Search Results

Mister S Everything tastes better with fire Posted: 17 Sept 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Mister S is the much anticipated second opening from Featherblade owners Jamie O'Toole and Paul McVeigh, who had a goal of bringing real, live-fire barbecue to Dublin - something the city has never had many options for. They brought Daniel Hannigan on board as head chef (formerly of Richmond and the driving force behind the Food For Thought charity dinners), and Tim Geeves, previously at London's famous and much loved barbecue restaurant Smokestak , as sous chef, and after some back and forth on the name, colour scheme, and a lot of work to turn what had been a blind and curtain shop into an upmarket but casual restaurant, they finally opened their doors at the start of September. (If you want to see exactly how much work has gone into this build, and be put off opening a restaurant forever, click on the " Our Journey " highlight on their Instagram page.) As you might have guessed, everything here is cooked over fire, even dessert, with the kitchen experimenting with different types of wood for fish, meat and vegetables, and there's something very raw and caveman-like about knowing your food has been licked by smoke and fire. These guys are also intent on delivering serious value for money, so 'nibbles' range from €6 - €8, and 'smoked and grilled' plates from €12 for carrots, freekah and salsa verde to €17 for smoked Angus shortrib. Considering their impeccable sourcing, with free-range pork from Andarl Farm in Galway, Waygu beef from Ridgeway Farm in Wicklow, and free-range organic chicken from Ring Farm in Kilkenny, these prices are pretty unbeatable in the city right now. Where should we go for a drink first? You won't be short of options around Camden Street, but we'd suggest Ryan's for a pint away from the madness, or Against The Grain if delving into craft beer is your idea of a good time. For a cocktail head to The Sitting Room , the bar with a "mid-century feel" above Delahunt (below), or for wine you could hover outside Frank's for a quick one. Where should we sit? There are plenty of seating options, all made from beautiful repurposed wood, that they've painstakingly burnt, oiled and brought back to life. There are booth type seats for four, single tables for two, and a counter with three seats facing out onto Camden Street that have 'solo diner' written all over them. There's also a long communal table hidden down the stairs at the back of the room that's perfect for larger groups. Mister S don't take bookings, but we were relieved to hear that they're using the Qudini app, so if they're full they'll take your name and text you when your table's ready. There are a lot of seats so we can't see this getting to ridiculous wait times (but may stand corrected). What's good to eat? Everything. We tried most of the menu over two visits and want to eat it all again, and again. The gambas served on flatbread drowned in bisque butter are haunting us on the daily. This isn't a dish to go for if you're butter-averse, but this is the land of butter, so why would you be (dairy allergies aside). The shells are used to make the intensely fishy, rich bisque, the gambas are fresh and fluffy, and at €8 this is just the dish to showcase the incredible value to be found here. Another dish you shouldn't miss is the organic smoked chicken with romesco, and if you don't get how rare it is to see organic chicken in a casual dining setting just take our word for it - it's going above and beyond, and only the teeniest amount of chicken produced in Ireland is organic. The thigh served in Mister S is smoky and juicy with crispy skin, sitting on a smoky, fruity, nutty romesco sauce, topped with almonds and olive oil, and will put paid to any notion that chicken is the inferior meat. Another dish of just charred mackerel with fennel and herb oil shows what you can get out of a cheap fish when you treat it right. Light, lukewarm and lovely. Unsurprisingly they really come into their own with the meats. The Andarl pork tomahawk is a very generous portion for €15, particularly considering the quality of the sweet, smoky meat. The meat from Andarl Farm is called 'velvet pork', a description that makes complete sense when you taste it. As for the smoked Angus shortrib, if anyone in the city is doing a better version we need to know about it. Getting a cheap cut of meat to taste this good takes time, skill and slow cooking, but it's a masterclass in why tougher cuts of meat and barbecue cooking are a match made in meat heaven. Don't miss all the crispy good stuff on the bone, and it's also served with smoked bearnaise, in case you needed any more reasons to plan a trip here. Sides include hispi cabbage with spicy sobrasada sausage and feta - what vegetable dreams are made of - and miso roasties with homemade smoked harissa (and loads of crispy bits at the bottom of the bowl), which will ensure that going back to regular roasties is a struggle forever more. Next time we'll be trying the sharing fish or steak, which was brill with langoustines, and côte de boeuf on the day we we were there. For dessert the bubble pudding is the one you're going to see everyone posting about. It's cooked on the grill in a cast iron pan, drowned in salted caramel sauce (which is still bubbling when it comes to the table) and finished off with a scoop of banana ice-cream. It's very good, but very large, so one to share is plenty. The other dessert on the menu right now is a strawberry and elderflower (picked by owner Paul's Mum) pudding, and while it's equally huge (and delicious), it feels slightly lighter on the stomach. What about the drinks? They've created a very smart, concise drinks list, with wine on tap and in bottle, cocktails, four beers and a cider. Everything's been carefully chosen to work with the food, and there are some serious wines on there, like Tenerife producer Envinate's garnacha, which we imagine would be a stellar pairing for loads of the dishes. We weren't expecting to drink white wine with barbecue but the surprise hit was a South African roussane/chenin blanc blend called Adi's House, which had the complexity, texture and acid to pair beautifully with dishes like the gambas and the pork. There are 8 wines by the glass and 18 by bottle, and we would love to see carafes introduced like in sister restaurant Featherblade. And the service? Great. Even though they've just opened it feels like a family operation, with everyone getting stuck in. Staff were warm and chatty and if they can keep up that level of hospitality under pressure and with a queue outside we don't think they'll have many unsatisfied customers. The verdict? We love Mister S, and don't think we've been this excited about a new opening since Variety Jones stormed onto the scene last Christmas. In Dublin's rapidly evolving food scene, it feels like a stake in the road, an important chapter in the growth of fast casual restaurants that could hold their own in any major city. Along with places like Lucky Tortoise, Chimac and Pi, Mister S are proving that exciting food of the highest quality can be delivered at every price point and in every setting, and are helping to reconnect all of us with what it means to eat Irish food. Mister S 32 Camden Street Lower, Dublin 2 misters.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Contemporary Irish cooking in Portobello, who've had a Michelin Bib Gourmand since 2018. They do an à la carte menu and an early bird, and once a month they host a Tuesday night five-course tasting menu. Richmond Website richmondrestaurant.ie Address 43 Richmond Street South, Portobello, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Contemporary Irish cooking in Portobello, who've had a Michelin Bib Gourmand since 2018. They do an à la carte menu and an early bird, and once a month they host a Tuesday night five-course tasting menu. Where It's At Nearby Locales

The third opening in the Oxmantown empire, Elliot's landed quietly in Phibsborough in summer 2022 with maritozzi, damson doughnuts and Basque burnt cheesecake, and all was remarkably better in Dublin 7. It's a bakery first and foremost but there's a couple of benches outside if you want somewhere to perch while you tuck into your purchases. Expect a queue, and an early sell out, particularly at the weekend. Elliot's Website @elliots_dublin Address 330 North Circular Road, Phibsborough, Dublin 7 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story The third opening in the Oxmantown empire, Elliot's landed quietly in Phibsborough in summer 2022 with maritozzi, damson doughnuts and Basque burnt cheesecake, and all was remarkably better in Dublin 7. It's a bakery first and foremost but there's a couple of benches outside if you want somewhere to perch while you tuck into your purchases. Expect a queue, and an early sell out, particularly at the weekend. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Dalkey's much-loved wine shop has a restaurant in the back, and outdoor seating when the sun shines. The menu is a catch all of things like pasta, burgers and seafood, but the stars are on the shelves. Pick from an ever-interesting wine list, or pluck a bottle from the shop and pay corkage. Grapevine Website onthegrapevine.ie Address 26 Castle Street, Dalkey, Co. Dublin Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Dalkey's much-loved wine shop has a restaurant in the back, and outdoor seating when the sun shines. The menu is a catch all of things like pasta, burgers and seafood, but the stars are on the shelves. Pick from an ever-interesting wine list, or pluck a bottle from the shop and pay corkage. Where It's At Nearby Locales

D'Olier Street A New York-style addition to Dublin's elite dining crew Posted: 24 Jan 2023 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What's the story with D'Olier Street? It's a partnership between Mr Fox owner/chef Anthony Smith, and couple Jane Frye and James Moore, who were based in New York up until a year ago. Smith and Moore are old chef buddies, having cooked together in One Pico 16 years ago, before Moore (who's Australian) moved to NYC. Smith then followed, and the two lived together, meeting Frye (who's American) in the interim. Smith returned home to Dublin to open Mr Fox in 2016. You caught up? When Moore, who was head chef at two Michelin-starred Atera in New York at the time, told Smith he wanted to open his own restaurant, he somehow managed to convinced him to do it in Dublin, and New York's loss is most definitely our gain. Frye and Moore are married, and while Frye's background was in food media and not service, she's spent the last year learning the ropes at Mr Fox, while the couple's first restaurant together took shape. In October they announced a star signing in pastry chef Mina Pizarro , who's worked at some of the best restaurants in New York, including Le Cirque, Per Se and Veritas. If people weren't paying attention before, that made them sit up straight. D'Olier Street opened at the start of December, and we could barely restrain ourselves from running in, but thought we'd let them get over silly season before seeing what they're all about. Where should we sit? This room has been home to mediocre bistros and busily-decorated tourist traps over the years, but it's never been allowed to shine like this. The high ceilings, modern design and muted colours feel more than a little New York, and everything about it feels grand and special occasion worthy, in the most of the moment way. The seats most in demand will be the eight around the chefs counter, but it's actually at table level. This may be a negative as you don't get quite the bird's eye view into the kitchen that you can higher up, or a positive as your legs aren't dangling off a stool for two hours. If you're not bothered about seeing chefs plate dishes, the other tables dotted around the room offer a bit more privacy for romantic redezvous or clandestine chats. What's the menu like? It's billed as a ten course tasting menu for €82, but be aware that each of the snacks is considered a single course, as is the bread, a teeny bite of pre-desert and the petit fours to finish. We think the optics would have been better to describe it as a five-course menu with added extras - under-promise and over-deliver. Those first two snacks were a plump Connemara oyster with bracing yuzu and herbacous thyme, and a perfectly crisp nori tartlet with bluefin tuna, ginger, roe and sesame oil. Two for two - a great start. After that came silky foie gras custard with a thin layer of quince jelly, a quenelle of quince chutney, toasted walnuts, and the most perfect, golden, mini English muffins. Light as air inside, crispy and rubbly from the cornmeal they were fried on top of outside, this is a killer dish that's already the talk of town. Next came hamachi (also called yellowtail or amberjack) crudo, with apple aguachile, basil oil and unbilled Jalapeño and toasted almonds. We love dishes like this, the kind that act like an electric jolt to your palate, all acid and heat, curing and then cutting through the hamachi's oily texture. Next came salmon with miso buttermilk, trout roe and baby leek, and confession: we haven't eaten farmed salmon since watching Seaspiracy and getting a major ick about it. The creamy, umami-laded sauce is lick the plate clean material, little balls of roe popping as you slurp, and the baby leek was just cooked to retain the slightest bite. Salmon feels like an odd (maybe safe) choice, and while it's cooked beautifully in a sous vide before being blowtorched to finish, we'd much prefer to see a local and/or wild fish here instead. Then the bread course, which to be fair, deserves its own course. It deserves its own restaurant. The seeded pretzel restaurant. 