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The Legal Eagle An old favourite takes flight again with sizeable Sunday roasts and a great wine list Posted: 14 Nov 2023 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What’s the story with The Legal Eagle? Despite a couple of stuttered mid-covid re-openings and a handful of popups, we’d started to worry The Legal Eagle might be destined to go down as one of the more high-profile pandemic casualties as its doors remained closed well into this year. But fear not, the once and future hot spot gastropub recently took flight again with a revamped menu and a return to its famed Sunday roast offering. Our Insiders are forever asking us where to get a really great feed of a Sunday lunch – could we have a new easy answer? Where should we sit? Nigh-on four years since the Eagle last opened its doors for any real length of time, stepping into its mahogany and exposed brick interior brings as much of a sense of nostalgia as the unmistakable smell of roast meat and veg in the air. If you’re looking for old reliable comforts, the heady whiff seems to say, you’ve come to the right place. The leather sofa seating lining the walls is where you want to find yourself here – there’s just not the same satisfaction of leaning back stuffed in a hard-backed wooden dining chair or, heaven forbid, a high stool. What’s on the menu? The revamped menu keeps the classic Irish gastropub vibe – all the lamb stew, coddle, and chowder you could want on the lunch menu – with a higher-end twist through its focus on meat and veg provenance and a tilt toward the western Mediterranean, especially across the smaller plates. Most of the dinner menu is available at Sunday lunchtime for those of us whose eyes are bigger than our bellies, with the large plates’ sides swapped out for all your typical trimmings. You’ll be steered to snacks and small plates, if you’re so inclined, as your server advises it’s a twenty minute or so wait for the roasts – don’t mind if we do. Homemade crisps are a reliable favourite from plenty of prior visits and are like an embrace from an old friend, with the salty-sharp slap of bacon and cheese dust. Marinated Gordal olives are glistening with oil and gloriously meaty, generous in number and giant in size – there’s plenty here to keep a full table happy. Conscious of the heaped plates of roast we’d passed en route to our table, we heroically held ourselves back from over-ordering and stuck to two of the more modest small plates. Pan con tomate pairs chewy, airy slices of house focaccia with salty, garlicky puréed tomato. The bread’s a delight, golden crust and soft, stretched crumb the perfect host for the tangy tomato, especially as alternating with olives and crisps we found the salt in it a little overbearing. The trio were each great in isolation, but all together left us a bit parched. Seared tuna tostada might not quite fit the Sunday roast brief, but trust us here: this is a detour worth taking, and a fine showcase of the Eagle’s new lease of life. The crisp tortilla and firm-fleshed tuna make for a wildly satisfying small bite, with the sweetness of avocado puree and punch of pickled carrot and togarashi pepper making every morsel a moreish treat. Hold back a little focaccia to mop up every last blob of sriracha mayo, if you can. And so to the main event, even with that hard act to follow. There are three choices for the classic roast plate, with whole-roasted fish and courgette options there to cater to pescetarian and veggie tastes – neither gets the full trimmings. The Black Angus striploin is two thin slices of rare beef just glistening with juices - it’s tender, fatty, flavourful stuff. Wafer-thin slicing gives the meat a texture we wouldn’t see lost to thicker cuts, but a third slice here wouldn’t go amiss. Wood-fired half chicken feels more substantial by contrast with its meat oozing juice, and the black, blistered skin’s crackle – classic comfort food. Root veg are the star of the show where sides are concerned, with slivers of honey-roast carrot and parsnip bringing sweet and earthy tones to the plate, and a carrot purée dissolving into the gravy for an endlessly rich sauce you’ll slather on every forkful. Stuffing and Yorkshire puds are spot-on in their simple satisfactions, but the roasties make for a disappointing damp squib with a softened crisp shell and over-dry interior that bear all the tell-tale signs of having been kept warm. There is no substitute for oven-fresh, and no sorrow like good spuds spoiled. What are the drinks like? A solid if smallish craft beer selection on draught should keep most happy, even if Guinness as the priciest pull here had us scratching our heads. We stuck with the similarly small and serviceable list of wines by the glass – the light acidity of the Azevedo Alvarino was a welcome balm from the mouth-puckering saltiness of those first few plates, while the Coquard Beaujolais 69’s red fruits and low tannins came to life with the beef. The top tip here is to bring some friends and dive into the bottles, an unusually exciting list for a pub, and one running lower margins than some of the competition around town on standouts like Preisinger's 'Puszta Libre' and Ponce's 'Reto'. How was the service? Happy and helpful – that little nudge on small plates feels more like a friendly FYI than an opportunity to upsell, and we really appreciated a little extra jug of gravy brought over to the table after the plates arrived, “so you don’t have to ask in a minute”. You’ll be well looked after here, but note they expect to be busy on Sundays so table times are kept strictly at a two-hour turnaround – no latecomers or lingering. And the damage? €115 for two each of snacks, small plates, roasts and a glass of wine with 10% tip automatically added. There is more than enough here in the main event to sate you, especially for lunch, so in and around €30 a head is more like what you can expect if not drinking. As Sunday roast prices around the city go, it's on the higher side - their beef roast is €27 in comparison to FX Buckley at €22.50, Hawksmoor at €23, and The Old Spot at €28. What’s the verdict on The Legal Eagle? Every bit a return to form, The Legal Eagle has landed again with a welcome mix of old favourites and new flutters that should satisfy fans of yore and newcomers alike. If there’s an occasional slight touch of the production line to things here, it’s one easily forgiven in the high calibre food and great value wine on offer. Taken together with the warm, welcoming vibe of the staff and space here, there’s all the makings of a classically comforting Sunday lunch. Except the roasties. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Hakkahan The Man from Hakka comes to the 'Batter Posted: 12 Oct 2021 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Every now and then a new restaurant opens with no website, and no information (like pesky menus and openings hours) on their social media channels, and generally this is when our eagle-eyed readers slide into our DMs looking for the scéal. This is what happened in June when brightly coloured Hakkahan opened on Stoneybatter's main street, and other than a menu in the window potential diners had little to go off, but those brave enough to venture in sight unseen seemed to be leaving very happy. Hakkahan means "the man from Hakka" (where owner Ryon Wen is from), but head chef Terry Yang is from the Sichaun province, and they describe the food here as "purely Sichuan". This may be disappointing to anyone who knows their way around Chinese cuisines and who was expecting traditional Hakka dishes like salt-baked chicken or yam abacus - they say it's extremely difficult to find a chef from the region in Ireland. Yang previously worked at China Sichuan and Mak at D6, and we were immediately impressed by their declaration of wanting to use the best local ingredients in their dishes. Where should we sit? Indoor tables are aligned against one wall, but there is more space at the back that presumably could be filled if things get busier. If you're still a bit Covid-cautious the outdoor tables are fine with the umbrellas up (they come down in windy conditions), although it does feel a bit treacherous to have your back to the traffic whipping up and down the road. You certainly wouldn't want to leave your bag at your feet - but that goes for all outdoor dining. What's the food like? Menus with too many dishes make us feel confused, indecisive, and like we're missing out on something, so we like Hakkahan's relatively concise menu, with 'house dumplings', 'small chow', mains and sides. Also, they had us at the whole section for dumplings. There's not much provenance information on the menu but they told us that duck is from Silverhill, chicken is free-range from Manor Farm, meats are from FX Buckley, and fresh fish is delivered each morning from Every Day Seafood. Most of their organic vegetables come from The Green Grocer next door, and at these prices, putting this much care into sourcing deserves a bualadh bos. Of the six dumplings on the menu we tried three, and 100% would eat again. The scallop with yuzu soya sauce gained points for having proper juicy pieces of scallop in there, and lost points for having an ever so slightly slimy texture inside. The wrappers are thick but we didn't mind, it gave them more of a chew, and we liked the uneven, handmade quality of them. We enjoyed the roast duck with hoisin sauce a lot (a crispy pancake in dumpling form), but our favourites were the beef siu mai, which were crispy and chewy in every bite - we're guessing some deep-frying may have been involved here, and wouldn't change a thing. From the small chow we're still obsessively thinking about the salt and pepper fresh squid (note the used of the word fresh). Tender squid, a perfectly thin non-greasy batter, crunchy onions, scallions, chillies - it's the version of this dish you wish your local Chinese did, but they don't. Sourdough prawn toast was another exemplary version of an all too often annihilated dish, with big chunks of prawns, crispy edges and yuzu mayonnaise for dipping. Pork yuk sung is another dish that's all too often given a bad name by a greasy Chinese, but the one at Hakkahan is a world away, with fresh lettuce cups, fragrant pork and crispy rice noodles underneath. It has a decent amount of heat but nothing that will blow your head off, but we did find ours quite salty. For a kick in the tastebuds, the Pai Huang Gua (spicy smashed cucumber) will numb your mouth and have you asking for a water refill, but you'll still keep eating it. There's garlic, sesame seeds, chilli oil and a lot of fresh chillies in here, and if you're a spice fiend don't miss this. For mains we really wanted to try the black pepper short rib of beef, with ginger, garlic, onion, porcini mushrooms and chilies, but they'd run out. Devastating, but also a sign of freshness - if you try it let us know if it tastes as good as it sounds. We'd seen many a post about the Silverhill basil duck with scallions, garlic and chillies, and this is a must-try when you visit. Silverhill is amongst the best duck being reared in the country, and the very generous portion of tender, crispy meat with perfumed Thai basil, crunchy onions and chillis will bring us back to Stoneybatter again. We also tried the Mala spicy lamb, which had the first notable signs of those lip-numbing Sichuan peppercorns. This was a bit of a table splitter. The flavours were deep and the lamb delicious, but there was a lot of oil and gloop as it sat, which may put some people off. Nice to try, probably wouldn't reorder. For sides we went with steamed rice and Chinese scallion bread, the latter of which we were so interested to try but was a bit of a disappointment, the pancakes being hard and overly chewy, as if they'd been cooked earlier and reheated. Maybe it was a one off, as we've seen other people praising them online. They also do fried rice with pork char siu and vegetables, and stir-fried noodles, and sides are free with mains at lunchtime every day, which is incredible value considering how well priced the food is already. There's only one dessert - hand-made Nutella rice balls (mochi) with vanilla ice-cream. It does the job and the mochi themselves are very good, but we're perplexed at how many Asian restaurants feel the need to jam Nutella into dessert, unless there's a big cocoa and hazelnut factory in Sichuan province that we're not aware of. We would have much prepared mochi filled with something fruit based and less cloying, but younger diners will probably eat their basil duck quicker knowing this is at the end. What about the drinks? It's a constant source of head scratching that the majority of Asian restaurants don't put more effort into their drinks list. Surely it's as important a source of income for them as it is for other restaurants? The offering here is predictably humdrum, with "house white", "house red", "rose" and "prosecco". Hard pass. They have said that they're expanding their wine list shortly and bringing a few more suppliers on board, so we hope there will be something to entice us next time. And the service? Friendly if a little restrained. The outside tables definitely had to do a bit more waving to get a menu/order food and drinks/ask for the bill, but that was most