As we reflect of the year that was, Kate Ryan, Flavour.ie talks us through 10 of the best restaurants in Ireland – ideal reading for anyone pondering where to treat themselves over the festive season, or in 2024.
It’s an incredible time to be a diner in Ireland. We are awash with the most amazing restaurants, chefs and sommeliers working together to create dining experiences that run the gamut of super casual to casual to fine dining. The happy marriage between great Irish produce and creative, forward-thinking, risk-taking chefs seems to be ageing like a fine wine – only getting better, more sophisticated and respected as time goes on.
Not only that, but the evergreen question of What is Irish Food is still unfolding as what it means to be Irish today enfolds myriad cultures, cuisines, ingredients and ways of melding and colliding flavours.
It is an exciting time for food in Ireland.
The best places to eat are where food is elevated from the traditional, spin a new take on what has been before, or fuse together cuisines. It’s where the personality of a chef is writ large, and where we as diners are happy to journey around their menus with them.
Dede at the Customs House, Baltimore, Co Cork
Few dining experiences can compare to what is on offer at Dede at The Customs House, which was awarded its second Michelin star earlier this year. Head chef, Ahmet Dede, celebrates the very best of fresh Irish produce with the tantalising techniques and flavours of his Turkish homeland. The precision on the plate delivers food that is as exquisite to taste as it is to look at, all expertly accompanied by jaw dropping cocktails and a wine service that is among the best in the country.
But, let not the two-star rating and fine dining presentation of food be daunting. Dede has imbued his team, both front and back of house, with his own personal brand of relaxed confidence and affability. It means this high-end pinnacle of contemporary Irish cuisine always has the happiness and comfort of the guest in mind; that your experience is the best it can be.
Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen, Dublin
French technique matched with the best of the best of produce from Ireland and around the world. Viljanen has been at the forefront of the renaissance of contemporary fine dining in Ireland for two decades and has rightly earned his position as a leading chef with yet another two-Michelin star restaurant under his belt, and a reputation for creating a breathtaking cuisine. Not just here, Viljanen’s reputation is global and that’s only a good thing for the rest of Ireland’s restaurant scene.
Its mythic status is supported by a long waiting list for tables, as well as the tales regaled by those who have journeyed through the Chapter One experience. Industry-hardened food critics and writers have emerged from the tasting menu bereft of superlatives and eager to return for more.
Mourne Larder by Paul Cunningham, County Down
This a restaurant without a permanent home. The Secret Dining Experience is the brainchild of Northern Irish chef Paul Cunningham’s Mourne Larder. Cunningham whisks groups of diners away to a secret location a few times a year for an experience in an off-grid, rustic location with the aim of fully immersing diners by activating all the senses in harmony. A truer taste of place you will not find: Cunningham spends weeks, sometimes months, designing each unique menu from ingredients sourced, foraged, sometimes raised and fished to exacting order, all designed to deliciously hit you with an unmistakable connection with where this food comes from, and why that’s important.
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La Fougère Restaurant, Knockranny House, Westport
Dramatically backdropped by views of Croagh Patrick, Clew Bay with its Thousand Islands and Mount Nephin, fewer restaurants can boast a more spectacular dinner setting. Head chef, Seamus Commons, has presided over the kitchen at Knockranny House Hotel for many years, quietly working to the letter of his ethos to use the very best of what is seasonal and local. Plates are as picturesque as the setting, and still of award-winning standard – no complacency here, just a passion for the wildness of County Mayo and one of the best culinary larders in the country.
Homestead Cottage, Doolin, Co Clare
Recently named one of the Michelin Guide inspectors’ favourite new restaurants for 2023 and named Newcomer of the Year at this years’ Food & Wine Restaurant of the Year Awards, Homestead Cottage is putting Doolin on the map for something other than the Cliffs of Moher.