10 courses of this pretzel in slightly varying forms. Where do we queue. This particular one with cultured buttermilk had us ooohing and aaahing, smelling and chewing, grabbing staff to tell us what magic lay within. Savour every bite. Ask for a second if you're brave. The last of the savoury courses, and the main proper, is billed as "Ribeye. Carrot. Pistachio." We don't usually grumble about a bit of steak when eating out ( except when served on a wooden chopping board that's been set alight ), but this felt flat, and like another safe choice. The meat (from superstar butcher Peter Hannan ) was very tender (we presume the sous vide had been used again) but lacked flavour, and the pistactio crumbed, meltingly tender carrots and the jus were perfectly nice, but it was missing the magic. With the steak they serve slices from the fat cap (which was predominantly fat), and perfect rectangles of confit potato, a crispy shell encasing a butter soft interior. Before dessert comes a tiny bite of coconut and passionfruit mochi as a palate cleanser - unrelated to the freezer mochi on Asian restaurant dessert menus across the city. Then the dish of the night, the one that we'll still be thinking about years from now, the one that might be our dessert of the year and we're only one month into 2023. A perfect, firm circle of riz au lait (French rice pudding), comes topped with elegantly pipped pastry cream, crystalised mango and mango sorbet, before a cardamom caramel is poured into the centre. The ooohs and aaahs returned, and we found ourselves gazing into the kitchen at Pizarro, wondering how we could make her fall in love with Dublin and never leave. Petit fours to finish of black sesame shortbread and chocolate fudge brownie were pleasant but unmemorable - that mango rice pudding is a hard act to follow though. What about drinks? You're in very safe hands when it comes to wine. Scott White (formerly in Aimsir, Mr Fox and Patrick Guilbaud) is the sommelier, and the list is full of interesting bottles you'll want to drink and pour over on the list, all with an indie producer lean. We started with a glass of grower Champagne from Antoine Bouvet (€22), and if you like high end fizz you should too - it's the best possible start to your dining experience, here or anywhere else. The wine pairing is €65 for five glasses and we thought it really delivered. It started with cava with the snacks, two whites, a red, and an incredible Jurançon from South West France with that mango rice pudding - and we thought it couldn't possibly get better. A (lovely) Albariño with the hamachi crudo was the only match that didn't gel as well as the others, but it's a hard dish to pair with its acid and heat, so we're not sure what would have worked better. We did one pairing and tried a couple of different glasses from the list, including an Austrian Pinot Blanc and a Mallorcan red blend, and wasn't one that let things down. We finished with a glass of Taylor's 10 year old tawny port, which is never a bad way to end an evening. How was the service? Frye is a warm and welcoming host, looking genuinely happy to be there greeting and looking after her guests, without anything being forced. Everyone we encountered was smiling and lovely and it felt like there was a ripple of excitement at being involved in a new opening like this. The kitchen was one of the calmest we've ever seen, with barely a conversation to be heard, everyone gently going about their work, looking completely confident in the role they were playing. They haven't changed the menu since opening and we think this is a smart move to let the staff bed in and get into a well-oiled rhythm. What was the damage? You're looking at €147 a head with the wine pairing (and our single glasses added up to around the same), so don't expect to come out with much change under €300 for two if you're doing it properly. It's a big spend and comparable to prices being charged at the best restaurants in the city (including Michelin stars). You could just get a bottle of wine to share between two, but you'll still be looking at circa €250 with a tip, so it won't be a meal to enter into lightly for a lot of people. We also flinched at their tip guide at the bottom showing what 15%, 18% and 20% tip amounts to. These are astronomical tips for most Irish people, especially at this spend, and it's likely to cause embarrassment when someone asks to put "just" 10 or 12% on the bill. The verdict? We're dizzy with delight for Dublin that D'Olier Street has joined the limited crew of restaurants operating at this level, in the most modern of dining rooms, with this kind of skill in the kitchen. An experience that might have been ten a penny in New York is standout here, and while we think some parts of the menu need adjusting and pushing outside of tried and tested formulas, we'd be surprised if they don't take the feedback they've had so far and keep driving forward. We would wager the next few months are going to bring more settling in, more ideas down, more dishes rising up, and with a Michelin visit undoubtedly in their near future, we're marking this as one to watch for a future star. D'Olier Street D'Olier Chambers, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 dolierstreetrestaurant.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Farm-to-fork café on Airfield Estate in Dundrum, with most of their milk, meat, fruit, vegetables and eggs produced on the 38-acre estate. The ethos here is seasonal, local and sustainable, with breakfast and lunch every day and occasional evening events. Overends Kitchen Website airfield.ie/overends Address Airfield Estate, Overend Avenue, Dublin 14 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Farm-to-fork café on Airfield Estate in Dundrum, with most of their milk, meat, fruit, vegetables and eggs produced on the 38-acre estate. The ethos here is seasonal, local and sustainable, with breakfast and lunch every day and occasional evening events. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Steam Authentic northeastern chinese food in the back of a newsagents Posted: 29 Aug 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? A couple of months ago, Chinese-American journalist Mei Chin (currently living in Dublin), wrote an article for the Dublin Inquirer about a discovery she had made while walking down Westmoreland Street. Her family comes from the Dongbei province in Northeast China, and at the back of an unassuming newsagents called Temple Express, wedged between a casino and a bookies, she found the food that her family cooks – Chinese burgers, jianbing (crepes), braised eggs, brine noodles. Colour us interested. Chinese food that gets the thumbs up from Chinese people is a rarity in Dublin, so this sounded like it was worth making a beeline for. For weeks we were having conversations about ‘the Chinese in the back of the newsagents’ but on our second visit we found out that it’s called ‘Steam’, and there’s another one in Moore Street Mall . Where should we go for a drink first? This is food that comes fast and it’s not really a place to linger (tables sit above the newsagents and beside a travel company desk), so a drink afterwards might be a better shout. Or this would be a great pre-cinema spot when you need to be in and out with minimal fuss. You’re practically in Temple Bar so if you’re in the mood for telling tales to tourists you could head for any of the overpriced pubs. For good pints in a cosy space it's hard to beat The Palace . For cocktails the Vintage Cocktail Club is few minutes walk away, and for wine you’re less than a ten minute walk to La Cave off Grafton Street or Piglet on Cow’s Lane. Where should we sit? After you order you can go upstairs to find a seat and they'll bring your food up to you. There are a few small tables and two counters – one facing the wall, the other facing out onto Westmoreland Street – they’re the seats we’d be trying to wangle. Too far away from the window and you may be subjected to the sounds of tourists booking sightseeing trips, which no one wants as an accompaniment to their noodles. They do take away too. What's good to eat? We followed Mei’s recommendations and everything was very good. The standouts for us were the Chinese pork burger – a crispy bun filled with shredded pork (lu rou) that’s been stewing for days, pickles and chilli sauce – and the Brine Noodles, the base of which is the ‘lu’ gravy made from stewing meat, along with braised pork, noodles, peanuts and green beans. The soup had a depth and breath of flavour unlike any other noodle soup we've had here, but eat it on a warm day and be prepared for a case of the soup sweats. We wanted to order ‘liang pi’, cold noodles made from mung-bean starch fettucine tossed in vinegar, but they had run out (apparently they’re struggling to source enough of these particular noodles in Dublin), so instead offered us cold noodles with chicken, which we enjoyed, but they paled in comparison to some of the other dishes. Jiang Bian, a kind of Chinese crepe filled with scrambled eggs, scallions, lettuce, hoisin sauce and bits of pastry cracking, was delicious, apart from the completely random hot dogs pieces in our classic version (ethnically accurate quirk we’re presuming), but those few unwelcome additions aside, this is something we would like to eat on a regular basis. Rice with stewed pork (meltingly tender and fatty like spare rib meat) with a side of pickled green beans and cucumber was simple, perfect comfort food. Mei also mentions the braised pork rib with rice in her piece which we’re eyeing up for our next visit. What about the drinks? Newsagent softs only, and it’s not the type of place you’d rock up to with a bottle of wine or a few cans of beer asking about the BYO policy. It’s not somewhere to loiter either, as there'll be plenty of people waiting to take your seats. And the service? Lovely, smiley and very helpful when it came to navigating the menu. The verdict? We’re increasingly hearing people talk about Dublin’s dining scene getting “boring”, “samey” and taken over by soulless restaurant groups or international chains, but paying a visit to a find like this will do a lot to convince the disillusioned of how much great food is right under our noses waiting to be discovered. Steam is quick, cheap and no frills, but it’s the real deal, and that always tastes good. Steam Temple Express, 4 Westmoreland Street, Dublin asainstreerfoodsteam/ New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Wide-ranging Japanese menu, from Teppanaki to tempura, ramen to rice dishes. The sushi menu has the standard sashimi, maki, futomaki and the rest, but is reliably good. Eatokyo Temple Bar Website eatokyo.ie Address 51 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Wide-ranging Japanese menu, from Teppanaki to tempura, ramen to rice dishes. The sushi menu has the standard sashimi, maki, futomaki and the rest, but is reliably good. Where It's At Nearby Locales

M and L Chinese Sichuan spice and a seriously good deal on corkage Posted: 11 Feb 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? As diverse as Dublin’s dining scene is right now, we’ve always suffered from a lack of the type of Chinese food they actually eat in China (trying to avoid the ‘A’ word). There are spice bags and 3-in-1’s on every corner, but try to get a plate of Xi’an Biang Biang noodles or braised, fermented fish belly and you’ll have a job on your hands. M&L on Cathedral Street is well known as one of the few places to get real Sichuan food, but it’s having a bit of an industry boom of late, as word has gotten out about their €6 corkage charge. Cue half the restaurants in Dublin booking it for their post-Christmas Christmas party (no restaurant has their Christmas party in December) so they can BYO some serious wine. Where’s good for a drink beforehand? Let's be honest, it’s not exactly Soho around here. Madigan’s on O’Connell Street is decent for a pint. Apart from that their sister site The Vintage Teapot just across the road is a cute (if ethnically muddled – Chinese dumplings, Italian antipasti and Russian blinis) place for a glass of wine, or post-dinner tea or coffee – they have a particularly good Chinese tea selection. What’s the room like? Like a Chinese restaurant. Cosy with some nice artwork on the walls and minimal table settings. The main room is nicer than the narrower section leading to the kitchen, but this tends to be quieter so better if you want some privacy. What's good to eat? Sichuan cooking centres around Sichuan peppercorns, chillies and garlic, so expect lots of each. There are non-Sichuan dishes here too (black bean, sweet and sour, peking) but we’d steer clear and stick to the ‘chef’s recommendations’ on the menu if you want the real experience. The specials on the board are a great place to start. From there we had beef and pork dumplings, and steamed buns with pork mince. All were excellent, especially drowned in chilli oil. We tried the chicken and sweetcorn soup (more out of curiosity than anything else) which was definitely of the more ‘European Chinese’ variety - gloopy and tasteless. Thankfully things picked up with the French beans with dry chilli, which seem to be everyone’s favourite. You might balk at €11 for a plate of green beans but you won’t once you’ve tried them. They’re M&L’s version of class A drugs - highly addictive. From a previous visit we can highly recommend the deep-fried seabass Sichuan style (on the bone), but this time we tried Seabass in hot and spicy sauce (off the bone), which was like a really good sweet and sour with extra depth of flavour. The fish was perfectly cooked and the skin crunchy, but it wasn't as good as the Sichuan version. We meant to order deep fried chicken with chilli and crispy peanuts (again had it on a previous occasion and again loved it) but in a miscommunication ended up with Kung Pao chicken, which