probably down to there being only one server for the whole restaurant. And the damage? Lunch for three (with no drinks) came to the bargain price of €60, but two sides were free because of the lunch deal. They don't do takeaway because the chef wants his food to be eaten fresh (respect), but they will give you containers for any leftovers. The verdict? Hakkahan is not in the same bracket as your local Chinese, it's a serious cut above. The food is fresh, the provenance is admirable, and you'll feel more invigorated than inactive after eating it. Bring a gang, over order, eat all the food, leave feeling great about life. Hakkahan 32 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 www.instagram.com/hakkahan_dublin New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Floritz All the style, with the substance to back it up Posted: 24 Jun 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What should we know about Floritz? It's the floral wallpaper-filled, velvet booth-lined, Asian influenced, all the notions new restaurant, in the building that used to be Cliff Townhouse, but is now home to newly opened boutique hotel Townhouse on the Green . The new landlords also own The Fitzwilliam Hotel across the Green, and The Bailey around the corner, and the basement level wine bar Cellar 22 opened last November, in the space where seafood wine bar Urchin used to be (read our review of that here ). The head chef at Floritz, Matt Fuller, was most recently at Suesey Street , but he's probably best known for his Spanish restaurant Boqueria , which gained a name in Stoneybatter, moved to a bigger location in Howth, then closed the year after. He also has a relationship with The Fitzwilliam Hotel owners that goes way back - in another lifetime he was head chef at Citron, the hotel's restaurant before Glover's Alley . Check out this absolute stunner of a blast from the past. Floritz's website describes it as " an invitation to travel far, far away without leaving this dramatic dining-room", and there's a whole narrative about how the man who build this house was an adventurer who travelled to India and the Far East to seek his fortune, and how you could stick him in here now with a lamb bao and he'd be right at home. They call it "a room to see, and be seen in" , so we had to go and see didn't we. Where should we sit? It's all very glam, very comfortable, and very brightly coloured. The money seats are the ones inside the windows at the front, over-looking St Stephen's Green, with all that lovely natural light streaming onto mulberry-coloured velvet banquettes. There's an argument for the more private booths in the centre across from the bar, if you're having an intimate kind of night, and want to feel like you're in your own personal space. There's a third section up some steps at the back which looks like the ideal place for bigger groups, or even a semi-private dining space. What's on the menu? They describe the food as having "global influences", but really it's Asia. The menu is very long , with sections for "crudo", "kitori grill", "sushi", "bowls", "tempura", and a full homage to Irish Wagyu steak, with sirloins and rib-eyes priced at €50 per 100g (€100-€200 per steak). While the length of the menu, with its ever more compelling-sounding dishes, might make choosing a drawn-out affair, it does mean that everyone coming in will be catered for, and there's countless reasons to come back. Enjoy your warm hand towel while you debate. There are 10 "kitori grill" skewers, priced from €6.50 for Globe Artichoke to €15.50 for compressed halibut. The Dublin Bay Prawns with a majada crumb felt like robbery when it arrived with two prawns for €13.50, but one bite into the sweet, smoky seafood with its paprika crumb, dipped in a milky, umami-filled whey dipping sauce, and we couldn't have cared less about the price tag. Another of aged beef rump with truffle tare (€9.50) comes with a "black pepper crème brûlée" that we were fully expecting to take the piss out of - instead we just keep trying to scoop up more of that creamy, peppery sauce with that sweet, tender meat. It's more of a rich aioli, and nothing like the crunchy sugar-topped dessert - but again, we don't care. On the crudo section there are six choices for raw fish dressed in various combinations of salt, fat and acid, right up to an o-toro (belly) tuna tartare with Oscietra caviar for €69. Our pockets aren't that deep so it was yellowtail with jalapeño (€18 for five pieces), and zero regrets - there was lip-smacking, spoon scooping and minute cutting to make it last a little bit longer. That balance - bang on. Then to sushi, with nigiri, hosomaki and sashimi. It's all ambitiously priced, with Nigiri €10 - €18 for two pieces, and the option of a 9-piece sashimi selection for €70. We slummed it with a couple of pieces of tuna chūtoro nigiri for €14 (a medium fatty cutty from the belly), and while we've never paid this much for nigiri in Dublin before, we've also never had tuna of this quality here before. 10/10 would hand over that cash again. We skipped the bowls and soup fearing we wouldn't be able for much else, and went to the bao for duck with leek, koji and hash brown (€18 for two). While again there's poetic licence on the loose (it's more potato straw than hash brown), this is a juicy, meat feast, enclosed in homemade bao buns - we hear the lamb is also excellent. From the chef's specials, the miso roast black cod with preserved red onion was incorrectly priced on the menu, and once we found out it was €25 and not €43, it became more appealing. Black cod (sablefish) is no relation to cod, with flesh that's fatty and velvety, as opposed to firm, lean, white and flaky. When our waiter brought the dish he advised us not to eat the skin - this is bad advice, it might be the best bit. The portion size and lack of anything resembling a side hurt for the price, but yet again, once we had that buttery flesh, miso flavoured skin, and tangy pickled onions on a one way trip into our mouths, price ceased to be an issue. From the tempura section we wanted all the food , (sweetcorn fritters, tempura oysters, turbot, courgette flowers - how much temptation can one person take!?), but settled on pickled onion rings with sumo miso mayonnaise, because - pickled onion rings. While we were expecting a chunkier version, that would probably be a bit uncouth in the setting - the slinky slivers of perfectly vinegared and impeccably drained deep-fried onions were only made better by a dunk in that miso mayo. The perfect snack with a glass of white wine. There's no ice-cream filler desserts on the menu here either. The five options have had as much time and thought put into them as everything else, and a white chocolate mille-feuille with yuzu, mandarin and ginger sorbet and calamansi vinaigrette was precise in every element - LOOK at those pastry layers. Now imagine all of those citrus flavours dancing around it. The only slight misfire of the meal was a cherry blossom baba, soaked in Haku vodka with black sesame ice-cream. There's a reason a baba is usually soaked in rum - because it has flavour - and everything here was very muted in comparison to what had come before, but we can see a certain caviar eating, vodka-drinking set enjoying it. What about drinks? Cocktails are separated by the glass they come in (short on the rocks/coupe/nick and nora/copper mug) which is a clever way of categorising, and both the Ichigo-go-go with whiskey; Campari infused with star anise; and Ume plum liqueur, and the Yuzu Do You with gin, amaro and yuzu liqueur, tasted like they'd been made by someone who was not partaking in their first rodeo. We found the wine list more lacking, with an uninspiring by the glass list and a house Champagne that should be better for €18 a glass. If you're drinking by the glass we'd recommend the Greco di Tufo for white, and the Torre Mora Etna Rosso or the Barbera from Pio Cesare for red. There's not a lot else to get excited about. How was the service? At first overwhelming, with what felt like an endless stream of visitors to our table asking questions, asking whether we had questions, if we'd looked at our menus (we hadn't), if we'd like a wet hand towel (we would). Once they chilled out a bit the service was exact, with every question we had about the many unusual ingredients on the menu answered without hesitation. Tastes of wine were brought when we couldn't decide, offers to change a clearly underwhelming glass, dishes brought at a perfect pace - there's been a weighty amount of staff training in here, and good hiring too. What was the damage? We paid €228 for two before tip. We initially thought we'd over-ordered and wouldn't be able to finish everything, but in reality some of the portions are so small that we could have ordered more. Despite the price/portion size ratio, we left bursting to return and try more. What's the verdict on Floritz? It would have been so easy to get the interior designers in, plaster flowers all over the wall, cover everything in gold and serve a menu of soulness, love-free food that the glitterati will come for anyway - it's literally happening around the corner . But that's not the story at Floritz. They've shown up with the full package, and the closest comparison we can make is to somewhere like Hakkasan in London - all the style, and all of the substance to back it up. Calling this "a room to be seen in" is doing it a disservice. This is a room to eat in. Just spend a bit of time studying that tome of a menu before you get there. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Shaku Maku is the less casual sibling of fast casual group Umi Falafel, focused on sit down, fun dining that's inclusive to all. They describe their dishes as "Middle Eastern soul food", with much cooked over the charcoal grill that you'll smell as soon as you walk inside. The long room is ideal for group gatherings, family meals and a quick bite before a movie in The Stella up the road. Shaku Maku Website shakumaku.ie Address Shaku Maku, Rathmines Road Lower, Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Shaku Maku is the less casual sibling of fast casual group Umi Falafel, focused on sit down, fun dining that's inclusive to all. They describe their dishes as "Middle Eastern soul food", with much cooked over the charcoal grill that you'll smell as soon as you walk inside. The long room is ideal for group gatherings, family meals and a quick bite before a movie in The Stella up the road. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

The Pig's Ear The Nassau Street stalwart looks to the past for its future Posted: 1 Apr 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about The Pig’s Ear? James Joyce once claimed an aim of Ulysses was to offer a portrait of Dublin so complete that the city could be reconstructed out of the book, if ever it disappeared. Well here comes a reimagined Pig’s Ear to give it a shot, in culinary terms at least, with a menu of dishes inspired by Joyce’s works and a handful of other literary and local food sources. Stephen McAllister and Andrea Hussey’s Nassau Street stalwart dished up classical Irish fare for 16 years before reinventing itself last summer as Lotus Eaters . We were all-in on the wagyu beef burgers and Asian-feeling menu, but didn’t get the sense the owners themselves were, with unchanged décor and glasses still etched with the previous brand giving the potential for a swift reverse should things not work out. Lotus Eaters And reverse they did, so back we went for The Pig’s Ear 2.0 . This time they're looking to the past to imagine their future - head chef McAllister has plumbed his own family recipe repertoire and worked with academics from TU Dublin to recreate Dublin dishes of yore and give the restaurant a high concept kick and fresh relevance in the crowded scene of 2025. Where should we sit? Save a few tweaks in the wall art, it’s once again as-you-were in this dining room, which maybe makes more sense in a back-to-the-well revival than the previous concept’s clean break. Warm wood tones and leather upholstery under soft lighting have always made this a welcoming space, and surveying the city from the sash windows is always our preferred option. On our visit, as Joyce might have put it, drizzle was general all over Dublin, and settling into our snug seats out of the rain had us all set for a feast. What’s on the menu? Ghastly type to start with - we’re no font snobs, but the choice of lettering to lay out the concept on the menu’s intro page had us wincing. Especially in a place that invokes Dublin’s literary heritage as a core inspiration - the early internet era “fun” style sticks out like a sore thumb. Okay, maybe we’re slight font snobs. We soon ceased clutching our pearls and picked up our oysters instead – much safer territory. The former Friendly Brothers’ Club on Stephen’s Green (now home to Cellar 22 and Floritz ) is the muse for these meaty morsels, with a punchy beef tartare packed under chive-scattered specimens. We can’t fault either element but they play more competitive than complimentary in practice, as though each were trying to outshine the other – at €8 a pop, we’d welcome more harmony. Boxty is among the reimagined old dishes that punctuate the menu, and it’s an inspired overhaul, with thick Cáis na Tíre custard layered over the potato