The is owned and run by husband-and-wife team, (Scot) Robbie and (Burgundian) Sophie McCauley. As well as the restaurant, they have established their own one-acre plot close by, which they will use year-round to provide seasonal homegrown produce showcased on lunch, Sunday lunch, and dinner menus. In addition to this, they have also set aside three acres to rear their own poultry.
It’s a new era of plot-to-plate restaurants in Ireland where, as well as impeccable local and seasonal sourcing policies, there is year-round access to the fruits (veg, eggs, etc) of their own labour.
Goldie Fish & Ale, Cork City
Located on Oliver Plunkett St in Cork’s city centre, goldie, a small restaurant with a big heart, is famous for its sustainable approach to cooking. Chef-proprietor, Aishling Moore, uses as much of each fish as possible to create a daily changing menu of delicious and inventive seafood dishes. The restaurant also adopts a ‘whole catch’ approach by allowing what’s landed, predominately in Ballycotton, to dictate its menu. In 2021, it gained recognition with Michelin as one of its Bib Gourmand restaurants offering good food at good value for money.
Some of Moore’s signature dishes at this delightful restaurant include Shime Saba Mackerel, Smoked tomato gazpacho and Cork-grown wasabi, local Rossmore Oysters with lemon verbena granita and dill oil, Pan-fried Megrim Sole served with caramelised cardoon chutney and Café de Paris butter, locally grown Lemongrass Meringue Pie.
The restaurant also encourages the next generation to enjoy the fruits of the sea by offering a free kid’s menu the first Wednesday of every month.
Pickle Indian Restaurant, Portobello, Dublin
Outside of India itself, this is the most authentic experience of Indian cuisine I’ve tasted. Sunil Ghai does not dumb down flavours for the invisible diner that is the ‘Irish palate’ because to do so would mean changing recipes for dishes that are as much a part of his heritage as they are chapters in his big book of enormous experience as a chef.
This is food full of life, vibrancy and colour from Ghai’s masterful command of spice, and the dedication required from long, slow cooking to bring out the enmeshed complexity of everything working together in harmony. The kind of food that latches onto your memory and won’t ever let go.
The Tannery, Dungarvan
I liken the Irish classical cuisine practiced daily at The Tannery in the same realm as French classical cuisine that chefs spend a lifetime perfecting. Paul Flynn’s tried and tested back-catalogue of hit recipes have room to shape shift just enough for the menu to move through the seasons, executed with technical brilliance and served with heart. Máire commands a front of house service that is a masterclass in what makes real Irish hospitality a draw for people everywhere. The dining room preserves its links to heritage while flooded with natural light upstairs, and the buzz from the casual wine bar below tempts you in to stay a while longer once dinner is long finished. It’s been here since 1997 but feels as fresh as if it opened yesterday.
Ox, Belfast
Ox simply cannot stop collecting awards for their boundary pushing restaurant beside the Lagan. Influenced entirely by the seasons, and with a commitment to showcasing each individual ingredient in the best possible way, menus are inventive, artful, moreish, and resonating with a contemporary taste of Ireland. Ox’s style of food is resolutely minimal but no less complex for that and demonstrates a true understanding of the alchemy of flavour. The lunch menu is extraordinary value for money or be led by the wine picking snacks to accompany sips from a carefully curated wine list.
MacNean House, Blacklion, Co Cavan
Neven Maguire knows want we want, what we really, really want, is food that is simply delicious. From that starting point, sourcing the best produce he can lay his hands on is the building block to creating dishes that delight and comfort in equal measure. Maguire is deeply loyal to his suppliers – he has sourced Silver Hill Duck since day one and fiercely guards that precious relationship, for example, and he is rewarded with always getting the best.
Despite the restaurants and Maguire’s long-standing high-profile reputation, MacNean House is sauced with the kind of heartwarming hospitality that is rare indeed. Everyone is welcome, you are valued, and ensuring your experience is the best it can be is the only thing that matters. That’s genuine, much like the man himself.