is also a Sichuan dish and was very good, but a bit pedestrian. If you do order the deep fried chicken be warned that the portion is huge, but you can always take the leftovers home (you'll find images of it on Instagram). The deep-fried aubergine with soy sauce was also enjoyable if not overly memorable, but didn’t look remotely deep fried. No crispy edges. We wanted to try the whelks which are an M&L favourite but they weren’t available. The soft-shell crab is also mentioned constantly in reviews but seems to be a table divider. Some love it, some don't. We didn't have enough space to take the chance. In synopsis, you need to know what to order in M&L, and make sure you communicate it clearly to the staff. What about the wine? €6 corkage. That’s all you need to know. We took a cursory glance at the wine list and are sure none of it will kill you, but it would seem a wasted opportunity not to bring something special when the corkage charge is this low. To put it into perspective, a wine that you pay €20 for will cost you €26 to drink at M&L. Standard restaurant margins would make it in or around €50. We took an organic, biodynamic white from a Portugese producer called Aphros (annoyingly not currently available in Ireland, sorry) which was zesty and full of flavour (lime, orange, white flowers), with lovely minerality. A perfect pre-dinner drink while we waited for food to arrive. The chilli sauce with the dumplings eviscerated our palates so we couldn’t taste it after that, but luckily it was almost finished. We also took a Greek red from producer Gaia's 2009 vintage; an obscure Greek grape variety called Agiorgitiko. It’s currently on sale in O’Briens for €18.45 down from €28.95 (for no reason other than most Irish people don’t buy Greek wine), and was a hauntingly beautiful bottle, full of perfume, flowers and blackberries. (It's worth noting that we went back for a second bottle which wasn’t as good, but that’s wine, it’s a living thing so can be unpredictable). Neither were a perfect match for Sichuan food but not much is. And the service? Basic but friendly. No-one will fall over you and you might need to wave a few times but staff are very accommodating. The verdict? There is great food at M&L but you could easily fall into the trap of the Western diner and end up with a pretty standard Chinese, which would be a great shame. Do your research, stick to the chef's specials and bring your own wine and you'll be fine. M & L Chinese 13/14 Cathedral Street, Dublin 2 mlchineserestaurant.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Bistro One A chef to watch in Foxrock Posted: 11 Feb 2020 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Unless you live locally you probably haven't heard of Bistro One in Foxrock. It's one of those under the radar suburban spots - loved by locals but unlikely to have anyone venturing from the other side of the city to eat there. Local love can get you far though (helped by meticulous food sourcing from both the local area and Tuscany, where they grow their own olives), and Bistro One has managed to survive for an incredible 27 years. The age profile is considerably greyer than your average city centre establishment, with plenty full of monied Foxrock residents remarking on how well the current release of Pomerol is drinking, and if this sounds like it's not your kind of thing, keep reading, because a few months ago everything changed. Bistro One owner Mark Shannon has a son, Rory Shannon, who's been making food waves in London for the past few years, in The Canton Arms and Tom Oldroyd's The Duke of Richmond amongst others. We'd eaten and adored his food there (including but definitely not limited to the best Sunday roast we've eaten out, in a Deptford wine bar, and a lot of housemade charcuterie), and he'd been named by London food guide Hot Dinners as part of their ' Murphia' list for 2019 , of Irish people making an impact in food and drink in London. At the start of last year he decided he'd had enough of London life and wanted to slow things down. He moved home, unsure of what his next move would be, but when Bistro One lost a chef last summer he found himself stepping into the kitchen to save the day. It must be somewhat painstaking for an ambitious young chef to step into a restaurant with such a loyal, local clientele and try to shake things up, so changes have been slow and considered, but we'd seen enough on his Instagram feed recently (like this and this ) to convince us it was time for a visit. Where should we go for a drink first? There's not a lot around, but you could grab a glass of wine in The Gables or Kerb across the road. Otherwise we hear that Byrne's pub on the Stillorgan Road is great for a pint, but you'll need to drive or hop in a cab. Where should we sit? The dining room is in need of an refresh, but it's bright and comfortable. You can either sit in the main room, or around the corner where there's a more secluded area - perfect for (semi) private conversations or those early dates when you spend the whole night holding hands and trying to eat with the other one. What's good to eat? We really struggled to choose as we wanted everything on the menu - usually a very good sign - and Sunday lunch is exceptional value (considering the quality of produce they're using) at two courses for €24 or three for €29. It starts with bread, as all good meals do - housemade sourdough and brown, both excellent. Then the kitchen brought a taster of a dish we hadn't ordered - Mooncoin beetroot, buttered hazelnuts and St Tola goat's curd, a beautiful combination of colour, flavour and crunch. Our first starter was one we had to have from the minute we saw the robata grill on social media - barbecued line caught mackerel with pickled cucumber and horseradish. Mackerel gets a bad (fishy) rep, and this is the spin doctor to change public opinion. Tender, fatty, smoky flesh was cut through with cucumber and pushed into flavour overload with freshly made horseradish. One of the most perfect plates of food this year and one we wish we could eat daily. Another of Kilkeel crab on chargrilled sourdough (€5 supplement) with endive, radish and apple was everything you could want from crab on toast, with the sensible mix of white and brown crab meat. Another starter of burrata, olives and focaccia was a plate of very clever assembly, with creamy burrata, warm focaccia, sun-soaked olives and a caponata like element with sweet and sour raisins and black olives that were more like prunes. The family's own grassy olive oil from Tuscany in a puddle on the plate made it a home run. For mains we'd been dreaming of the curried pheasant pie for weeks, so that was a non-negotiable. Lucky for us it was on for one that day (some weeks it's for two), and it was everything we wanted it to be. Crispy, buttery pastry, very generous amounts of game, and a savoury, mildly spicy curry sauce. It came with colcannon (great) and a pear chutney (inspired) and was the kind of wholesome Sunday lunch we'd like to make for guests at home. Our other main of slow cooked Fui Bui venison, turnip gratin & walnut salsa verde was akin to a shin of beef, cooked until you could eat it with a spoon. The turnip gratin was such a refreshing change from potato, with the turnip flavour very subtle (if you have memories of your mother over-boiling it as a child, this is like a different vegetable). The whole dish was very rich and filling, but the walnut salsa verde did a good job of lifting the deep flavours and providing a nice, sharp contrast. A side of chips were the only bum-note, not crispy or fluffy enough, and it struck us that having chips on the menu is likely to be more of a box-ticking exercise than a labour of love. Another of buttered hispi cabbage was enjoyable if not exciting. For dessert, again social media had dictated both in advance of us even arriving. We'd seen them perfect the salted caramel tart with creme fraiche over the course of a few days, and it lived up to the images in the wobbly flesh. Getting the salt/sweet balance right is key with salted caramel anything and they nailed it, the biscuity pastry and smooth, sharp crème fraîche the perfect accompaniments. The other of a buttermilk doughnut with rhubarb and custard was the stuff of our dessert dreams. Alone the doughnut would have stood up against the best, but with the sharp, stringy (seasonal) rhubarb above and the vanilla-scented custard below we were going out on a high with possibly the most fitting dessert for a cold Sunday in January. What about the drinks? The wine list here is compact but impressive, with a nice mix of classics like Burgundy and Bordeaux (at non city centre Dublin prices), and a lovely smattering of the new and the natural. Specials on the blackboard included Austrian Claus Preisinger's juicy Putza Libre and Meyer-Fonne's Riesling, and there were 17 wines available by the glass and the carafe. We had a rich, creamy Rully (chardonnay from Burgundy) from Phillipe Milan and a Mercurey (Pinor Noir from Burgundy) from the same producer, and both were excellent examples of the region. And the service? One of the loveliest things about family-run, neighbourhood restaurants tends to be the service, and Bistro One is a case in point. They obviously know a lot of their regulars, make it very clear that families are welcome (straight over with colouring pencils and paper for children, and kids even eat free on Saturdays), and nothing you might be after is too much trouble. Owner Mark is still on the floor and is warm and welcoming, but so was everyone who served us. The verdict? The return home of Rory Shannon has made Bistro One relevant for more than Foxrock locals. He's dragged it into 2020 and made it into a restaurant worth crossing the city for - not something we say lightly. They already had the produce, he's given them the panache. The type of kitchen talent and dynamism here is found only in Dublin's best restaurants, so the sight of so many other tables only eating Sunday roasts and fish and chips while we feasted on mackerel, game pie and rhubarb doughnuts was depressing to watch - we can't imagine how much more depressing it is from the kitchen's viewpoint. We don't know how long Rory's going to be in the kitchen here, or what's next for the Shannon family, but our advice is to get to Bistro One and try his food as soon as you can, and if he goes elsewhere, follow him. We'll be right behind you. Bistro One 3a Brighton Road, Foxrock, County Dublin bistro-one.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Mani’s Roman-style pizza styles have been responsible for a permanent queue down Drury Street since they opened at the end of 2023. Hiring ex-Pala Pizza’s Rory Shannon as head chef was a great move from fellow pizza nerd and owner Ciaran McGonagle, and the power of these two seems to multiply by being in close proximity to each other. Crispy, twice-baked slices featuring the most moreish of toppings, and some deep-fried naughtiness for good measure. Basic but quality drinks, and loads of outside seating, as well as a few stools inside. Mani Website instagram.com/mani.pizza.panini Address Mani, Drury Street, Dublin, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Mani’s Roman-style pizza styles have been responsible for a permanent queue down Drury Street since they opened at the end of 2023. Hiring ex-Pala Pizza’s Rory Shannon as head chef was a great move from fellow pizza nerd and owner Ciaran McGonagle, and the power of these two seems to multiply by being in close proximity to each other. Crispy, twice-baked slices featuring the most moreish of toppings, and some deep-fried naughtiness for good measure. Basic but quality drinks, and loads of outside seating, as well as a few stools inside. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Chameleon A reinvention for Indonesian tapas in Temple Bar Posted: 2 Apr 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Indonesian-inspired Chameleon 's been part of the fabric of Temple Bar for an incredible 25 years, and recently made the clever decision to do a bit of a brand update - they got a new logo, changed the outside of the restaurant from black to bright blue, and invested in a beautiful new spray-painted shutter . It's a shrewd move to stand out in a city that's currently seeing a record number of restaurant openings each month, and one that got them onto our hottest restaurants in Dublin list for March. We hadn't visited in a long time, and after a very well-eaten foodie told us they were "hitting all the right notes" when it came to Indonesian cooking we thought it was worth a visit. Where should we go for a drink first? The temptation is always there to dance into Oliver St. John Gogarty 's and act like a tourist for an hour - you'll leave with a lighter wallet but a newly invigorated sense of national pride that only twee Irish music, aran jumpers and barely passable bowls of stew can summon up (but best to avoid the toilets if you can - €5 million a year in profit clearly isn't enough for a new paint job and some air freshener). Roberta's and The Liquor Rooms (below) do great cocktails, and for wine both Piglet and Loose Canon are within a 5 minute walk. Where should we sit? Upstairs all the way, ideally at the lower tables with the cushioned seating for the full experience. Anyone with a dodgy back or who likes proper tables and chairs can opt for the standard tables. There are more tables downstairs, but we don't think it has the same atmosphere or feel as the first floor. What's good to eat? The main part of the menu revolves around set menus that are either meat, fish or vegetable based, from €36 - €40 per person. There are also 'Asian Tapas', a lot of which are found on the various set menus. We thought it would be a good idea to get one Java (meat-based) and one Sumatra (fish based) to try as much