pancake, liberally sprinkled with grated cheese and black truffle. This could easily make for an over-indulgent starting plate, but the smart pairing of a lighter batter with a sweeter, fruitier cheese cut through the earthy depth of the truffle for a snack you'd easily eat more than one of. It's the same story for the farl, whose plainer presentation gets dressed up with an accompanying cup of bone marrow gravy ripe for pouring. The softer dough here soaks up the thick sauce with almost as much relish as we did ourselves, while the fat-browned crust delivers a crisp texture. Smearing the soft nuggets of marrow across that golden skin is a sensual experience – do remember you are still in public. In a menu not short on creative curios, nothing caught our eye more than “Famine soup” – were we to be treated to an empty bowl? Actually the dish takes its cues, and at least partly its recipe, from Alexis Soyer, the OG celebrity chef whose soup kitchen in Croppy’s Acre out Kilmainham way funded its food by charging the rich an entry fee to see the starving masses. That ugly footnote is something we wish we’d learned on our visit rather than online afterward - neither the menu’s brief note nor the staff’s answers to enquiries dug into the story with anything like the detail that might bring the concept to life. Absent that, it’s a serviceable oxtail-adjacent soup studded with still-firm diced veg and served with (admittedly delicious) bone marrow toast – biting into that it’s hard not to feel more like morbid toffs looking out on soup-slurping peasants. In Joyce’s “Two Gallants”, the thirty-something Lenehan wonders over a plate of peas whether he’ll ever afford a home of his own – in Dublin, some things never change. Peas are pretty consistent too, and the "peas and vinegar" here might be our pick of the lot. Pickled pearl onions and tart redcurrants pierce through the sweetness of the freshly-shelled peas and the puree beneath, all fresh flavours and well-balanced textures in every forkful. Lenehan pays three halfpence for his peas, which we make about 78c in today’s money, to this plate’s €11.50. In Dublin, some things change a lot – this one's worth every penny regardless. Ulysses usefully gives us the then-cost of a kidney (the perils of picking from such a detail-rich oeuvre) at threepence, or just north of €1.50, which makes the "tongue and cheek kidney pudding"'s near-€30 price point seem all the more stark. To savour this dish you will want, like Leopold Bloom, to eat “ with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls ”. As it happens we do, and did. The well-packed pudding oozes chunks of tongue and cheek alongside its kidney contents, a flood of “ toothsome pliant meat ” as Bloom would have it. We’d have relished it all the more were it not for a pre-poured gravy with a too-salty tang that told us it’d been reduced just a little too long – this is a very good pud that deserved better. “The earth garlic” is the most baffling inclusion on the menu – cracking our copy of Ulysses we can see where the name comes from, but not why: “ after all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles ”. Happily it’s a vastly better dish than name, three types of mushroom studded with slivers of truffle, all readily accepting the burst egg yolk in a mess of umami excess. It’s less Joyce’s Dublin that it conjures than San Sebastian, but having a taste of the iconic hongos plancha from Ganbara in Ireland isn’t something we’re opposed to. Smoked potatoes would have fared far better were we into the pudding’s gravy – these shrivelled baby spuds pay for their superb smoky flavour with a desiccated internal texture that demands to be drenched in something – sadly they come alone. The last sad streaks of egg yolk were all we had to offer, but we'd we’d expect the Mulligatawny chicken pie (a smart effort to repeat the rightly iconic reputation of sister restaurant Spitalfields ’ cock-a-leekie) to be a better pairing. Ulysses features a “ rhubarb tart with liberal fillings ” and given ‘it's the season you can imagine our faces when we realised the menu doesn’t – next time, perhaps. A violet and rose jelly-topped blancmange made do instead, far though it be from the “blocks” dished out in “The Dead”. This is a lovely light finale, buttermilk-rich but beautifully soft, spiked by the satisfying crunch of honeycomb and spiced kick of candied ginger. We couldn’t contemplate not trying gur cake ice cream, a nostalgic nod to memories of Manning’s Bakery in the Liberties - its simple, smooth, sweet pleasures scooped atop a base of chocolate mousse and corn flakes would send the hardest of hearts harkening back to simpler childhood days. What are the drinks like? The wine list is effectively unchanged from Lotus Eaters. Though the available BTG options have narrowed, the same punchy markups now commonly found all over the city remain (a glass at €16 when you can pick up a bottle for €23 right round the corner) - we weren’t surprised to see several diners sticking to water. The quality is solid if you can take the price point, with a Louis Moreau Bourgogne complimenting the peas perfectly and a Borgogno Nebbiolo great with the offal. The star of the show was the Pedro Ximinez with dessert – ‘tis a long way from that with gur cake we were reared. How was the service? Very friendly but less invested in the concept than we were expecting. We had to actively invite more detail on dishes at every stage, and thought between the novel development they’ve undergone here and the dish naming that doesn’t exactly sum up what you’re getting, those kind of explanations would be front and centre. And the damage? Just in below the €200 mark before a (pre-added but discretionary) 12.5% service charge, which ably but not excessively fed two. You could easily outdo our bill with fancier starters like the salmon gravlax and lobster omelette, or by veering into the steak and chops section, never mind going in on a full bottle. Keeping the belt tighter (in all senses) with bitterballen and coddle could see you fed for bang-on €30 before service, without anything to sip on. What’s the verdict on The Pig’s Ear? You could read the start-stop fate of Lotus Eaters (stated plans are for the concept to reappear in another venue but there's nothing more solid than that as of yet) as either a sign of the difficulty of landing a new idea in an ever-harder market, or as a cautionary tale about how you really need to commit to the bit if you’re to have any hope your public will too. Something like Suertudo shows how a bold reinvention of a restaurant with many successful years behind it can pay off in spades, but big gambles carry big risks. The Pig’s Ear has always done well in taking Irish food seriously, even through the periods where that was unfashionable. If this new iteration marks a safer bet than what came immediately before, it’s still one that it needs to go all-in. There is in this marriage of literary and culinary history a novel conceit that could work wonders in a UNESCO city of literature to which tourists flock to retrace the steps of Joyce and his characters, and excepting a few easily-overcome hiccups, everything about the food here has what it takes. The idea and atmosphere need to row-in behind it - not in the diddly-eye mode of Davy Byne’s boaters or Sweny’s Chemists serenading, but in the Bar 1661 sense of a menu that takes pride in telling a story. We’d love to see them lean in hard, and see the new Pig’s Ear go the whole hog. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Dún Laoghaire's food options have improved vastly over the past few years, and more options can be found further south along the coast in Sandycove, Glasthule and Dalkey. Dún Laoghaire - Sandycove - Glasthule - Dalkey Our Take Dún Laoghaire's food options have improved vastly over the past few years, and more options can be found further south along the coast in Sandycove, Glasthule and Dalkey. Where to Eat 64 Wine Arty Baker Bibi's Dún Laoghaire Daata Deville's Grapevine Hatch Coffee Oliveto Rasam Soup DL Strudel Bakery Zero Zero Pizza

Stoneybatter's go-to spot for brunch, cake, coffee and the rest. A menu championing local and Irish produce, with inventive dishes like hash brownies with maple cured bacon, and carrot and walnut pancakes with banana and citrus curd. Slice Website asliceofcake.ie Address 56 Manor Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7, Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Stoneybatter's go-to spot for brunch, cake, coffee and the rest. A menu championing local and Irish produce, with inventive dishes like hash brownies with maple cured bacon, and carrot and walnut pancakes with banana and citrus curd. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Jean-Georges at The Leinster The celebrity chef adds Dublin to his empire with big flavours, €48 snacks and spectacular rooftop views Posted: 2 Apr 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What do we need to know about Jean-Georges at The Leinster? The globally renowned chef, and self-confessed rule breaker Jean-Georges Vongerichten has been lured to Dublin by Paddy McKillen Junior ( Press Up Entertainment ), whose family he's known through the biz for 15 years. The Leinster Hotel now falls under ownership of The Dean Group, which Press Up set up to separate their hotels from the rest of the business. They sold a majority stake to a London based investment group in 2023, so it's kinda Press Up, and kinda not. JGV is one of the world's most successful chefs, with an empire stretching across 46 locations in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and The Middle East. His flagship New York restaurant Jean-Georges has two Michelin stars (downgraded from three in 2018), and the work involved in keeping this many restaurants operating at such a high level makes our heads hurt, but he and his team are amongst the world's best restaurant operators. (Jean-Georges @ The Leinster) As good as Press Up are at interiors and cocktails, they've yet to produce anything above mediocre when it comes to dining. Jean-Georges is a "partnership" with the main man, who is not going to put his name over the door lightly, so although he only visits his restaurants once a year, we expect other members of his team will be all over every detail. Executive head chef Ross Bryans has worked for Press Up for a couple of years, but don't let that put you off - he was head chef at Jason Atherton's Pollen Street Social for almost 10 years, and worked at restaurant Gordon Ramsay under Clare Smyth, as well as Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. Is there somewhere for a pre-dinner drink? There sure is. Slot in an appetite sharpener at The Collins Club , the hotel's ground floor cocktail bar, named after Irish designer David Collins who designed restaurants for Pierre Koffman and Marco-Pierre White. He passed away in 2013, with British Vogue called him " London's great interior designer ", and the naming here is a lovely nod to one of Dublin's best design talents. The menu is unique for the city, with Collins Club versions of drinks you may already know, and brand new ones you won't, like the 'Chocolate & Yuzu' with chocolate tequila, sake and yuzu marmalade. The Abv is handily noted for each drink, so you can decide between a 9% Bellini or a 22% Martini depending on your tolerance/mood/stomach contents. The 'Kumquat' is their answer to the Martini, with gin, vodka, vermouth and pickled kumquat brine. What looks like two olives are actually brined grapes, plump and ready to pop - they make the drink. The first one that arrived wasn't cold enough, and when we asked for a couple of ice cubes to stir through and dump out they arrived back with a second one, freshly made and ice cold. We would have liked to see more appealing brands than Beefeater and Absolut, but others drinks feature more interesting spirits producers. The 'Palo Santo Paloma' was a very good version of a paloma, with Tequila, grapefruit, lime and grapefruit soda. Where should we sit? Into the lift and up to the rooftop, and despite the slight movement away from the Press Up brand, the room is in the same style we've seen in their other restaurants. We were particularly offended by the trees, but probably because they brought back bad memories . It's a long room with booths on either side and round tables in the middle. We will always pick a booth over a table in the centre of the room, and try to get one at either end for the best views. The most in-demand seats are going to be on the terrace at either end of the restaurant (not currently open), with views across the city as far as the Dublin mountains. What's on the menu? Dishes you could be eating anywhere in the world, with no obvious links to the city its found itself in. JG likes a raw bar/crudo/sushi, "light and bright" appetisers ( think Beverly Hills Housewives when they're forced to eat something carb-free on camera), and he loves big flavours, so there's plenty of truffle, chipotle mayonnaise and Champagne sauces. Asian flavours like fermented black bean ginger and green curry are also a running theme. Two of his signature dishes are caviar topped snacks, and both have landed on The Leinster's rooftop, but you'll have to empty your piggy bank to try them. The egg toast with herbs and caviar is on