a great place to meet friends and have a family dinner. Very elegant indeed.

Delicious. Every bite. Great lunch menu at a true value £15 for 2 courses. Well crafted - clean tasting food.

Excellent food, good sized portions. Excellent service, Lovely staff. Shout out to Matt and Darren!

Behind Blackfriars restaurant, near to the Gate, there is a smallish area of grass, with the ruins of an old abbey or church, a few benches, and a nice sense of privacy. It is round the back of the Gate complex but once there you would never think it. Most of the buildings around it are worn old stone and the atmosphere is very relaxed and comfortable. In the summer this is a great place to take a picnic if the rest of your plans for the day - whether work or play - require you to be in the city centre. There is a small art shop off to one side, featuring the works of the local artists who run it. They are very friendly if you want to go in for a browse. it's tiny, so that won't take long. Like most such areas in cities, it gets a bit busy on warm days, but it's still worth a visit.

Visited Blackfriars with my family for graduation meal. The atmosphere and decor was gorgeous. The food was sooo good and the desert beautiful. The only downfall was the potion size which was quite small and left me not entirely satisfied. They also offer a fantastic gluten free menu and the staff can't do enough to help you and make your experience enjoyable.

Had a la carte dinner menu and was disappointed first by the service long delays and the waiter was vegetarian so couldn't comment on any of the meet dishes. When the food arrived we thought the quality of the ingredients was lacking the pigeon was tough, the liver was old, the venison carpacio wasn't too great and the halibut was good but a very small portion for £18.

Excellent quality, but the menu can sometimes be little too cool if you know what I mean. Definatly worth a visit but not my favorite fine dining restaurent in Newcastle.