as possible, but we hadn't realised that four of the seven dishes were the same on both (noodles, vegetables and a fish cake), so if we were choosing again we'd pick one set menu and other dishes from the Asian tapas section so that we could try more. The best thing we ate was probably the fish finger bao, with tiger prawn and squid katsu and sambal (a type of chilli sauce) in a homemade bao. Immediate regret for not having ordered all the bao. Other highlights included the Sweet Sambal Udang - marinated prawns with pineapple and chilli mango sauce - which walked the line perfectly between sweet, savoury and sour, the Kari Java - a Javanese curry with braised shoulder of Wicklow lamb and sweet potato that was incredibly rich in flavour, and the sesame fried vegetables with sautéed onions and toasted sesame seeds, which managed to make cabbage addictive. Both the crab cake with haddock and the chicken satay (props for using free-range) were enjoyable, and the beef rendang had great flavour but the meat could have been more tender. We weren't keen on the noodles which had an overpowering taste of molasses, and the salad with cucumber, mango and Chinese leaves could have done with having the dial turned up on the dressing - or maybe just needed more dressing. A dessert of Kahlua and organic dark chocolate pannacotta with peanut brittle had the perfect wobble, and was a nice midway point between coffee and dessert, when your heart says espresso, but your head says it's too late, don't do it. And the drinks? The wine list is pretty compact, with half on tap and half in bottle. The advantage of those on tap is that they're available in small and large glasses, carafes and bottles, so everyone can drink what they want in exactly the amount they want, but we would have liked to see a few more options that would specifically compliment the food in either format, like off-dry Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer. We drank the Hobo Workbook Californian red blend on tap which is a great all-rounder, and for white we would have gone for the Peter & Peter Riesling in bottle, a grape that tends to work well with Asian flavours. And the service? Really warm, and couldn't do enough for us. The only issue with the set menus is that everything comes at once, and it's a lot of food, so by the time we reached the end some of it was cold, but retrospectively if we had asked our lovely server to bring a few things first like the bao, satay and fish cake, we think she would have been more than happy to oblige. That would be the plan next time. The verdict? There are a lot of good flavours going on at Chameleon, and we kept thinking what a perfect place it is for group dining - bag one of the big tables upstairs, order all the food and a load of carafes of wine, and we're pretty sure everyone would leave happy. Keeping a restaurant open for 25 years is no mean feat, and keeping people talking about you for that long is even more difficult, but we think updating their image was just what was needed to put Chameleon back on Dublin diner's agendas. Chameleon 1 Fownes Street Lower, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 www.chameleonrestaurant.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Open since 2007, Pakistani Kajal is consistently booked out at prime times, and locals know to reserve special tables weeks in advance. Staff are charming, drinks are thoughtful, and the chargrilled lamb chops are what meat-eating dreams are made of. Kajal Website kajjal.ie Address 7 The Green, Malahide, Co. Dublin Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Open since 2007, Pakistani Kajal is consistently booked out at prime times, and locals know to reserve special tables weeks in advance. Staff are charming, drinks are thoughtful, and the chargrilled lamb chops are what meat-eating dreams are made of. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Follow the sea north to Fairview and Clontarf, and suburbs Killester and Artane for some of the city's best Indian and Pakistani food, as well as brunch and toasted sandwiches by the sea. Clontarf - Fairview - Killester - Artane Our Take Follow the sea north to Fairview and Clontarf, and suburbs Killester and Artane for some of the city's best Indian and Pakistani food, as well as brunch and toasted sandwiches by the sea. Where to Eat

Bun Cha Vibrant Vietnamese on Moore Street Posted: 9 Jul 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Bun Cha opened on Moore Street in early 2018 and immediately stood out from the few Vietnamese restaurants in the city thanks to their slick website and professional food photography. We weren't the only ones who noticed, as they had Lucinda O'Sullivan and Tom Doorley through the door in the first couple of months. She hated it, he loved it, but slowly they seemed to be building a fan base for their eponymous bun cha and banh mi. Opened by the same people who own the oriental supermarket next door, we're told it's one of only three Vietnamese restaurants in Ireland that are owned and cheffed by Vietnamese people, and that bringing a taste of home to Dublin was the main goal. So far so convinced. Where should we go for a drink first? We recently made the welcome discovery that Wines Direct have a wine shop and bar in Arnotts with €7 corkage on anything off the shelf, as well as plenty of wines by the glass. It closes when Arnotts closes (from 7-9pm depending on the night) so would only work if you're in early, but it's your best bet for wine around these parts. If you're after a pre or post beer head for The Big Romance on Parnell Street for one of the most interesting selections in town, and if you fancy a caipirinha or a mezcal mule make your way to Wigwam on Middle Abbey Street Where should we sit? There's a Vietnamese canteen vibe that means you probably won't sit here all night, but it's perfectly comfortable for a quick bite to eat. If you're on your own there are a few counter seats looking out onto Moore Street, otherwise grab one of the benches against the wall. What's good to eat? From what we ate the unmissable dishes were the bun cha (grilled pork with noodles) and the bun nem (fried spring rolls with noodles). The chargrilled pork in the bun cha has an obscenely smokey flavour that has to be tasted to be understood (we're talking big green egg flavour), and the pork spring rolls must be up there with the most blisteringly crisp (and delicious) in the city. The balance in the dipping sauce with bits of carrot, kohlrabi and chilli is perfect, and we loved the amount of fresh coriander and mint jammed onto the plates, which is something other Vietnamese restaurants here can bizarrely be lacking. We also loved the wonton soup with shrimp wontons, char siu pork, egg, broccoli and spring onions, and a lemongrass paste to stir into the rich, deeply flavoured broth, that could only have come from hours of cooking. It's a huge bowl of food for €11.50 so only order if hungry or you're prepared to take some home (in their lovely cardboard boxes). Our waiter told us one of his favourites was the dry mixed noodles with roasted pork xa xiu, and it was a disarmingly simple bowl of what looked and tasted like super noodles, with slices of pork, crunchy pak choi, shallots and peanuts. Once we got past the super noodle prejudice we really enjoyed the mix of textures and flavours from the sweet pork, slippery noodles and crispy shallots, and it's a dish we're now actively craving. Summer rolls with prawns weren't the most exciting thing we tried, and could have done with a more amped up flavour, and "fried golden dough" or "quay" were just sticks of somewhat bland savoury dough, but will fill a hunger gap until the mains arrive. In Vietnam these are usually eaten with congee or pho, so that might improve things. We didn't try the banh mi but have it on authority they're as good as many in Hoi An, and will definitely be going back for the pho once the weather turns cold again (which should be any day now). What about the drinks? We'd been told to try the sugar cane juice which is freshly squeezed in the kitchen downstairs, but they were out of it, so instead tried a lychee and mint juice, greener than anything naturally occurring in nature. We wouldn't recommend this unless you like the idea of drinking lychee toothpaste. They do have a short wine list and it's predictably unappealing, but we've seen worse so if desperate you could find something, and randomly they do cocktails, including sex on the beach. Proceed with caution. And the service? Both times we ate here our server was so sweet and welcoming, and very happy to tell us his favourite dishes, both here and back home in Vietnam. For him this is the best Vietnamese food in the city, and when it comes to the bun cha and bun nem we'd find it hard to disagree. The verdict? We've always struggled to understand the lack of Vietnamese food in Dublin when it's so prevalent in cities like London and Melbourne, and such a vibrant, fresh cuisine that most people seem to fall in love with on tasting. It's easy to say that the best Vietnamese cuisine is going to be found in Vietnam, but if you can't afford a plane ticket Bun Cha's doing a pretty good job of bringing it to us. Bun Cha 11 Moore Street, Dublin 1 www.buncha.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Reggie's Pizzeria Perfect pizza at a neighbourhood joint you'll want to come back to again and again Posted: 18 Feb 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Reggie’s Pizzeria? We’ve been a long time waiting to see what Reggie White would do next. The Ballymaloe-schooled and LA-seasoned Dubliner’s fingerprints are all over the city’s pizza scene – very literally in some cases. Since kicking off a new era with the opening of Pi all the way back in 2018 (he’s no longer involved), he's put in a stint at the oven of Little Forest , and run a consultancy that advised Bambino among others. Now, he’s installed himself in the Rathmines space where Sprezzatura held sway until late last year, striving to carve out a family-friendly neighbourhood niche that people can swing by time and again. Where should we sit? Chalk the refitted high-ceilinged space in this beautiful building down as one of the city’s most welcoming rooms. On walking through the corner door of the dual-frontage façade you’ll have your eye guided past the spacious layout of tables straight to the three-tier electric pizza oven at the back. We’re big fans of this setup, courtesy of the same team who brought us the interiors of A Fianco and Note among others, and have again achieved a just-right balance of buzzy and roomy, with a still-too-rare focus on acoustics - for all the fast service to come, this feels like a place to linger. We’d expected our V-Day weekend visit to be thronged with doe-eyed duos but, true to intent, the place was packed with a plethora of groups, from younger families (it’s a while since we saw so many buggies comfortably accommodated) to Galentine gatherings – it makes for a great mixed energy. Two-tops along the window-lit right wall make for a great perch to take it all in, while the two booths at the back are more fit for intimate evenings for four. Out on the floor, a host of three to five-seaters will put you in the heart of the action. A big group can expect to get the grand eight-seater inside to the left – it’s easy to imagine a multi-generational family outing having a helluva time here. But the seats we’re determined to snag on our next visit are at the counter, with an eagle-eyed view of the oven and the hands that feed it. The entirety of the adjoining space that was briefly Flaneur, and before that Spatched, has been knocked through and given over to the pizza process, with piled-high bags of flour in the window another great example of how to sell the story of a food business to passers-by, and lure in more of a crowd. What’s on the menu? A lot more than pizza. We’ll get to the main event, but the most important thing to take away here – apart from extra pizza in a box – is that the starters have been given every bit as much thought as the dough and toppings. Olives (€4.95) are the earliest evidence of a provenance-first philosophy at play - these are the good ‘uns, a briny blast of an amuse bouche with the gentlest citrus kick. We’re predicting Instagram action aplenty for the gold-crusted goodness of the mozzarella sticks (€7.50) and arancini (€8.50) – unlike too many other outlets where these oft-filler foods show up, it isn’t all show. There’s a spectacular see-how-far-it-stretches stringiness to the mozzarella, just itching to burst out from its crisp coating. The sharpness of a light parmesan dusting takes the edge off a rich mouthful, though the spicy marinara’s aim to do the same would work better with just a little more heat. Parmesan custard is a combination of words we’re always happy to hear, all the more so when it’s as lush and velvety as here. As a base for these oozing cacio e pepe-filled risotto balls it’s almost daringly OTT, the kind of out-the-gate indulgence that might see you off before you’ve even started. As a sharing plate though it’s perfect pacing, the deceptively airy texture an umami-rich accent to the faultlessly seasoned arancini. Go all in. White has lamented the lack of a free-range chicken wing supplier at scale, and if there’s a starter we’d skip it’s probably these (€11.50), much as the sizeable portions may tempt. The house honey and nduja is a sticky, spicy-sweet sauce of the finger-licking variety (classic is also available), but we didn’t find enough flavour of the brined meat to make it worth the stomach space another pizza might have taken up instead – practical to the core we are. Outside of the inimitable polpette alla nduja at Grano and A Fianco that keep us coming back time and again, we don’t ever expect to get excited about