the menu at JG's flagship New York restaurant, two-Michelin-starred Jean Georges , among many others - see how its made here - while the crackling hash brown with caviar, smoked salmon and cucumber yoghurt can be eaten in his restaurants from Los Cabos , Mexico to São Paulo , Brazil to Nashville , Tennessee. Egg toast We tried the hash brown, and our thoughts went like this: "this hash brown could be a lot crispier; where is this salmon from?; mmmmm caviar; I wish there was more caviar; oh God, we've just eaten €42 in two bites..." Is this a must eat dish in Dublin? If you're earning anything close to the average salary, absolutely not. If you have money pouring out of your ears (or the person paying does) then kick back and enjoy this snack as status symbol. Onto appetisers and a plate of baby artichokes with rose saffron aioli and lemon showed what this group does best - simple ingredients supercharged with big, bold, flavours. The warm shrimp salad with avocado, tomato and Champagne vinegar dressing looked like something for diners on a diet, with a ratio of 9:1 leaves to everything else. The "shrimp" themselves came in a tangy sauce that was more beurre blanc than vinaigrette, and the whole thing was pleasant to eat, but once the shrimp are gone there's not a whole lot to keep you interested. The raw enoki mushrooms thrown on top were puzzling. Mains range from €24 for whole roasted cauliflower to €48 for beef tenderloin, and you'll need sides on top for €6 a piece. Wild turbot (€38) with crushed nuts and seeds came in a sweet and sour jus with lightly poached baby onions and tomatoes floating in it, and we've re-eaten it in our heads more times than the hash brown. Perfect, pristine white fish, which flaked away beautifully when hit with a fork, and not a drop of the broth it was sitting in went back to the kitchen - this is a killer fish dish. Charred, marinated duck breast (€40) comes with caraflex cabbage, herb salad and a coconut lime infusion (just like in Kyoto ). Caraflex is related to hispi, and to the best of our knowledge isn't available here -either it's imported or they're using its more common cousin. The breast was substantial, but a bit tough in parts - full marks for the crispy skin though. Oh but that sauce... Like a red curry paste ground by hand on a Thai beach met a juicy lime and throupled it up with a dash of cream from a just-picked coconut. The cabbage had char and bite and swirled around in that sauce was just perfect. An obligatory side of mash potato had a reassuring amount of butter, and easily slots into the "Michelin-level-mash" category. Desserts (all €12) are designed to be familiar and comforting as opposed to dazzling and intricate. A rhubarb trifle with lychee gelée and lime meringue came with plenty of the tart pink stuff to offset the sweetness, and delving deep brought up something new each time. A moussey butterscotch pudding comes with a layer of liquid salted caramel on top and a scoop of whippe d crème fraîche floating in it. There's a couple of shortbread biscuits on the side for dipping and scooping onto, and while we thought we'd find this Angel Delight throwback too sweet, if you like salted caramel there's nothing not to like. What about drinks? The wine list is pricey, not overly interesting, and is laid out in an order that makes no sense - not by price, nor country, nor style, so it's not an easy read. The by the glass list is their biggest downfall, with only three options each for white and red, and two whites and one red from Paddy McKillen's winery Château La Coste. Another red is almost €30 a glass, so for the average wine lover there's an embarrassingly bad selection. Plan on getting a bottle, which start at €45. We drank the Heinz W grüner veltliner (€45) which was crisp, fruity and an easy drinker that worked with everything. If drinking red we would have gone for Holzer's juicy Zweigelt (€55), which will also work well with this kind of food. How was the service? Not overly welcome on arrival, but our server was overflowing with smiles. She did however sound like she was reading from a document she'd been forced to practice for hours before being allowed onto the floor. We got the feeling that any question there wasn't a pre-prepared answer for might send her into a spin, afraid of accidentally veering off script. We were told in overtly enunciated words that all of the produce on the menu was "LOCAL and SEASONAL", and that's where the sourcing story ends. It's also worth pointing out that the dinky, dainty cutlery feels like it was made for diners with tiny hands. It takes a bit of getting used to. What's the verdict on Jean-Georges at The Leinster? Jean-Georges Vongerichten leads an impressive global empire, and it feels like we should be grateful he's added little ol' Dublin to his restaurant map , but despite some stellar flavours, we left feeling it's missing some magic right now - an Irish welcome, a wine experience worthy of the setting and the name over the door, and information about the ingredients on the plate. In a country where provenance is our biggest play, to completely ignore it feels like a huge oversight, especially at these prices. We wonder who's going to fill this restaurant seven nights a week (we visited on a Monday and were one of only three tables the whole night, and saw later on Instagram that one was a hosted journalist). Maybe the same set that fills up The Ivy day after day, who want to feel less ick about themselves. Dublin lacks great food in glam surroundings, it tends to be one or the other, with a lot of the city's best chefs and operators unable to conceive of spending this much money on upholstery and Costa Nova cutlery. It would be nice for someone to finally get it right, but celebrity chef led restaurants have notoriously bombed here - talk to the teams behind Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay and even our own Richard Corrigan. We'd love to see Jean-Georges break the curse, because we'd very much like to sip another kumquat Martini on the terrace, while they pick a coconut for that duck sauce. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Borgo The new 'Osteria Locale' that has Dublin 7 heaving Posted: 2 Sept 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What should we know about Borgo? The lights went out in Loretta's in Phibsborough almost two years ago, and since then we've lost count of the amount of DMs telling us every other restaurant operator in Dublin was taking over the site. We were beginning to give up hope that anything new would ever materialise, when we got word at the start of summer what was coming, and it was way better than the rumours. Sean Crescenzi and Jamie McCarthy have built a rocketship-style CV over the past few years, starting slowly with Crudo in Sandymount (formerly Dunne & Crescenzi , Sean's parents' business) then the short-lived (and unfortunately named) Happy Endings , before taking off like a missile with Achara , H era (plus bar Juno ) and now Borgo in quick succession. Usually we get nervous watching operators who are onto a good thing move too fast, wondering how they'll keep standards high when spreading themselves so thin, but we've yet to see cracks forming. The opposite actually, with Hera added to the Michelin guide just last week - getting the Michelin man to Dorset Street deserves an award in itself. Borgo pitches itself as an " Osteria Locale" drawing inspiration from across Italy (where the Crescenzis hail from and somewhere both of the owners love), a casual place open to all budgets and tastes, but with everything done to the highest standards. These guys are nailing fresh, contemporary casual in Dublin right now, giving people what they want before they knew they wanted it, and not falling down in any area like wine, service, toilets, how many others can we name... It's beginning to feel like everything they touch is destined for success, and after letting them settle in for a couple of weeks we headed over to the Dublin 7 borgo to see if this is another bull's eye. Where should we sit? The room has had just enough of an update to make it feel like Borgo and not the building's former inhabitants Loretta's (whose owners were in for dinner on the evening we visited - no one recognised them, which made us feel totes emosh). There are pops of colour from neon artwork, a new ambient lighting scheme, panelling that's been painted dark green, new dark walnut panels added above, and half "café curtains" across the front window to let all the light in while maintaining dining privacy. It's got bags of character, and feels like it's been sitting on this corner of Phibsborough for years. Our favourite seats are the curved leather banquettes - your own little corner PDR, ready for you to sink in and veg out for your allotted dining time. There's one at either end of the main window at the front, and others in the centre and against the other wall facing the North Circular Road. If you like seeing your food being made, the kitchen here is wide open, with a view directly in from the back of the room. Either way, make sure to stick a head in on your way to/from the toilet. We should preface all this though by saying that if you want a table at Borgo any time soon, you'll be taking whatever you can get - they are currently being swarmed and it'll take a while before things calm down enough for you to dictate your table. What's the food like? Far too tempting. They could have done half this amount of plates, but then you might not be as eager to go back so soon. Between spuntini (snacks), pizzette (sourdough flatbreads, not pizza), antipasti, pasta, and wood-fired proteins, we can't think of anyone who wouldn't be able to eat how they want here. Got kids? Their children's menu is €10 for a juice, a pasta or pizzette, and ice-cream with chocolate biscuits for dessert (Crudo does similar). Can any other restaurant operating at this standard compete with that? Is there any surprise that it was packed with families at 4pm? ATF's Ronan covered our ATF Insiders preview , and said the focaccia and onion whey butter (€5) needs to be tasted. As usual, he was right. This. Is. Focaccia. The best we can remember eating in Dublin, maybe ever? The crumb, the crust, the flavour, the salt flakes on top, the perfect slick of oil underneath, and that lighter than air onion whey butter... Perfection spread on perfection. We don't usually recommend filing up on bread when there are so many other appealing things to eat, but we make an exception for Borgo. They serve Connemara oysters (€4 each) two ways - one with a bergamot mignonette, and another that's getting all the headlines, topped with a Carbonara-style sauce and cooked in the woodfired oven. It's not one for oyster purists, who'll find the briny, earthy notes lost under the cheese - it's more of an easy introduction for someone who wants their first taste. For our money it'll be the citrussy bergamot mignonette every time. Padrón peppers with Tallegio custard (€6) has been a headline grabber for sheer creativity, and while we would happily, mindlessly eat these as part of any meal, the peppers weren't charred enough and the cheese sauce didn't have the right consistency for dipping - you'll need a utensil to scoop. It was all very pleasant, but not a must order for us. You know what is a must order? Repeat after me: " I will order the gambas ". Say that 10 times, turn around and touch the ground, then go to Borgo and order the gambas with garlic, chili, lemon and more of that focaccia (€18). The tender, luscious gambas, silky from soaking up that impeccable sauce with just the right amount of sweet garlic, spicy chilli and lemon to lift it all up to the heavens. You'll want every last crumb of that focaccia to wipe the plate clean, and don't forget to suck the heads. They've been at pains to convey that the pizzette (€10-€12) are 48 hour sourdough flatbreads, NOT pizza. They arrive puffed up and ready to be cut, torn or just shoved in your mouth, and Mark's oyster mushrooms with stracciatella and aged balsamic was the one to fight over. Another with lemon ricotta, guanciale and Cloonbrook reserve was good too, but we did find the toppings swamped by so much dough. The pasta section is somewhere Borgo excels. Our tortiglioni with milk-braised pork ragu, crumbs, herb oil and Cloonbrook reserve (€21) was on a par with similar ones we had in Bologna on our recent trip there . Don't be afraid of tomato-less ragu - you won't look back. Maybe the dish of the night though was their agnolotti stuffed with ricotta, topped with prosciutto, 24-month old Parmigiano Reggiano and hazelnuts, in a butter sauce (€22). If ever there was a testament to bringing together the best regional ingredients, and letting each of them sing for what they are, here she is. You could not pull this off with substandard produce, and they're not trying to. It's worth nothing that ATF's Ronan loved the amatriciana on his visit, and we both wished we'd ordered the seafood pasta when we saw it travel to other tables. The pasta section is where it's at. If you're more protein than carbs (we're both), you can eat meat or fish from the wood-fired oven. They wanted a good value steak so went for bavette, which comes with cavolo nero, carrot purée, and tarragon and balsamic jus (€28). If you add a side of