A talented pastry chef has made a life-size gingerbread house at Titanic Hotel Belfast—and you can actually dine inside it.
Making a gingerbread house is a fun Christmas tradition, but pastry chef Magdalena Abakumiec and her elves have taken it to a whole new level at Titanic Hotel Belfast.
If you’ve ever wondered what it might have been like for Hansel and Gretel to step into the gingerbread house in the Grimm fairy tale, now’s your chance to find out. Magdalena Abakumiec has made—by hand!—an impressive life-size gingerbread house right in Titanic Hotel Belfast, and you can actually dine inside it this winter.
Here we take a look at the fascinating work put into this giant edible gingerbread project, completed just last week, and how you can book a table to enjoy delicious food within its gingerbread walls.
1,000 gingerbread bricks and 10 kg of sweets
Standing at 10 feet tall in the Titanic Hotel’s Wolff Grill, this gingerbread house is made of a whopping 1,000 gingerbread bricks and decorated with 10 kilograms of sweets and candy canes.
The whole thing took four days to cook, and it’s clear that for chef Magdalena Abakumiec, it was a passion project. She shared photos of the completed house on Instagram with the caption “Because I love what I do.”
The gingerbread house also includes some non-edible components. Like any house, it has windows—13, to be exact, consisting of 104 individual panes of glass held together by 20 sheets of timber. To add to the magic, 600 individual fibre optic lights illuminate the handmade star-effect ceiling.
A fairytale spectacle in the Titanic Quarter
This fairytale spectacle is the first of its kind in Belfast and brings a festive flair to the Titanic Quarter in Northern Ireland’s capital, where the world-famous ill-fated RMS Titanic ship was built.
The Wolff Grill, which hosts the gingerbread house inside Titanic Hotel Belfast, is a refined restaurant named after German-born Gustav Wolff, one half of the shipbuilding founders of Harland & Wolff.
Adrian McNally, General Manager at Titanic Hotel Belfast, says the gingerbread house “to my knowledge is the only gingerbread house of its kind in a hotel in Ireland this Christmas.”
The festive creation has already drawn many admiring visitors since its completion last week, and McNally adds that he “would encourage anyone visiting Belfast to come and see it for themselves.”
Dinner in the gingerbread house
Can you imagine yourself feasting inside this fairytale cottage? That vision can become a reality, as this enclosed dining space in the Wolff Grill seats up to six guests and can be hired for private dining from now until Christmas at an additional £50.
While you can’t eat the house itself, the Wolff Grill’s Christmas-themed menu won’t leave you wanting. It includes local turkey and ham or braised daube of beef, while dessert choices include traditional Christmas pudding, chocolate tart, and sumptuous Black Forest gateau.
And to really get you in the holiday spirit, a bespoke gingerbread cocktail is also on offer. We’ll toast to that!
To book a dinner in the gingerbread house, you can email [email protected] or call +44 (0)28 9508 2000.