meatballs, but between Hera and here, they may be having a mini-moment in Dublin. Good cheese is the common thread - Reggie’s in-house ricotta keeps the pork and beef balls (€9.50) gloriously juicy throughout, ideal for soft spreading across the sourdough focaccia and lapping up every last trace of lightly-spiced tomato. Alright, let’s have it - what about the pizza? Tastes are too subjective across the Neapolitan, New York, Detroit and Roman styles (now blissfully available across Dublin) for us to definitively declare any the best, but we can comfortably say Reggie’s sits at the top table. Few pizza chefs in the city have spent as much time and effort on their recipes as White, and a 48-hour proofed sourdough base made with a mix of Wildfarmed flours from the UK is the result. If your lockdown-era experiments with home pizza have you wondering why anyone would ever pay for one out, here’s where to come for some clarity. This is divine dough, complex and full-flavoured, with structure and strength that holds up through every last, leopard-spotted bite. We’ve so far made our way through five of the nine options (we''ll be back to finish the lot off), and we’ve yet to encounter a bum note. The classics are always the best place to start, a real test of true skill, and Reggie’s has got it in spades. The margherita (€14.95) drips EVOO and gloriously gooey fior di latte, complementing the sharpness and sweetness of top-tier tomato. That’s to the fore too in the pepperoni (€16.50), balancing out the heat of Ventrecina salami and pickled chillies, both of which are textbook specimens. Sausage, stracciatella, and chilli (€17.00) isn’t a mile wide of the pepperoni’s palate, but a good example of how a little variation goes a long way. The succulence of the Andarl Farm pork gives a softer, sweeter bite than the crisped-edged salami, and so stands up stronger to the added intensity of Calabrian chilli – those who like their heat should go straight for this. We’d have welcomed a little more kick in the leek and Cashel blue (€16.00) - the whey-braised greens have a superb, honey-supplemented sweetness that could have used a little added sprinkle of those chilli flakes - the hot honey dip works well here. Hen of the woods and chicken fat (€18.50) is the most eye-catching among the pizza options – it's no shock given the premium for good fungi that it’s the most expensive too. The fat-brushed crust makes for an inspired elevation of umami shrooms, though we wondered if another cheese might have worked better - for all its nuttiness, Fontina felt a little lost alongside these other ingredients. Confit garlic rides to the rescue with an assertive punch you’ll keep tasting all night. Desserts, like starters, give a clear sense that nothing is here for the sake of it. The old-fashioned ice cream sundae (€7.00) is a creamy, crunchy glass of delight, with pecan and chocolate crumb playing off melt-in-the-mouth scoops from Boulabán Farm. White’s set his sights on making his own in time, but if it stays just like this you won't hear complaints. Milk chocolate custard (€8.00) – we make it more of a mousse – is better again, with a heavier heaping of that chocolate crumb joining forces with flaky sea salt for a textural treat atop super-soft chocolate. A good stir is recommended for those not used to olive oil with their dessert, but an unexpectedly loaded spoonful did tell us they’re using the best stuff. What are the drinks like? The wine menu has good variety and better prices, with six of eight BTG coming in on or under the €9 mark, on an organic and biodynamic-heavy list – keenly competitive with Kodiak across the way and The Dunmore down the road. Entry-level bottles rank among the mid-€30s with blowout options in the main around the €60 mark. The light-bodied acidity of the Anselmo Mendes Alvarinho came in handy for all the starters’ and pizzas’ cheese, while Sainte Croixe rosé stood up well to the meatballs. How was the service? Couldn’t have been better. Tables were turning over quick with the weekend that was in it, and despite a hard finish on our booking time we never felt rushed. Staff have clearly all eaten their way through the menu and are happy to tweak their tips to your tastes. For all the speed they sling pizzas out with, the entire vibe feels very relaxed. And the damage? Budget €40 a head for a very filling dinner and drink, or stick to just a pizza each and shared sundae with change from a twenty. Whatever the mood, Reggie’s represents about as good value for pizza as it gets in this city given the calibre of the ingredients and the care in their cooking. What’s the verdict on Reggie’s Pizzeria? Even in just the two months since our ATF Insiders got the first bites at Reggie’s December soft launch (great perk right – sign up here ) we can see a clear upward trajectory for White and co, and that’s from no low base. This is casual, come-time-and-again dining at its best. Simple food, superb flavour, served free of fuss. As it keeps finding its feet and flavours, we expect this neighbourhood joint to have no trouble bedding in as the community hub it’s aiming to be, somewhere to make all ages, wallets and tastes very happy that they left the house for pizza. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Vietnom Street food that's reason alone to got to Stoneybatter Posted: 30 Oct 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? We're really quite into this whole "dingy pub gets great pop up in the back" thing. Between Vurgerface in The Belfry and Dice Bar, Grálinn in MVP and Coke Lane Pizza in Frank Ryans and Lucky's, pub food has never been better. Another one that we've been hearing loads about over the past few months is Vietnom in the back of The Glimmerman pub in Stoneybatter, and while the idea of Vietnamese/Mexican fusion wouldn't have had us running for the Luas, after two excellent reviews in The Irish Times and the Irish Independent we had to check it out for ourselves. Set up by chef Milly Murphy and Alex Gurnee earlier this year, the menu at Vietnom changes every week, and most things on the menu are vegetarian, with at least one vegan option. They work with what's local and seasonal, growing some vegetables themselves, buying others from organic farms, and sourcing only free-range meat and eggs. So far so good. Where should we go for a drink first? The Glimmerman is atmospheric to say the least, with Charlie Haughey and Margaret Thatcher in a bed hanging from the ceiling, beer mats all over the walls and more nooks and crannies than we thought was possible to fit in a single pub, so a drink here is a good shout. Otherwise you've got L. Mulligan Grocer for an immense craft beer selection, The Cobblestone for traditional Irish music, or Walsh's, which was named best pub in Dublin at this year's Irish restaurant awards. Where should we sit? There's loads of seating out the back, ranging from quirky to "I'm sitting on a plastic-covered leather sofa in the middle of a tip", but with the weather turning colder you'll want a good winter coat to eat outside. Luckily the pub are cool about bringing the food inside, so just sit wherever you can find some mismatched furniture. What's good to eat? The menu is short with three main options both times we visited - tostadas, banh mi and fried rice. Ingredient and flavour combinations change each week and we tried everything twice, loving all of it. We marginally preferred the tostada with cauliflower, peanut sauce, chilli and pickled onions to the one with squash, tomatillo salsa and toasted sesame, but there wasn't a lot in it. We much preferred the banh mi with caramelised ginger and apple roast pork to the one with paneer, finding it lacking in flavour - the same could not be levied at the pork, and the lovely crunchy vegetables jammed in alongside it. Our only complaint is that we like a crisper bread for banh mi, Vietnom's being a soft sourdough, but they've had it designed especially for them and it's exactly what they're going for so we might be alone on that one. Both courgette and broccoli fried rice came topped with an assortment of nuts, chillis, pickled onions, herbs and flower petals, and might have been our favourite thing here. To make something as plain as rice taste this vibrant takes skill, and the courgette in particular was verging on "food crack". There was so much food we took some home and there were fork fights over the last of it the following day. What about the drinks? Those clever Vietnom people, knowing the type of customer they were likely to attract with their food, convinced The Glimmerman to stock a couple of very nice, inexpensive wines to go with it. Ciú Ciú are an organic producer from the Marche region of Italy and both the white and red blends are excellent, particularly for €6 a glass. We'd go so far as to say these could be the best value wines in any pub in the city right now (accounting for the quality). If you're going to drink wine here, this is what you want. Forget the rest. And the service? Alex and Milly do everything themselves, with a smile on their faces, and are happy to answer questions about the food or make recommendations. We also found The Glimmerman staff lovely, particularly the younger members of the team who were just super friendly. The verdict? Vietnom alone is worth a trip to Stoneybatter. They can do as much 'fusion' as they want if it tastes this good, and with their focus on local produce, organic vegetables and free-range meat and dairy, it's fast food to make you feel good. Go soon, go often, and order everything. Vietnom The Glimmerman, 14 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 @vietnom New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Micro bakery Fable were given a rarely found opportunity when Sprout announced they were offering the front of their Dawson Street site to an up and coming food entrepreneur. Fable’s pitch won out, and within weeks there was a steady supply of almond buns, cinnamon knots and fruit danishes circulating around the city centre. There’s a decent amount of Sprout seating which they also share, and a coffee from Imbibe is the perfect add on. Fable Bakery Website fablebakery.com Address 3 Dawson Street, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Micro bakery Fable were given a rarely found opportunity when Sprout announced they were offering the front of their Dawson Street site to an up and coming food entrepreneur. Fable’s pitch won out, and within weeks there was a steady supply of almond buns, cinnamon knots and fruit danishes circulating around the city centre. There’s a decent amount of Sprout seating which they also share, and a coffee from Imbibe is the perfect add on. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Liath Damien Grey raises the game to a different level Posted: 19 Mar 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Heron & Grey opened in Blackrock Market in 2016, and after winning a Michelin star within their first 10 months, the 22-seater restaurant, only open three nights a week (with one sitting per night, so 66 people per week), was soon the most sought after reservation in the city. It only became more difficult as time went on and word got out, and each month when the seats for the following month were released they sold out in minutes, leaving tranches of disappointed Dubliners virtually sobbing on social media. When owners Andrew Heron and Damien Grey announced in December that they were going their separate ways, it came as a shock - why would anyone give up on such a good thing? - but Andrew wanted a more balanced family lifestyle, and Damien wanted to change the feel of the restaurant, so they decided the time was right for them to part, and Damien to morph Heron & Grey into Liath (meaning grey in Irish - a name his daughters came up with), alongside kitchen team Róisín Gillen and Josef Radacovsky. They closed at the end of January for a two month refurb, and rumours of white tablecloths and an ambition for a second Michelin star started to abound (Grey has technically lost his star with the change, so needs to win it back with the new format). When the first block of tables for the March reopening were released on the 1st of February, 3,500 people tried to book a table simultaneously at 10am, leading the website to crash, and once again leaving lots of disappointed wannabe diners in their wake, but we were lucky enough to bag a table for night two, purely so we can tell you all about it. Where should we go for a drink first? We'd be tempted to say just don't, as why muddy your palate with anything else before sitting down in here, but if you insist, the best boozer on the main street in Blackrock is probably old-man style Jack O'Rourke's , there since 1897. Where should we sit? The new restaurant configuration has one table for six, three tables for four, and two tables for two, and lets face it, you'll be doing well to nab any of them, but we always like being closer to where the action (i.e. the kitchen) is, so you could request it when you book. Otherwise the two-seater at the far end looks very cosy and as private as you'll get in such a small space. What's good to eat? The menu consists of a ten-course tasting menu for €78 (they will cater for allergies but not dietary choices), and despite the fact you will leave with a hefty bill when drinks are included, it really does feel like excellent value - there are non-Michelin starred restaurants in the city with more expensive tasting menus whose food isn't at this level. This is boundary-pushing, sometimes head-exploding stuff, and often while eating here we've found ourselves shaking our heads in amazement at how someone's brain even begins coming up with ideas like these. Our 10 courses were a rollercoaster of tastes, textures and striking visual compositions, and there wasn't so much of an instant of