potatoes you'll be at €35, so it's not a "cheap steak" but by God it's a good one. Whatever they've done to that meat in advance of cooking we need to know about - it melted like fillet, but with that added texture from the coarser grain, the steak browned outside, and served medium/rare inside (chef's recommendation). The accompaniments were pleasant, but could be more exciting. You know what was exciting? Those Ballymakenny Queens with herb cream and Cloonbrook Reserve (€7) - just don't go for a medical any time soon after consuming them. Gnarly, deep fried potatoes are arrestingly crisp, every side is a good side, with piping hot fluffy insides and all the extra flavours to take them from an A+ to an A++++++. BBQ Abercorn rainbow chard (€6) couldn't help but be dull in comparison - we didn't get any barbecue flavours, nor peach in the advertised dressing, but it's always good to get those Irish-grown greens in. No self-respecting Italian has a dessert section without a solid tiramisu, and Borgo's is a monster slice for €9. It's falling over with creaminess, coffee and chocolate, but some of the sponge was too dry and needed better soaking. A very minor infraction. Get one for the table. The bigger hit here is the polenta cake with brown butter peaches, mascarpone and basil (€9). It's another very generous slice (a whole one might kill you) but everything about the textures, flavours and scents of this scream "summer! Don't go!" What about drinks? If you're partial to a negroni order the 'Negroni Sporco' once you're sitting. It's like a Negroni Sbagliato but with Lambrusco instead of Prosecco, and a fat olive perched on top. There's also the 'Borgo spritz' and the 'Pesca spritz', and it was a tough choice. When it came to the wine list we couldn't see past LAMBRUSCO BY THE GLASS. Have the sparkling red wine with the antipasti, have it with the pizzette, and let yourself see the light. The wine list is mainly Italian, with some random bottles in there from France and Spain (presumably for those who can't see past Rioja and Sauvignon Blanc), and it's very much a regional deep dive, so if you're confused just tell them what you usually like, what you want to spend, and let them help find you a bottle. We tried both the house Nero d'Avola and Grillo (both €7.50 a glass or €33 a bottle) and thought they both punched above their weight for those prices. How was the service? They couldn't have been nicer. We walked into a room that was the definition of "buzzing", every seat taken, animated conversations all around, well-behaved children everywhere, friends and families delighting in their new regular, and somehow they managed to effortlessly take care of everyone with kindness and grace. They also let us put in an initial order, then add more on - it's that kinda place. We weren't aware of a time limit on our table, but almost as soon as we got up after two hours, a family of four swept into our seats. If they were under pressure to move us on, they never let on or made us feel rushed. What should we budget? As you know we are greedy little so and sos and ordered waaaay too much - to the point of stomach pains. You don't need to make yourself sore from over eating, you can just go back another time like a normal person, so we reckon €50 a head will see you very well fed, but it's very easy to spend more if you let your eyes do the ordering. What's the verdict on Borgo? More Osteria Locales for Dublin please. More of this seemingly simple cooking with layers of flavour and the best ingredients available to the kitchen. It all seems so simple, yet is so often overlooked in favour of Insta-pretty plating and maximising GPs, hoping customers won't taste the difference. We've said it before that these guys seem to have the formula for what people want right now, and what they're willing to pay for it, and it looks like they've pressed yet another diamond with Borgo. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Variety Jones Some of the most exciting cooking in the city right now Posted: 5 Feb 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? We'd been hearing about Variety Jones for months before it opened, but all we knew was that it was going to be a boot-strapped operation (i.e. no money men) on Thomas Street from the ex-Luna and Locks head chef Keelan Higgs. Keelan himself was regularly seen walking to and from the site, power tools in hand, so we had a (good) feeling that this was going to someone doing things on his own terms. They were originally supposed to open in September, but after a raft of delays (an all too common story this year) we were edging towards Christmas and the doors were still shut. We were starting to get a bit anxious for them, but finally on the 20th of December, the doors swung open and the open fire at the back of the kitchen was burning. Where should we go for a drink first? The location feels a bit like you're near nothing, but there are actually loads of options around. Lucky's is just around the corner and has craft beer, wine on tap and great vibes. For more craft beer and cocktails you've got Drop Dead Twice on Francis Street, and if you want to step back in time head down the hill to The Brazen Head , officially Ireland's oldest pub, dating back to 1198. Where should we sit? The room is long and narrow with tables, bar seating, and a "chef's table" edged right up against the pass. We'd definitely try to get nearer the action, and the bar is great if you just want to stop in for a few plates. We would try to avoid the table closest to the door, especially on cold nights, as the wind from the door opening and closing can be a bit intrusive. Saying that, we'd take whatever table we could get to eat here. What's good to eat? The menu is small, with much of it cooked over burning embers in an open hearth at the back of the kitchen, and if that's the key to make everything taste this good, we're going to have to figure out a way to do it at home. It's divided into snacks, small plates, pasta and family style sharing mains, and when we were there, the snacks consisted of an oyster with Vietnamese dressing and an artichoke filled with comté custard. Both excellent, even for a non-oyster lover, and anything with comté custard is a winner in our book, particularly when it comes inside a chewy artichoke skin. From the small plates, the one we've really struggled to stop thinking about (like everyone else it seems) was the char-grilled cauliflower with burnt yeast, sea trout, brown butter and fish roe. We'd had a few messages from people before we went talking about 'undercooked' cauliflower, but the slight crunch of the florets just added another element of texture to frankly a masterpiece of a dish, and we loved every bit of it. The hearth grilled vegetables with barley and goat's curd was another dish we ended up fighting for the last spoons of (seriously, smoke and fire take everything to another level), and the chicken liver and foie gras parfait with crispy, sweet and sour onions and potato bread (made in a waffle iron) was super rich with loads of layers of interest from the different components. From the two pasta dishes, we went for the comté ravioli with hearth roasted mushrooms and mushroom broth, and very much regretted sharing one between four. Keelan perfected his pasta making at a two-star Michelin restaurant in Tuscany, and this really was special. We were advised to eat the ravioli whole so they burst in your mouth, and the deep, rich flavours from the cheese were a brilliant counterpoint to the smoked and pickled mushrooms. For mains, there were two choices of hearth grilled brill or venison loin, both sharing platters for two. There's been mixed feelings from diners and critics about only having shareable mains, as it is limiting if you're a table of two and want all the food, but we were a four so got to try everything, and at this stage were running out of superlatives to describe how incredible everything tasted. Both the fish and the meat are cooked over burning embers in the open hearth, and it felt like we were being fed by Francis Mallman . Take us back to the time before electricity and gas when everything was cooked with flames and smoke. The brill had tender flesh and blackened skin in a herby cockle and mussel sauce, with kale unlike any we have ever tasted (also cooked over the embers), and officially the best potato salad in the world, which came with smoked eel through it and reminded us in the best possible way of smoky bacon crisps. The other main of venison loin came with a generous amount of perfect meat, hearth roasted celeriac (once again, the best version of celeriac we've ever tasted), blackened cabbage (ditto), wild mushrooms, and peppercorn gravy. We're very much on board with eating less meat of a higher quality, and we'd cut it back to once a month if all of it tasted like this. There wasn't so much as a scrap of food left on any plate. There was no cheese on the menu but they brought us a selection of what they had in the kitchen, along with homemade bread and seedy crackers, and two large spoons of honeycomb and acacia honey, which was a lovely addition and something we haven't seen here before. There was only one dessert on the menu both times we visited, and the two incarnations we've had have been much in the same vein (and made from the same cake mould). Between the apple cake with caramelised apple and brown butter custard, and the Jamaica cake with caramelised pineapple, and vanilla and coconut cream with sarawak pepper, we'd have to give it to the Jamaica cake for nostalgia if nothing else, but both were very good. What about the drinks? Sommelier Vanda Ivancic has worked hard to put together a wine list full of interesting bottles that you won't find in every other cool spot in town. It was immediately obvious how invested she was in her list, so we left it up to her to bring us wine matches for various dishes, and loved the whole experience. We tried so many new and unusual wines, all of which we enjoyed (probably in part because of her obvious love for all of them and ability to sell us the stories behind the bottles). The wine list is well priced for Dublin, with everything under €60, and everything is poured by the glass which is brilliant and so rare to see, but there were no glass prices on the menu when we were there so it's easy to get carried away and not know how much you're spending. If you're in groups of 4 or more it would make more sense to drink by the bottle, but either way we'd advise putting yourself in her hands. And the service? Faultless, these are pros at work. Keelan's brother Aaron is front of house along with Vanda, and they make a polished pair. Often the chefs bring the dishes to the tables themselves and explain what they are, which is great as you can ask any questions you might have about what you're eating. The verdict? We try to avoid hyperbole, but this is undoubtedly some of the most exciting cooking in Dublin right now. Higgs is taking it back to basics, and reminding us why humans have cooked with fire for the past 1.5 million years. Electricity might be convenient, but it doesn't turn out food like this. If you eat all the food and drink all the wine you could end up with a hefty enough bill, but in terms of value for what you're getting, we'd pay it every week. We're hearing that a weekend table at Variety Jones is difficult to come by at the moment, which isn't surprising after the raft of great reviews they've had, so we recommend taking any booking you can get as soon as possible, because you deserve to try this food. Variety Jones 78 Thomas Street, Dublin 8 varietyjones.