boredom or a dish that didn't work, just a succession of wows from beginning to end. If absolutely forced to pick favourites, we'd single out the celeriac, the smoked eel cone, the pork and pineapple and the kaffir lime meringue, but you can see everything we had below in all its glory. Chicken broth with wild peas, cabbage and mushrooms Celeriac cooked on the yakatori grill with sheep's yoghurt, pesto and rosemary powder Pigeon with fermented beetroot and liver Textures of lemon with rapeseed oil Mackerel, sprouting broccoli, kimchi, lardo Feuille de brick with smoked eel, shallot, aged parmesan and fennel pollen Pork, allium, pennywort, pineapple - a riff on Grey's favourite dish from his Chinese take away, pork yuk sung An idea of a mango Rhubarb, kaffir lime, meringue Dark chocolate, preserves, raspberries What about the drinks? Most people at Heron & Grey used to go for the wine pairing, of either six or nine courses, with Andrew Heron showing up at the table throughout the meal with another white or red option once your glass had run dry. Liath is starting off with a six wine pairing for the time being, and there's been no major changes as of yet to the killer wine list, featuring tonnes of interesting wines (lots of them from the minimal intervention canon). We went for the pairing on this occasion and unfortunately a few of them didn't work (despite them all being very good wines in their own right), but we're putting it down to the fact that they'd only gotten into the space 24 hours earlier and didn't have the usual amount of time to painstakingly try each dish with a variety of wines. We're confident that this will sort itself out over the next few weeks once they have time to bed in and get back into their regular routine, but the á la carte list is full of great bottles at non-gouging prices if you want to fly solo. And the service? As poised and professional as always, without the formality that can often hang around Michelin-starred restaurants making everyone a bit uptight. Long-standing floor team member Ailish had slotted into Andrew's old place on the floor when we were there and was typically warm, welcoming and generous of time. The chefs also delivered a couple of plates to the tables, which we love because we get to quiz them on exactly how some of these mind-boggling dishes were born. The verdict? When we heard Grey wanted to make changes to his restaurant, like adding tablecloths, we didn't really get it. We thought it was pretty perfect as it was. But on walking in we realised that by doing what he's done, he's raised the game to a whole new level. This doesn't feel like a sparsely decorated corridor in Blackrock market any more. With the etched glass on the windows, the wooden slats, the black banquettes and the wall of wine, it feels more like Copenhagen or Stockholm than SoCoDub, the type of place that culinary tourists get on a plane for. The food scene in Dublin has never been as vibrant and fast-moving as it is right now, from street food trucks to fine dining, but we've never really had a restaurant to put us on the global culinary map. We only have one two-starred Michelin ( Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud ), haven't had a contender in the World's 50 Best Restaurants since Thornton's was included in 2003, and the main Michelin Instagram account doesn't follow any Irish restaurants and just one Irish chef (Martijn Kajuiter at Michelin-starred House at The Cliff House Hotel ), but things are moving fast, and we can't shake the feeling that Liath could be the one to change the game. We have no doubt that Grey's going to reclaim his star when the 2020 Michelin guide is released in October this year, but it's the very real prospect of a second that's just made things a whole lot more interesting. Liath Blackrock Market, 19a Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin liathrestaurant.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Dax A temple of tradition Posted: 30 Apr 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Dax was opened by Frenchman Olivier Meisonnave in 2004, who wanted to bring a piece of his hometown Dax in Southwest France to a Georgian basement in Dublin. They've had various head chefs over the years, many of whom have gone off to open their own successful restaurants, but Dax got a new lease of life in 2017 when Graham Neville took up the mantle (formerly of Restaurant 41 in the ill-fated Residence private members club on St. Stephen's Green), and after a quick refurb the latest incarnation of Dax had flung open its doors. Since then we've heard it described as the best non-starred restaurant in Dublin (or the country) countless times, by critics and diners alike, and it's a clear favourite amongst industry folk who seem to choose it for their own special occasions, so all of that was enough to convince us to earmark it for a visit. Where should we go for a drink first? If it's a nice evening you could head to the terrace in House on Leeson Street, otherwise the conservatory area in The Grayson (below) is ideal if you want that outside feel without freezing your extremities off. Baggot Street has plenty of good pubs like Toner's and Doheny & Nesbitt's , and if you're after a good glass of wine Ely Wine Bar on Ely Place has just reopened after a makeover. Where should we sit? We liked the luxe feel of the main room where most of the tables are, but there's a narrow corridor-type area behind it if you're looking for more privacy or to engage in more intimate conversation, pulling out an engagement ring, that kind of thing. We really liked the enveloping, cave-like feel of the room, and can imagine it as a fine dining haven on a wet, winter's evening. What's good to eat? There's a choice of à la carte or a five course, no choice menu for €80, which is probably the best way to experience Dax, and what we went for. You can tell them however if there's anything you really don't want from the à la carte, and they'll make sure not to bring it out. It started with really excellent bread and butter, not a scrap of which was left behind, and two amuse-bouches of a parmesan gougère and a St Tola goat's cheese tart - both great but we could have eaten 10 of those tiny, perfectly crisp, ultra-cheesy tarts. Our first course was a Graham Neville (and now Dax) classic, and we can see why. Annagassan salmon from Louth came with Clogherhead crab, apple, capers, Goatsbridge trout caviar, and teenily diced egg white, egg yolk and red onion. As perfect balanced and flavoured a dish as we've had this year, and almost a shame to eat and ruin such a beautiful plate of food. Next came scallops, so precisely cooked, with peas and a lemongrass and ginger emulsion. The Asian flavours, which came as a very happy surprise, were subtle enough to not take over the dish, and the sauce was 'subtly' finished off by spooning it straight into our mouths. The next course was one of the high points of the night - hake in a muscat grape sauce with prawns, cockles and mussels. The fruity, tanginess of the sauce was the perfect counterpoint to the meaty fish cooked in butter, and it was a really stand out, somewhat unusual dish. The penultimate course was Wicklow beef with various vegetables including turnip, beetroot and asparagus. There was no questioning the quality of the beef, which was perfectly cooked and seasoned, but it felt slightly dull based on what had come before, particularly as the final savoury dish. But this is horses for courses, if you're someone who appreciates some quality time with a hunk of meat you'll love it. We don't often say this but the highlight of the meal was probably the last course, which felt like something out of a Parisian salon dedicated to dessert. A base of biscuit was topped with strawberries and vanilla parfait, and encased in a silky white chocolate that the server told us they make with olive oil. It was topped with cream, strawberry, blood orange and meringue, and gratings of an incredibly fragrant citrus fruit, that filled the whole area around the table as soon as the plates were put down. Our server wasn't sure what it was, but some investigation the next day threw up that it was kaffir lime, which doesn't have much juice but a very flavoursome rind. It took a few minutes before we could even bring ourselves to cut into it and ruin such a pretty picture. Death row dessert stuff. We finished with super light strawberries and cream petit fours, and an espresso that we thought was decent until the bill came and saw it was €4.90 for a single shot. In for a penny in for a pound... And the drinks? The wine list is thoughtful and classic with nothing to scare the Bordeaux brigade - this probably isn't somewhere you'll find the stuff of Parisian natural wine bars, but as classic lists go it's excellent. They do a wine pairing for the 5 course menu for €40, which one of us did, and added another couple of glasses. All were very good matches for the dishes, with the sweet Jurançon particularly spell-binding with the dessert (a bit obsessed okay), doing that thing that all great wine pairings do - make the food taste better with it than without it. As extra glasses go their vintage Franciacorta at €13.50 a glass was a brilliant alternative to a) uninteresting prosecco and b) eye-wateringly priced Champagne, and another extra glass of red Burgundy was faultless too. And the service? Celebrity maître d Fred Siriex says you should have had five smiles by the time you sit down in a restaurant, and as soon as we walked in the door we were met with at least three beaming, welcoming faces. Great start. They've managed to strike an impeccable balance of fine dining service without the stuffiness, and staff were as deft at placing plates on the table from the right direction, as they were chatting about their favourite restaurants in the city. But the lingering memory is all of the smiles, and how welcome we were made feel from the moment we walked through the door until we were waved off again, leaving another round of smiling faces behind us. Such a simple thing, but so effective. The verdict? Dax is not somewhere you're going to find small plates, foraging or fermenting. This is classical, French fine dining with little touches of luxury throughout, and that's something they're doing very well. It's also relatively difficult to find this kind of high-end dining experience that also feels so warm and relaxed. This is a pricey night out for most people, comparable to other Michelin-starred prices in the city, so the next time you have an occasion you can justify splurging for, put this near the top of your radar. Alternatively, the next time your parents offer to treat to you dinner, or you have an expense account to lean on, you know where to call. Dax 23 Pembroke Street Upper, Dublin 2 www.dax.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Storyboard Not your average brunch Posted: 1 Oct 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Storyboard opened in Islandbridge, Dublin 8 (near Heuston Station) in 2017 with chef Laura Caulwell (ex- Fumbally ) at the helm, and within months Catherine Cleary in the Irish Times had written that it was the best café food she'd eaten in Ireland. It was already busy, being in a good-food-starved part of the city, but it got busier. Caulwell quietly slipped out the following year, going back to help The Fumbally in their mission of changing school dinners in the The Warrenmount Canteen , but Storyboard continued their trajectory as one of the city's best brunch spots. We love a brunch with a difference and the images on their Instagram feed were causing serious cravings for kimchi pancakes , so we went to see how things were faring two years in. Where should we sit? It feels like a tight squeeze inside when it's busy so if it's in any way sunny we'd be trying to nab an outside table. Otherwise edge your way onto a table of two of four, and there may be a wait at the weekend. There didn't seem to be a queuing system when we got there, and while we got a table quickly we hope they have some way of telling who's first in line. There was a queue but we couldn't tell who was waiting to pay, who was just there for takeaway coffee and who wanted a table. What's good to eat? From the brunch menu we tried two of the Storyboard classics - the kimchi pancakes and the "spuds", and a new kid on the block - 'Beet & Figs' - which turned out to be our favourite. The beetroot and figs come served on a thick slice of Le Levain sourdough toast topped with sumac mascarpone with hibiscus, and lemon tea reduction (almost like a curd), with McNally's mixed leaves. A great and unusual combination of flavours and textures, although we would liked the pieces of beetroot to be a bit less enormous. You also only get one slice of toast for €10.50 so if you're very hungry this might not fill you. The kale kimchi pancakes are a nice savoury rework of a breakfast classic, and we rarely pass up an opportunity to eat the pungent, fermented cabbage in any form. These had a slightly chewy, slightly crumbly texture, and came with perfectly soft scrambled Wicklow free-range eggs on top, as well as sunflower shoots, scallions, house teriyaki sauce and homemade spicy mayo. Maybe we didn't read the menu properly as we were disappointed that the "spuds" was literally just a plate of spuds. They were well cooked with rosemary and salt, but neither the accompanying buffalo sauce, pea purée or minted frisee leaves leaves did much to amplify it much beyond a plate of potatoes. We wishes we'd added two free-range fried eggs or some Gubbeen chorizo from the sides, which probably would have made all the difference, but by itself it felt like an incomplete dish. The price tag of €10.50 added insult to injury. They'd run out of quite a few cakes/treats when we got there (but they'd been restocked by the time we were leaving), so we settled on a chocolate covered peanut butter ball (rugby not soccer), which was dense and extremely peanutty, dipped in excellent dark chocolate - what a snickers wishes it was. Perfect if you have a sweet tooth to satisfy but don't want a full on cake fest. What about the drinks? Coffee is excellent, as you would expect, and they had both Imbibe and Bonanza Coffee Roasters in stock when we were there. Other drinks are very limited, and if you were hoping for something other than kombucha, ginger fizz or sparkling water you'll be disappointed. And the service? Chaotic. They really seemed as if they needed more staff. We were passed several times while trying to figure out if there was a queue for seats without being acknowledged, and had to almost walk out in front of someone to get their attention to ask. They were very nice, but some seemed addled, others too relaxed. Once we did sit down we waited 25 minutes for a flat white to arrive, having asked after it three times, and watch customer after customer leave with takeaway cups in their hands. They took it off the bill but it's hard to recover from a start like that. The verdict? Storyboard is still one of Dublin's most interesting places for brunch, with an ever evolving menu and a thoughtful use of Irish produce. If you favour peaceful weekends you might want to get in early and hopefully beat the rush, but if you're not in a hurry and like a bit of buzz it's probably right up your street. A walk in the Phoneix park afterwards should help you work up an appetite for lunch. Storyboard Clancy Quay, Islandbridge, Dublin 8 storyboardcoffee.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Did we even smash before Dash? Get into a heated debate about Dublin's best burger with anyone in the city and Dash will top the list again and again. Double and triple smash burgers, chicken tendies, fries and sauces make up a simple menu that needs nothing else. Dash Burger Aungier Street Website dashburger.ie Address Unit 2, College Court, 6-11 Kevin Street Lower, Portobello, Dublin 8 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Did we even smash before Dash? Get into a heated debate about Dublin's best burger with anyone in the city and Dash will top the list again and again. Double and triple smash burgers, chicken tendies, fries and sauces make up a simple menu that needs nothing else. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Specialty café and bakery Flower & Bean was opened by couple Gregory (the coffee expert) and Marta (the cake Queen), and very quickly gained a cult following for their colourful counter creations, and weekend doughnut specials. They're particularly child and dog friendly, with a play area for smaller visitors, and coffee standards are unfailingly high. Flower & Bean Website flowerandbean.com Address Flower & Bean, 113 Cork Street, Saint Catherine's, Dublin 8 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Specialty café and bakery Flower & Bean was opened by couple Gregory (the coffee expert) and Marta (the cake Queen), and very quickly gained a cult following for their colourful counter creations, and weekend doughnut specials. They're particularly child and dog friendly, with a play area for smaller visitors, and coffee standards are unfailingly high. Where It's At Nearby Locales

If you've never tried a Southern Indian crispy pancake made from fermented rice and lentil batter, and dipped into coconut, fresh herb and tomato chutneys, get thee to Dosa Dosa for the best in the city. Apart from their namesake, you can (and should) also order kathi rolls, parotta and vada (like pillowy, fragrant Indian doughnuts), with a mango lassi to wash it all down. They have a second truck at Hynes Bar in Stoneybatter, and the only regret you'll have after visiting either is that you didn't go sooner. Dosa Dosa Grand Canal Website dosadosa.ie Address Albert Court East, Grand Canal Street Lower, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story If you've never tried a Southern Indian crispy pancake made from fermented rice and lentil batter, and dipped into coconut, fresh herb and tomato chutneys, get thee to Dosa Dosa for the best in the city. Apart from their namesake, you can (and should) also order kathi rolls, parotta and vada (like pillowy, fragrant Indian doughnuts), with a mango lassi to wash it all down. They have a second truck at Hynes Bar in Stoneybatter, and the only regret you'll have after visiting either is that you didn't go sooner. Where It's At Nearby Locales

One of the original Dublin gastropubs. Irish produce prepared and cooked beautifully, an eye-poppingly large craft beer selection and a lot of gin. They also have a 'better than your average pub' wine list and a great choice of non-alcoholic drinks for the drivers, teetotallers or under 18s. L Mulligan Grocer Website lmulligangrocer.com Address 18 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story One of the original Dublin gastropubs. Irish produce prepared and cooked beautifully, an eye-poppingly large craft beer selection and a lot of gin. They also have a 'better than your average pub' wine list and a great choice of non-alcoholic drinks for the drivers, teetotallers or under 18s. Where It's At Nearby Locales

This ultra-charming Brazilian café in Temple Bar is like a chink of sunlight in a land of twee music and over-priced pints. Run by an Irish/Brazilian couple, you’ll find chewy tapioca wraps filled with Brazilian sausage and Irish cheese, bright and beautiful açaí bowls, and Brazilian snacks like pão de queijo and chicken coxinhas, all delivered by beaming staff who make you feel like you’re being welcomed into their home. The homemade cakes and multi-flavoured brigadeiros are a reason to visit on their own. Toca Tapioca Website tocatapioca.com Address 49 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story This ultra-charming Brazilian café in Temple Bar is like a chink of sunlight in a land of twee music and over-priced pints. Run by an Irish/Brazilian couple, you’ll find chewy tapioca wraps filled with Brazilian sausage and Irish cheese, bright and beautiful açaí bowls, and Brazilian snacks like pão de queijo and chicken coxinhas, all delivered by beaming staff who make you feel like you’re being welcomed into their home. The homemade cakes and multi-flavoured brigadeiros are a reason to visit on their own. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Chapter One By Mickael Viljanen - The Tasting Menu Chapter One's tasting menu - Is it worth €170? Posted: 4 May 2022 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope Why are you reviewing Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen again? Deftly spotted. We came here back in September shortly after they opened to try the €65 lunch menu (which we said you DESERVE to treat yourself to), but this time we went full steam ahead with the dinner tasting menu. This review wasn't planned, but as the plates started coming out, we realised you also deserved to hear about this one. We're not going to run through the background on everything again as you can read that here - this is purely about the tasting menu and whether it's worth the serious splurge. €170 a head on food is mad money to most people, and there are probably members of your family who would think you'd lost the plot handing that over for dinner, but if you're reading this you're probably of a different disposition, and while it's still a considerable chunk of change, most of us would probably spend it if it was going to be worth it. So is it? What's the story with the tasting menu? You can do it at lunch or at dinner. Lunch is a "surprise" tasting menu for €135. At dinner you actually see what you're getting for €170, and we always like to know what's coming - half the fun is in the anticipation. There's a wine pairing for €105 a head, or a "sommelier's selection" for €280 a head. More on those later. We recommend a cocktail or a glass of Champagne in the lovely bar area while you pour over what's going to come over the next 3-4 hours. Can we get down to the good stuff already? Sure. You'll start with canapés, four or five depending on the day and what the chef has dreamt up the night before when he should have been sleeping. The iconic (zero exaggeration) first bite of borscht has morphed into a pea soup in that cocoa butter shell, with jamon iberico on top. You know that really annoying critic phrase when they say something tasted "intensely of itself"? That. These were peas on overload. Then a Flaggy Shore oyster tart, in the crispest shell, with all of the oyster flavour, none of the slime. Next the chef brought out a bowl with a blow-torched piece of red mullet sitting in it, and a teapot of 'Aigo Sau', which is like a clarified bouillabaisse. In it went on top, with instructions to leave it for approximately eight seconds and it would be perfectly cooked - cue the longest eight seconds of your life, with an outrageously good payoff. There was also a crunchy, punchy celeriac and preserved lemon 'taco', a variation of which has been on from the start. "Siri, show me hedonism in food form." "How about this fried brioche stuffed with crème fraîche and pike roe, with caviar and edible gold leaf on top?" You could get up and leave after this indecent doughnut and not regret a cent spent. The first 'proper' course of six was a new spin on the chef's famous Foie Gras Royale. A base of custardy foie came with a fragrant, soft camomile jelly, a sharp verjus sorbet, cubes of eel, raisins, edible flowers and other lovely things with clearly alchemical properties. Spoons were dipped, and the conversation went something like: "Oh my God. OH my God. Oh my GOD." "I'm sorry, I can't even hear what you're saying." It's quite possible there was divine intervention on this one. This came with the first bread course (of three) - laminated treacle and Guinness brioche, which is also on the lunch menu and which we've rhapsodized about before . You think you've peaked with the foie, then the hand-dived scallop ceviche comes out, with crème fraîche, horseradish, elderflower vinegar and jalapeño. It's difficult to comprehend how someone can use so many assertive flavours so beautifully balanced, and keep the flavour of every element so vivid, so prepare to spend much of this dish just staring down at your plate and back at your dining partner, with your nose and mouth on sensory overload, and your head hurting from trying to take it all in. Another bread course? If you insist. This time a Japanese milk bread so fluffy you can just pull it apart with your fingers. It doesn't need the perfect butter, but when on Parnell Square... At this stage you'll probably be somewhere between total euphoria and adrenaline surging anticipation for what's to come next. For us it was BBQ Donegal lobster with kari gosse (a curry spice mix), carrot, finger lime, lobster rice and lobster sauce. There are more elements than even this, and when the chef brought the plates he muttered something about cocoa beans/shells, and the caviar and red currants weren't mentioned in the description either. We're guessing that if you put every single part of each dish on the menu it would run to several pages. There's something so joyful about a locally caught lobster and chips, but this is the diametric - lobster the way Kings and Queens might eat it, if they had a mastermind like this in the kitchen (they don't). It's peak lobster, with flavours and textures coming at you from every angle, and you might never have better. And we haven't even mentioned the lobster rice - rich, creamy, fragrant with saffron, and stuffed full of lobster pieces, each dip of your spoon uncovering more treasure. After that it was the other 'main', milk-fed Lozère lamb 'Provençal', with anchovy, ewe's milk and jus gras (like a light gravy). To 'whet your appetite' a tiny lamb-filled doughnut is brought over with a splodge of foie gras to scoop up onto it. After doing what you're told and feeling the flavour of lamb from your head right down to your toes, the main attraction arrives, all sitting under a sweet, dehydrated red pepper cape. Under this lies the pale, milky lamb, asparagus and artichoke, and where previously we would have been up on rooftops shouting that Irish lamb is the best, now we're not so sure. The flavour is delicate and grassy, the meat butter-soft, and as ever in this kitchen, every element around it has a perfect part to play. Oh there's also another bread course here, the house sourdough. You won't need it, but you'll greedily eat it. You'll likely be pretty full by now, so it's definitely time for a pre-dessert. Ours was a mousse laitière (dairy mousse), filled with kombu and citrus and made to look like a clementine or mandarin. The balance between sharpness and creaminess was just right, and it was as beautiful to look at as it was to eat, as well as being an excellent palate-reviver. Then the dessert, 'Tiramisu, Cumin', but there are no trays of mascarpone topped lady fingers around here. It starts with another cocoa butter shell filled with unsweetened coffee, which bursts open in your mouth getting it ready for what's to come, then something resembling a mini-Saturn is put in front of you, and it's hard to ruin the effect, but you must or it will melt. Chocolate, coffee and cream abound, but we didn't get any cumin. It wasn't missed. Lucky for us, we had a coffee hater in the ranks, so the lovely staff offered to substitute the dessert from the four-course menu instead - wild and cultivated strawberries, violet and chartreuse. A picture perfect, bright red ring cracked open to reveal a kind of vivid-tasting strawberry mousse on top of a biscuit base, with a side of violet ice-cream on top of chartreuse jelly. The strawberries don't stop there though. Who doesn't love a dessert in two parts, and we