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Biang Biang Hand-pulled noodles and refreshing Liang Pi are going to have the crowds queuing before long Posted: 30 Apr 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What should we know about Biang Biang? Biang Biang is the newest restaurant from the guys who brought us Hakkahan , Nan Chinese , Bullet Duck & Dumplings and Little Dumpling . The Chinese/Irish owners are good at spotting gaps in the food market, with Nan Ireland’s first (and currently only) place to eat Huaiyang cuisine, Bullet Duck one of the only places in the city serving Chinese roast meats, and the tiny Sichuan-serving Hakkahan in Stoneybatter perennially bursting out onto the street with hungry customers. Biang Biang is all about th e food of the Shaanxi Province in Northern China and its capital Xi'an, a cuisine heavy on noodles and strong, savoury flavours. Having been introduced to the complex, "one serving is never enough" flavours i n Guirong Wei's Xi'an restaurants in London ( Xi'an Impression , Master Wei and Dream Xi'an ), it's long been a source of culinary agony that we didn't have our own sanctum for Liang Pi, beef biang biang noodles, and hand-pulled fried noodles with lamb, so we were always going to be straight in here with wide eyes and empty tummies. ( In case you're wondering, we were also straight into Xian Street Food , but when the Liang Pi arrived missing the all important steamed gluten/kaofu we were out. Incidentally they took a trademark case against Biang Biang which was initially supposed to be called Meet Xian, saying it would be confusing to customers. Incredibly they won, even though it's the equivalent of two restaurants with the word 'Rome' or 'Venice' in their name ). Where should we sit? It's a petite space with just five tables of four, and you might have to share with strangers if it's busy. There's bench seating on the right, and parents take note - as you walk in, the table right in front of you on the left has a perfect space just inside the door for a buggy. What's on the menu? It's nice and compact - just the way we like it (when it delivers). There are four sections - "Roujiamo" Chinese hamburger, "Liang Pi" cold skin noodles, handmade dumplings, and Biang Biang hand-pulled noodles. You're going to want to try it all, which you can easily do between two, but a table of four will allow you to try more combinations. The Roujiamo (meaning meat in a bun) is a flatbread which has been cooked then sliced open and filled with either pulled pork or beef (€6.50). It's not a weighty portion, but it packs plenty of flavour in the chewy crust and sweet pork filling. We recommend lathering on the chilli oil for an extra flavour punch. You'll never forget your first taste of really good Liang Pi, a refreshing, cold, slippery, tangy, spicy noodle dish, and are likely to spend the rest of your days trying to get that flavour high again. The springy, elastic noodles are made by washing the starch off basic white dough, then steaming the starchy water and chopping it up to make noodles (there's a good video of the noodle part here ). The remaining stretchy gluten (basically seitan or kaofu) is then steamed and served on top along with cucumber, bamboo shoots, and a sauce made from chilli oil, black rice vinegar, soy and other kitchen specific flavourings. It's made to be slurped and if you don't wear a bib, you're likely to leave covered in it. We coincidentally ended up in Dream Xi'an in London two days after eating here, and in a tale of two Liang Pis, there's very little in it. With a dumpling specific restaurant in their stable, these guys always deliver, and the choice here is between beef, chicken or vegetable, either doused in chilli oil or in a hot and sour soup. Dumpling skins are fat, chewy and slightly uneven – the type that can only be achieved by hand-rolling and wrapping, not factory line precision. The beef filling is rich and savoury, with just the right amount of chilli oil, soy and spring onions to bathe in, and six for €9 felt generous (not a word we're using much of these days while eating out). Biang Biang noodles get their name from the sound the dough makes as it’s slapped down on the counter while being stretched into fat, flat noodles. We ordered ours with minced pork (there's also diced pork, beef short rib and veggie options), and they’re another star of the show here, as good as Guwron Wei’s in London. The only thing we didn’t get was the tiny diced potato and carrot, which had the appearance of frozen veg, and added nothing in terms of texture to the dish. There’s a tomato and egg version that we were considering, but after Katy McGuinness said most of her table found them "challenging" and that they were nowhere near as good as she was hoping, we're glad we swerved. Do they do dessert? They do not, but if you're there at lunchtime you can pop a few doors down to Café Lisboa for a Portugese custard tart as good as any in Lisbon. If you have a post-dinner sweet tooth, Ayla Turkish Foods on Capel Street is open until 20:00 and does the best baklava, as well as a large range of Turkish delight. What about drinks? Functional at best, with soft drinks, house prosecco, white and red wine (nondescript Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot), Tsing Tao and Sierra Nevada for beer, and the most interesting option an NA grapefruit IPA from Norwegian brewery Lervig. We wouldn't plan on hanging around post food, and if you're looking for something more exciting, the brilliant Bar 1661 is just around the corner to fulfill all of your cocktail dreams. For a traditional boozer, you can't beat McNeill's , especially if there's a trad session going. (Bar 1661) How was the service? Extremely nice, with the sole server keeping a watchful eye over everyone, happy to point out his favourite dishes and answer any questions with a smile. The food all came when it was ready, and everything was on the table within 10-15 minutes of ordering. What was the damage? €37 for a very filling meal for two, with tap water. Bianging value (sorry). What's the verdict? Rejoice. FINALLY Dublin has Xi'an food we would have previously gotten on a plane for. It's a great day for the parish, and all the food adventurers out there wanting something new to introduce their taste buds to. Our only caveat is that this is not the most elegant food to eat (see above), and you'll be so excited digging into it that you're likely to end up with a face that's been slapped by noodles and spattered with chilli oil. You may want to avoid for a first date or business meeting, but otherwise go quick before the buzz really builds. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Suertudo Jalisco and Oaxaca small plates set Dublin's newest Mexican apart Posted: 7 Jan 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Suertudo? While Ranelagh stalwart Dillinger’s surprise closure back in November was leapt on by some with a point to belabour as yet more evidence of the sky falling in on the hospitality market, it’s actually more indicative of the industry’s invention than of a VAT-based doomsday staring it in the face. John Farrell’s flagship brand kicked off his now-sprawling empire ( 777 , Amy Austin and The Butcher Grill among others) back in 2009, so its shuttering might have seemed like the writing on the wall for one of Dublin’s most serially successful restaurateurs, but a quick pivot showed yet another trick tucked up his sleeve. A more cynical critique might see Suertudo as cashing in on a Mexican wave that’s swept across the city in the last 12-ish months, culminating in Parrilla popping up just around the corner. Given that Farrell got in on the ground floor with 777 back in 2012, and that wine bar Amy Austin 's small plates have been given the Mexico city treatment by Executive Chef Victor Lara, that's not the case here. Lara is also over the food at Suertudo, joined by Mexico City-trained Celina Altamirano, to make up a menu inspired by their respective homesteads of Jalisco and Oaxaca. Where should we sit? The left wall as you enter is flanked by four high and then six low two-tops, set to be cobbled together for any config of parties that may wander their way in - groups will be most at home here. A little nook inside the right window hosts a cosy high-top for five and a three-seater window ledge - if your idea of a dry January is hiding from the rain with a drink, this is the place to be. The wraparound bar’s dozen-ish places would make a fine pick for an evening perch, with spillover kitchen space meaning you’ll have plenty of action to watch as the place fills up. The only spot we’d avoid is a tiny table tucked right in the back corner, far too compact for comfort. What’s on the menu? We slipped in for Suertudo’s new(er) brunch-lunch offering available Thursdays to Sundays, which mixes and matches several of its evening plates with a few lighter bites catering to earlier-in-the-day appetites. Guacamole is a typical first port of call for any new Mexican arrival, and an early indication of how it stacks up to the ever-growing competition, but if you're only having one dip with chips, make it the camotito. This gorgeous plate of sweet potato purée has a smoothness and sweetness we couldn't get enough of, complicated in taste and texture by the smoky-spicy salsa macha, a flavour feast that plays like a Mexican chilli crisp. It comes in at top-tier value of €6 for the plate, better for your pocket as well as your palate than the €10 guac - avocados are pricier than sweet potatoes in fairness. That’s a match for the price point at Parrilla , and while the serving there seemed slightly more generous to us (and they add two house salsas to the mix), the quality here swings it even before the tortilla chips are taken into account. Unlike the local competition, Suertudo’s are made in-house from Altamirano’s own masa, a difference you can taste every step of the way. A delicate dusting of punchy spiced salt seals the deal. It's just as well the chips are top class, because we faced more in the form of chilaquiles - it really is a wise move to only get one of the sharing starters. The Mexican breakfast dish is a classic for good cause, intense savoury flavour coursing through every drop of the simmered salsa roja and chicken broth - expect to beg for a spoon to scoop up the last of it. The variously crispy and soggy textures of the chips play well off the piled-high shredded chicken, but this dish is all about that sauce. Its stark saltiness is tempered by crumbled queso fresco and drizzled sour cream, cut through by raw rings of onion. The citrus-spice smack of adobo rojo is the star of the pescado zarandeado, a thick fillet of seabream smothered in sauce and cooked to a just-blackening coat over the charcoal grill. Fresh fish and full flavours are always a winning combination and this is a textbook example, as well as a welcome lighter bite after all the heaving heaviness that came before. Plantain cream on the side does a solid tempering job, while the pickled pink onions have much more than just colour to bring to the feast. We're not known for our ability to pass up lamb birria tacos, with shoulder slow-cooked to a fall-apart texture, served alongside a consommé made of its juices. This Jalisco specialty is wanton to its core, the kind of plate best left ‘til last - you'll be in need of washing your hands, never mind in no state to manage any more food for a while. Beware the great gush of meat juice that’s liable to come spilling from these, lest the meaty goodness go wasted - at €19 per plate, you will not be wanting to miss a drop. Lamb lovers will, and should, devour these, but the consommé can’t compare to the one we tried at Tacos Lupillo (a dish in its own right rather than dip as here, to be fair). Once you’ve had some time to recover, the arroz con leche is a welcome ending to say adios on, though skipping it is a safer bet than anything else we tried. This Mexican take on rice pudding has the concentrated caramel tang of a dulce de leche foam that froths up over the dish if you don’t dig in quick enough. Regular ol’ popcorn propped on top struck us as a shame - a caramelised kind might have better fitted the vibe. What are the drinks like? Cocktails aside, the drinks listings are strangely nondescript with nothing more than the likes of “Rioja Crianza” or “Mexican beer” to clue you in to what’s in store. The tequila and mezcal options claim “brands you can’t find anywhere in Ireland and most of Europe”, though people who know more than us have cast a sceptical eye on that claim. Margaritas are another must-compare item, and Suertudo’s ticked the box just-so with nothing much to lift it above average - we expected more oomph. The smoke-scented Swashbuckler found better favour, with top marks for a mix where Frangelico really works - Tia Maria and mezcal were not what we’d have banked on as the best bedfellows. Te Quila Mockingbird makes hay with the syrup sweetness of grilled pineapple to balance out a bitter mix of Campari and lime - this is exactly the kind of sip-it-and-sigh-with-satisfaction sensation we felt missing in the marg. Lollapalooza comes out in a glass so tall and thin we were terrified of toppling it, but the spicy-sharp mix of tequila, grapefruit and jalapeño goes a long way to steeling those nerves. How was the service? The first week of the year is not a good time to gauge how any new venue is likely to act under pressure, but we were struck by the skill with which our server sailed through the menu, describing every dish with ease - there’s been proper investment in training here. We were impressed too by the speedy delivery of everything, though between a blustery January day and being the last lunch cover the kitchen had to worry about, they weren't under pressure. If there's been any teething issues in opening at the busiest time of the year, word has yet to reach our ears. And the damage? €139 for two rounds of cocktails and enough of a late lunch to see dinner skipped altogether. That’s a big step up in price from the more casual new entrants in Dublin’s Mexican market, but close to bang-on the mark for what we spent at Parrilla . We’d have to hand it to Suertudo for bringing better value. What’s the verdict on Suertudo? Suertudo is Spanish for “the lucky one”, and while Farrell might have chosen that name to pay tribute to the firstborn that started it all, everyone knows it takes a lot more than luck to keep pace with the changing trends and challenges in the restaurant scene. This remaking has what’s needed in spades - a new arrival that shows even crowded markets have space for invention. Ceding prime real estate and a well-established brand to a concept that’s not short on competition is less cashing-in on a trend, than the kind of bold move we badly need more of around town. Who knows what might happen if more places trust talented chefs to go where their skills are. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Pera Top-tier tombik and Turkish coffee is some of the best value around Posted: 30 Sept 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Pera? As costs keep creeping up in every restaurant ‘round town, value is a more premium currency than ever. That’s part of why we’ve seen such interest in the new, higher-end Turkish outlets popping up all over Dublin to cater to the growing diaspora – for all they’re a little pricier than the corner kebab spots spilling sauce down drunken fronts every weekend night, places like Reyna , Chiya , Sultan’s Grill and Sofra still represent absurd value for the quality of quick casual food they’re dishing up. Pera is a name we’ve heard whispered in the same breath more than once from those in the know since their opening almost exactly a year ago, so when they expanded into the larger unit beside their prior Mary Street home with a revamped new dinner menu in the past weeks, we knew the time was right to poke our noses in. Where should we sit? You’ll likely have your pick at all but the busiest times - the new unit, previously home to Casa Brasil, has space to spare, and is much cosier than the pokey few booths packed into the previous space next door. There, they’d also allowed diners head upstairs to a spillover space shared with Pickosito – more comfortable, sure, but far from the action. In the new setting, the left of the long entryway space plays host to a lengthy kitchen counter with a street-facing charcoal grill, glistening döner spits and a shiny new wood-fired oven in prime position for loving, longing stares from the two-tops opposite. If you’re a little less obsessive than us about watching food prep in action, the four-tops a bit further back offer extra space for the more sizeable spreads you might be minded to order, albeit with wood-backed seats better suited to quick stopovers (or late night visits) than long, lingering lunches. For those, turn the bend at the back for a cosy corner kitted out with leather banquettes lining the wall and high-backed two-seaters. This is a roomier space ideal for a catchup with friends or a family outing, with plenty of high chairs at the ready. What are they cooking? Don’t skim over the menu here – among the typical döner, charcoal grill and mezzes that might at first glance seem the same as similar spots, are a few standouts rarely seen about Dublin. Chief among them is tombik (€10.90), a puffy pouch of crisp-shelled bread stuffed to bursting with lamb, chicken or mixed döner shavings and the typical kebab salads. With no disrespect to the thin lavash flatbread that’s a mainstay of most kebabs around town, this made us wish for a world where tombik is the default. The blistered bread crust and airy interior are two delicious sides of the same high-heat coin, and it's a package good enough to eat alone, regardless of filling. It’s a bonus then that the meat’s great too, with heaps of generously juicy thin-sliced chicken falling out the sides as we stuffed ourselves (but no provenance to be seen). Iskender (€17.90) is a real rarity where Dublin kebab shops are concerned (not even Talbot Street’s Iskender itself, bizarrely, serves it). Diced chunks of tirnak pide, a dimpled doughy bread, are topped with mounds of fresh-cut lamb döner and doused with a reduced tomato sauce and melted butter topping, all served beside a heap of strained yoghurt. The deep sweetness of the cooked-down sauce and cool richness of the yogurt play off the lamb’s rich flavour, though our portion’s few chewier chunks left us wondering if the döner hadn’t gone too long without being carved – the tell tale toughness of added time up against the heat had us thinking how much better this would be at busier times. If you’re adding on mezzes, don’t miss the atom (€5.90), served with a fresh disc of tirnak pide alongside. This kicked our iskender into an altogether higher gear, with breath-stinkingly strong garlic stirred through strained yogurt and topped with fiery dried chilli oil – a full-on flavour feast far more assertive than regular yogurt alone. We packed it into the tombik too - it’s hard to imagine any dish this wouldn’t improve. Three things sent us hurtling headlong into the baked flatbread section: our constant quest for value; that spanking-new wood-fired grill; and one glimpse at the size of the pide and lahmacun being pulled out of it. The latter was one of our must-tries from Sultan’s Grill and it’s both better and cheaper here at €6.90 a serving to eclipse all but the biggest of heads. Pastry so crisp it practically shatters at the touch is spread with minced lamb, diced onions and peppers, oven-rendered fat giving it all the texture of spread sausage. Pile it high with the fresh salad on the side and wrap it up tight – as budget lunches go, you can’t do much better. We’d be happily filled from that alone but if you’re properly ravenous look at the “Turkish pizza” that is pide (€12.90). We can never pass up sucuk, the fermented beef sausage with layers of mild spiced flavour, scattered here among a molten excess of cheese just-about hemmed in by the singed paper-thin crust, perfectly punctuating the gooey, stretchy indulgence. This one's for sharing. Not even arch gluttons like us could stomach the thought of dessert after all of that, as tempted as we were by the glowing fridge opposite. Baklava and rice pudding look the part, while a glimpse and whiff of a bubbling kunefe en route to another table gave us every faith it's on the level we lapped up at Sofra . How was the service? Very fast. We almost told them they’d got the wrong table when our food arrived out spread across the arms of two staff what felt like ten minutes after we’d ordered it - this is a great go-to when you need a good feed quick. Friendly but unfussy check-ins followed suit – you’re in safe hands. What did it all come to? Three of us ate to the point we kinda wished we hadn’t for just short of €20 a head – that’s just silly value for a feast like this. You would find it very difficult to spend much more than that and have any hope of leaving empty plates behind. What’s the verdict on Pera? A Turkish coffee (€3.90) to finish here is obligatory – only such strong, stark caffeine could get us up out of our seats after all that. The two-pour prep over hot sand is a whole ritual we wish they’d given us more of an angle on, but the dainty delicate cup and its deeply aromatic notes is after-dinner show enough. It’s a Turkish tradition to turn the cup over after and tell your fortune from the shapes the unfiltered grounds leave running down the sides, Our seer skills might be rusty, we’re pretty sure ours predicted we wouldn’t be needing dinner that night, and that there’s a horde of people who’ll be rushing into Pera for value and quality like this. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

The Grayson Go for the chips, the margaritas and the marble bathrooms Posted: 18 Sept 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Up until January of this year, the four-storey building at 41 St. Stephen's Green was home to former private member's club Residence and the upmarket (and suitably priced) Restaurant Forty One . When it was announced late one Friday evening that Press Up Entertainment had bought the building and it would close it immediately for refurbishment, there was a collective groan amongst much of the food and drink industry. Press Up (owned by Paddy McKillen Jnr, son of multi-million/billionaire developer Paddy McKillen) are commonly accused of being "all fur coat and no knickers" (based on their beautiful fit outs but generally average food), and independent restaurants say they can't compete with their deep pockets when vacant sites come available. Press Up disputes this, saying they rarely bid on properties, and on it rumbles. You can read more about that situation in this very good Irish Times article by Catherine Cleary and Una Mullally. Whether you like them or not, it's hard to argue with the fact that when it comes to fit outs and design few people do it better, and they have undoubtedly brought something new to the Dublin dining and drinking scene - rooftop bars with panoramic views of the city, the ability to use a swing on a night out, and the plushest cinema in the country to name a few. We were very interested to see what they would do with 41 Stephen's Green, and the initial publicity photos were as impressive as always, but where Press Up sites tend to fall down is the food. With Roberta's in particular receiving less than glowing reviews from the critics last year after it opened, we were hoping this one might be the exception to the rule, but we are also acutely aware that we are in the middle of a major chef shortage , and we can't figure out how they're managing to staff so many sites. Where should we go for a drink first? If you're going here you should have the full experience, which means a pre-dinner drink in the atrium cocktail bar. It's a stunning space with seating at the bar and at high tables, and up the stairs at the end leads to a very plush smoking area with a retractable roof. The cocktails are well priced by city centre standards at €10 - €12.50, and of the ones we tried, our favourites were the excellent Second Floor Margarita with tequila, blood orange liquor, blood orange syrup and lemon, and the Prickly Honey, with pisco, pineapple liqueur, honey, lemon, egg white and soda water. We were less keen on the Angi, with lemon infused gin, white chocolate, lemon and egg whites, which was a bit too sweet for an aperitif. Staff couldn't have been nicer, and offered to make us any cocktail we could think of. Where should we sit? As well as main dining rooms on the ground, first and second floors, there are a few little private rooms off the stairways, which would be great for a small private event or if you're really trying to impress a date. Try to nab a table near the window on either floor for the great views out onto St Stephen's Green. We also thought the light on the first floor was slightly better if being able to read the menu/post pictures of your dinner on Instagram is something that's important to you. What's good to eat? Frustratingly we didn't find any knockout dishes, but we did hear people talking about how much they enjoyed their meal, so if you're easier to please than us you might love it. Of the starters, the best were the roast pork belly with pulled pork croquette, puy lentils, orange and watercress salad (although it was very filling), and the whole king prawn with tempura prawn and baby prawn salad, bloody mary jelly and baby gem leaves. The most disappointing dish was the sesame seared tuna with avocado and wasabi purée, watermelon and pink ginger, which couldn't have looked more different to the publicity shot, and which was really just a hot mess (without the hot part). The four tiny pieces of tuna tasted of nothing, and the wasabi purée improved things but there wasn't enough of it. When it came to the mains, at first taste, both fish dishes we tried were good. Pan fried halibut was well cooked and came with crispy okra (which tasted of nothing but oiliness), nduja ratte potatoes, toasted sweetcorn and samphire sea herb (which we're pretty sure is just samphire), and at the start it felt like a flavour-packed combination, but once the initial punch wore off, we found the salt and fat overpowering. By the time we were halfway through our palates were jaded, and a good chunk of it went uneaten. It was a similar situation with the seabream with roasted artichokes (which tasted like the jarred variety), crab salad and vierge sauce. Too much salt. Not enough flavour. Not all eaten. We found the oversized, branded salt containers on each table (which seem to be in all of their venues) quite ironic. Duck breast with confit leg meat, crushed sweet potato, charred broccoli and duck jus was another of the better choices and had good flavour (despite being slightly overcooked), but once again, after a few bites the salt became overpowering. Maybe the kitchen's on commission for how much of those branded salt containers they can get through. Of the sides, a salad of bumble bee leaves, mixed beetroot, heirloom tomatoes, feta whip and smoked almonds tasted once again overpoweringly of salt - this time from the first bite. We have no idea how it's possible to over-salt salad leaves to this extent, unless you did it for a dare. Tempura courgettes were okay if needing work when it comes to the batter, but the crispy hand-cut skinny fries topped with nduja, chilli mayonnaise and parmesan were very good. Definitely one of the highlights of the meal. Another highlight was dessert. Vanilla ice-cream with chocolate soil (groan), chocolate shards, chocolate and caramel sauce and house made honeycomb, came in the form of an ice-cream sundae and was a deliciously nostalgic way to end a meal, although it was extremely rich. The same goes for the chocolate delice, with hazelnut crunch, salted caramel sauce, milk chocolate chantilly and salted caramel ice cream. A skillfully made, beautifully presented dessert, but half would have been enough. Blueberry cheesecake was also very good, but apple tart tatin had unpleasant pastry and was completely solidified to the plate - not what we generally look for in food. What about the drinks? The cocktail list is great and most of what we tried was a cut above the average you'll find around town. Wines by the glass are limited and not particularly interesting, and Paddy McKillen's Château La Coste (from his vineyard in Provence) takes centre stage as the house wine, as it does in all of Press Up's sites. There are some nice options on the bottle list, but mark ups are high and you're looking at €40-45 a bottle for anything decent. If you have cash to splash there are some serious bottles on there but we're talking €60/70 plus. The staff who served us were not well-versed in the wine list so if you want to spend that much and you don't know what to go for ask for a sommelier. And the service? The initial welcome and the atrium bar staff couldn't be faulted. The restaurant staff were very pleasant but felt inexperienced. We were asked if we were ready to order three times before we actually were, staff reprimanded each other in front of us, and acknowledged that they didn't know anything about the wines. They were all very nice, but it wasn't quite a tightly-run ship. Teething problems we would hope. The verdict? If food is your first priority in life this probably isn't going to knock your socks off, but if you want an injection of gold-plated glam, good cocktails and marbled-decked bathrooms you will probably love it. We heard the table next to us, and another in the adjoining room saying how much they'd enjoyed their food, so maybe we need to go and join Marina O'Loughlin in Snobland , or maybe those other people are just more easily pleased. The Grayson 41 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2 thegrayson.