may have gasped when a trolley holding strawberry croissant tarts with edible gold trundled towards us. Staff described it as "breakfast in bed", and it was such a fun (and utterly delicious) addition to the menu, the plump, ripe strawberries cutting through the vanilla crème fraîche and buttery pastry. Shamefully we never took a picture of the petit fours but you'll get three little bites to finish, usually a fruit and two chocolate-based ones. They go perfect with an Irish coffee from another of their famous trolleys. Should I do the wine pairing? If €170 for dinner is a scrimp and save affair, the wine pairing at €105 might push Chapter One into "no can do" territory, so here's our advice. Look at what they're pairing, get one glass for each course and share them. Six - eight glasses of wine and most people would be on their ear anyway, and you need to keep units for an Irish coffee at the end. That will half your wine spend (in or around) and make the bill marginally less painful. If you've got the dough to throw around by all means go for it, but the wine service will be just as attentive whether you're doing the pairing or going à la carte. And the damage? *Deep breaths* - Just under €500 for two, for drinks on arrival, the tasting menu and à la carte wines pairings, and a tip is not included in that. If you do the full wine pairing each it'll be closer to €600. This is a mammoth spend for dinner for most people, and undoubtedly there will be members of your family you will never admit it to, but compared to the tasting menus at Ireland's other two-star restaurants (Aimsir - €210, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud - €225), dare we say it feels like decent value? *waits for rocks to be thrown* The verdict? Is coming here for the two-starred tasting menu a lot of money? Yes. Is it more than most people would ever comprehend spending on a meal out? Also yes. Are we and the average ATF reader most people? No. This experience is not likely to be a regular one in your life (and if it is give us a call, we'd like to be friends). This is an anniversary indulgence, a birthday blowout, a yearly Odyssey through Mickael Viljanen's head, and while we've had many, many disappointing meals in Michelin-starred restaurants for way too much money, feeling sore and stung for weeks afterwards, this is not the story here. This is a tasting menu we want to throw all of our money at, that we feel hashtag blessed to have experienced, and getting a first row seat to the genius taking place within these basement walls might be the best dining experience in the country right now. Is it worth the money? Yes, a hundred times yes, and if you can't face spending it right now, try to get a table at some point this year for that €65 lunch - we guarantee you'll be back. Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen 18-19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 chapteronerestaurant.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Tables at Liath were already some of the hardest to get in Dublin, and Michelin awarding them a second star in the 2022 hasn't helped things. They got their first star as Heron & Grey in 2016, but when owner Andrew Heron departed two years later, owner/chef Damien Grey announced a name change to 'Liath' - 'grey' in Irish, and took things up a gear. Reservations open two months in advance and you’ll need to be primed and ready to get a table. Liath Website liathrestaurant.com Address Blackrock Market, 19A Main St, Blackrock, Co. Dublin Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Tables at Liath were already some of the hardest to get in Dublin, and Michelin awarding them a second star in the 2022 hasn't helped things. They got their first star as Heron & Grey in 2016, but when owner Andrew Heron departed two years later, owner/chef Damien Grey announced a name change to 'Liath' - 'grey' in Irish, and took things up a gear. Reservations open two months in advance and you’ll need to be primed and ready to get a table. Where It's At Nearby Locales

Madame Pho The Belfast-born Vietnamese chain is expanding rapidly, but it needs a Pho-King rethink Posted: 29 Oct 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Madame Pho? Established in Belfast in 2020 by a second-generation restaurateur, Vietnamese street food chain Madame Pho has seen explosive growth since its sale to new management last year, with four new openings in the North of Ireland in the space of just six weeks – a manic pace by any standard. Not content with keeping that many plates spinning, they’ve now begun an incursion south of the border, slipping into the Exchequer Street spot vacated by Ukiyo’s recent shock closure . Their livery can also be seen on the Thomas Street Boojum that’s lain idle since lockdown, due to open before the end of the year, with the sheer speed of scooping up long-term dormancies and high-profile casualties showing the surplus of ambition here. Where should we sit? The layout isn’t wildly different to what was there in Ukiyo, with the ground floor bar scaled-back to make room for a few additional two-tops on the floor. A fresh lick of paint, wood wall panelling, and Vietnamese light fixtures and décor join colourful new chairs and banquettes for a casual reinvention of the space that’s fresh but familiar. The basement level is a bit more lavishly appointed, with a less crowded layout and more upmarket banquettes retained from the previous tenant – we’d bet on this space getting a lot more use in the evenings. The wraparound booth tucked in the corner has to be our top pick if you’re in with a crowd. What’s on the menu? We got stuck straight in with the Vietnamese mainstay gỏi cuốn (summer rolls), plump parcels of rice paper-wrapped prawns, vermicelli and shredded veg. With a fair serving of fat prawns and a pleasant tang of pickled daikon, these are a strong start and a solid option for a quick snack on the go. Peanut sauce on the side isn’t our top pick for pairing at the best of times, but all the less with the one-note flavours of this version. It makes more sense, if equally little impact, with their chicken skewers. The menu lists these chargrilled chunks as satay-marinated but until we dipped in the sauce there wasn’t the slightest taste of peanut. Or, on that note, much to taste at all – under-seasoned and over-cooked, they were a bland block of middling meat with neither the fatty flavour nor crisp coating we’d expect. Wings were a massive improvement - tender, juicy meat basking in a sticky-sweet caramelised glaze for a showcase of all the skewers are not. The umami-rich tang of fish sauce is balanced with sugar and soy, with garlic and chilli bringing more assertive flavour. The little side serving of sriracha mayo will satisfy those seeking a more prominent kick, but it's a glaze that needs no adding to as far as we and our licked-clean fingers are concerned. The bánh mì marks a major bump in the road, with Madame Pho’s take on maybe Vietnam’s most famous street food staple not likely to have anyone booking a flight. The new owners have said they’ll be shipping their baguettes from Belfast until they find a suitable substitute down south, but short of cheaper prices up north we couldn’t detect anything in this basic bread worth importing – Dunnes across the road does them just as well. We’d believe you if you told us the “Vietnamese ham” came from there too, with little to note in the paltry pink slices. BBQ crispy pork neck has been pummelled to a thin, tough texture, with the coating joining the chicken skewers in the gravely under-seasoned stakes. We’d forgive some of this in a cheap and cheerful lunch joint; at €14 it’s a big misfire. The curry makes for a modest return to form, a substantial serving that’s creamy and rich with coconut milk and mild spice, studded with your choice of meat or veg. We went with roast duck and found more favour in the thin, tasty breast slices than the chunkier cuts, more flavour needing to be rendered from the fat. Still, the sum total worked well, with coriander and lemongrass lending a freshness and balance to the bowl. You could do a lot worse. Just how much worse we soon sampled, as we slurped up the broth from the Pho King and almost let it spill right back into the bowl. The menu talks a great game of deep sweetness and fragrant flavour derived from an eight-hour simmer, but perhaps they forgot to flick on the heat – this was as bland as it gets, less bone and marrow than… water and water. Short of the rich depth of a proper broth, the four kinds of meat are left to carry the can and they are, putting it mildly, not up to the task. With no hint of suppliers or provenance across their menus or sites, it's safe to assume Madame Pho isn't working with Ireland's best produce. Sliced beef hasn’t a trace of the medium rarity claimed, from-frozen meatballs have a denseness that’s deeply off-putting, chicken chunks are of a chewiness we’d sooner starve than relive, while more of those fat, farmed prawns practically come off as gourmet by contrast. We started to eat the side of sliced chilli by itself just to feel something, and left the bowl behind. Pho, the menu explains for those not in the know, is pronounced in Vietnam as “fuh” – we think this dish needs a Pho-King rethink. What are the drinks like? Vietnamese-style coffee is a big part of the pitch and happily more successful than some of the efforts elsewhere. Our iced black offering, drip filtered over a thick layer of condensed milk, was deeply tasty, and these are likely to sell well. Cocktails are an effort to parlay fast food vibes to a slower, more spenny atmosphere come evening – the relatively keen pricing at just under a tenner a pop should do a solid job. The Pho Signature we sampled was decidedly fruit-forward, with apple and passionfruit bringing a leading sweetness to hide any real trace of vodka or lime. Four Asian beer options and a short but sweetly-priced wine bottle list won’t rock the boat for anyone. How was the service? Like lightning – we were seated and served so quick we’d barely got our coats off by the time the food arrived. This is a machine well-oiled and well-intent on turning tables over as quick as it can. That’s not to say there’s any sense of being rushed, though the onslaught of food could leave you scoffing your starters for fear the curry will go cold. Textbook brand expansion is on full display, with a few Northern accents on the floor a sure sign that experienced staff from across the business have been parachuted in to see the new opening over the line. It’s all very slick, smooth and served with a smile. And the damage? Madame Pho’s owners have noted the far higher cost of doing business down south, with overheads running anything from 20 to 50% above what they’re dealing with in Belfast. It was a pleasant surprise then to see coffees and starters running in and around the same price both sides of the border. It’s a pretty good deal. That’s not a theme that holds up across the mains, alas, with the banh mis, phos and curries clearly making up the margins. Substantial mains will see you starting off at €18, while the cheapest banh mi comes in at €11. That makes for street food speed at sit-down spend, with the wildly varying quality making for occasionally very bad value. What’s the verdict on Madame Pho? Badly dropping the ball on your namesake dish is a very big stumble to recover from, and the Dublin debut of Madame Pho is already clocking up the sceptical user reviews to show it. There’s a lot of good will going for the OG Belfast branches, but everywhere we looked here we saw creaking signs of an overly cynical effort to cash in on a big brand name acquisition under this new management. Part of the case they’ve set out for expansion to these parts is a relative lack of competition in the Vietnamese food space, but what’s true in quantity isn’t at all in quality. At a ten minute stroll across the Liffey, Capel Street’s Aobaba is the one to beat at a far lower price point, with honourable mentions for Pho Kim and Pho Ta – Madame Pho isn’t just not in the same league, it’s not even playing the same sport. Even up against less established players in the market it falters, with Little Geno ’s bánh mì head and shoulders above for a full three euro less. The real USP Madame Pho offers is quick and cheerful service with enough space that you’re near-guaranteed a walk-in seat. In a city with restaurants that are often heaving and booked out weeks in advance, that might be enough to keep a hold of this corner for now, but it’s not likely to generate the same affection and repeat custom. There is much more of the business of food here than the pleasure, and maybe that's a sad sign of the times. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Part of a new wave of coffee shop by day, wine bar by night openings, Two Faced's tagline is "we never close". The basic kitchen area is more for assembly than cooking, but there's plenty of cheese, meat and conservas (tinned fish) to keep you sated while you drive into the wide-ranging wine list. The central counter has a DJ booth at the end so the volume can be more "bar" than "wine bar", and the tables outside will be in high demand during warmer weather. Two Faced Website instagram.com/twofaceddublin Address Two Faced, Montague Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Part of a new wave of coffee shop by day, wine bar by night openings, Two Faced's tagline is "we never close". The basic kitchen area is more for assembly than cooking, but there's plenty of cheese, meat and conservas (tinned fish) to keep you sated while you drive into the wide-ranging wine list. The central counter has a DJ booth at the end so the volume can be more "bar" than "wine bar", and the tables outside will be in high demand during warmer weather. Where It's At Nearby Locales