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Shouk Mezze, shawarma and arayes straight from the Levant Posted: 13 Nov 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Shouk opened quietly a year ago with zero fanfare - they have social media but not even a website. Slowly rumours started to go around about what sounded like a ramshackle operation on the grounds of St Pat's college in Drumcondra serving really exciting Middle Eastern food. Catherine Cleary reviewed it six months later and the word was officially out. It's actually not in St. Pat's College, it's right next to the train station and the Arts and Business Campus, and it backs onto a yard with a few covered market stalls selling various handmade bits and pieces. Owner Alon is Israeli with Irish roots, and insists on everything being made fresh, and it's in no small thanks to this that in 12 months Shouk has gone from suburban unknown to somewhere you'd be lucky to get in without a booking. Where should we go for a drink first? This isn't really the land of wine or cocktails. Your best bet would be a pint or a gin and tonic in Fagan's (Bertie Ahern's fav) or Kennedy's , or just go straight to Shouk which is BYO. Where should we sit? Inside is warm and 'cosy', with a few bar seats and tables which are quite close together, but we can guarantee it won't bother you much once the food starts coming. There's also a wonderful outside area which is a total suntrap and was the place to be during the summer. We were thinking of how sad it is that this space is going to go to waste for the next six months or so until the weather gets better again, when they told us that work is about to get underway on building walls to enclose the space that will be able to go up or down depending on the weather, as well as a retractable roof. Genius. What's good to eat? Honestly? Everything. We've been three times and were wowed by it all. Don't miss the mezze platter, but be warned, it's enormous, so one between two (or two between four) is plenty, unless that's all you want to eat. Everything in Shouk is homemade and it's so obvious when you start eating. The flavours are so intense and vibrant, we spend most of our time there making yummy noises and shaking our heads rather than talking. You can order all of the bits separately from the snacks menu but the mezze is a really good overview of what the kitchen are doing. The chicken shawarma is another winner, albeit more difficult to share, and is packed with spiced chicken, pickled and fresh veg and loads of hummus in a fresh pita. For €8.50 it's one of the best sandwiches we've had this year. The menu is mostly vegetarian, and the chargrilled aubergine, with tahini, harissa, cherry tomatoes and more of that amazing pitta is as good an example as any to give meat a break. It is very charred and strong-tasting, so you might not want a whole plate to yourself but it's a definite if you're sharing. *Secret menu item alert* - Through some fortuitous twist of fate (an older member of a group asking where all the meat was) we discovered the beef and lamb arayes - stuffed pitta breads deep-fried and served with labneh, charred vegetables and a cucumber, onion and tomato salad. This is heavy and probably the least healthy item in here but oh so worth it - total table silencer. They're hoping to launch new menus soon and we're told this will be on there, but if not ask for it. They only had one dessert the last time we were there - Malabi, an Israeli milk pudding. Usually desserts like this wouldn't overly appeal, but our server convinced us to give it a go and we were so glad she did. A coconut cream base was topped with rosewater, shaved coconut, caramelised almonds and pistachios, and was a perfect combination of lightness, zippiness and sweetness. We shared one and were very tempted to order another, but had already eaten our body weight in pitta so restrained ourselves. What about the drinks? Another brilliant thing about Shouk is that it's BYO - €4 for wine, €1 for beer, but this might go up soon as it's very cheap. This started as they initially didn't have an alcohol license, but despite recently securing a wine list they're going to keep allowing BYO as it's been so popular - three cheers for Shouk. They're currently working on a wine list too so if you don't want to BYO (or forget to) they will have options. And the service? There's a really positive atmosphere in Shouk and everyone really seems to like working there. This is probably partly down to the fact that they are deluged with customers telling them how much they enjoyed their meal and can't wait to come back. It's like walking into a big love bubble. The verdict? This the most exciting, best-value Middle Eastern food we've found in Dublin. The dishes and flavours set the bar for this style of cooking, and if we had this in Israel, never mind Ireland, we'd be delighted. Every time we've gone the bill has seemed paltry for the amount and quality of food we had, and the fact that you can BYO makes it ideal for special occasions. Go soon, and be sure to book in advance. Shouk 40 Drumcondra Road Lower, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 shouk.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Chob Thai Website chobthai.ie Address Chob Thai Restaurant, Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Couple Valentin and Mihaela Ivancenco are very fond of fermentation. Growing up in Romania fermented foods were part of daily life, and they spent years seeking them out on travels through Asia and Europe. Being out of work during the pandemic, chef Val had a chance to start experimenting, and was soon selling his krauts and hot sauces to cafés and restaurants. The Fairmental food brand was born, and the couple opened their first café near Grand Canal Dock in 2023. The simple menu consists of rice bowls, broths, wraps and toasties, and you're guaranteed to feel super-charged after a visit. Fairmental Website fairmental.ie Address Fairmental, 10 Grand Canal Street Upper, Dublin 4 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Couple Valentin and Mihaela Ivancenco are very fond of fermentation. Growing up in Romania fermented foods were part of daily life, and they spent years seeking them out on travels through Asia and Europe. Being out of work during the pandemic, chef Val had a chance to start experimenting, and was soon selling his krauts and hot sauces to cafés and restaurants. The Fairmental food brand was born, and the couple opened their first café near Grand Canal Dock in 2023. The simple menu consists of rice bowls, broths, wraps and toasties, and you're guaranteed to feel super-charged after a visit. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Frank's Small plates and all the wine on Camden Street Posted: 23 Jul 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Unless you've had your head under a rock for the past two months you've probably heard of Frank's , the new wine bar serving small plates around a communal table, from the guys behind Delahunt a few doors up. Industry chatter for months before they opened was about how they were going to bring a better value wine offering to Dublin, and that the inspiration came from London wine shop and bar P Franco in East London, which has a similar set up. Where they differ, is that Frank's don't really want you sitting at the communal table unless you're eating, so in effect it's only a wine bar if you're happy to perch on the ledges either side of the window (or maybe if it's not busy - we certainly wouldn't attempt it at peak times on Friday or Saturday night). And if you were planning on pitching up and snacking on olives and almonds your plans might be scuppered too - you can only order their smoked almonds with a glass of amontillado sherry, as apparently people were coming and just ordering those. Smoked almonds and sherry are a great match, but it seems like an oddly constraining rule to come up against on a night out. The other thing it's really important to know before going is that you can't book, it's walk-in only, and they won't take your name and let you go off for a drink (there's no phone), so you just have to hang around. This wasn't filling us with joy when we arrived just after 19:30 on a Friday evening to be told there was a two hour wait for seats. There's also no wait list, so you're just counting on the staff to remember who got there first, which seems unnecessarily anxiety-provoking (and will surely end in a scrap one night). We decided to have a drink (sherry, because we were starving and needed those almonds), and thanks to at least one waiting couple giving up and leaving we were sitting down after an hour, which goes by fast if you've brought someone with good chat. Where should we go for a drink first? The queue here is where you will be having your drink, because no one wants to risk an hour long wait for food while already tipsy, and they have good wine. Where should we sit? You'll likely have no choice unless you're first in, but if you do it's the dilemma of whether to go close to the action where the chef is cooking and risk leaving smelling like your dinner, or back away and sit closer to the window, standing a better chance of keeping your perfume/cologne on. Either way communal dining won't be for everyone, but if it's your thing you'll love it. What's good to eat? We can vouch for the wait snacks of almonds and gordal olives, and after that we just told them to bring everything - blame the queuing time. The menu has been changing a lot, and every review we've read has featured different food, so it could be totally different by the time you get there, but we imagine they'll settle into some favourites after a while. Head (and only) chef Chris Maguire had previously been the head chef at Locks , and before that worked at two-Michelin starred The Ledbury in London, so you know you're in good hands, and the same over-riding focus on quality produce is the main driver for the menu. From the six main small plates (not including cheese or dessert) the standouts were the chargrilled squid with a padrón pepper sauce and violet artichokes (a pretty perfect plate of food, in flavour and texture), and the hen of the woods mushrooms with charred corn and smokey chicken wing meat, which we would have ordered another of if we'd had enough time. What a dish. Burrata with heirloom tomatoes and pickled onion was simple but obviously made with quality ingredients, including tomatoes that tasted like they were grown on sunnier shores, and mackerel with gooseberry and horseradish would give that unfairly judged fish a less stinky reputation, just barely fried and still pink in the middle, lifted by the tart gooseberries, although we couldn't taste the horseradish. We'd been eyeing up the whipped chicken liver with pickled strawberries and brioche on Insagram all week, and while it was pleasant we felt like the chicken liver needed the flavour turned up, or maybe a bit more seasoning. It was hard to imagine the pickled green strawberries or the brioche getting any better. The only plate we didn't love was the morcilla with salt-baked beetroot and cherry, whose flavours seem to fight against rather than compliment each other. Dessert and cheese ended things on a high, as all meals should. We'd been daydreaming about the peaches, ricotta and brown butter crumb, and we're still daydreaming about it. The peaches were like none we've tried here before (maybe we're going to the wrong fruit shop) with an almost cartoonish, over-exaggerated flavour, smooth, creamy ricotta mellowing out the sweetness, with the brown butter crumb adding a rich savouriness and texture. It's already on the "best things we've eaten this year" list. Cheese was a perfect rectangle of Shepherd's Store from Tipperary, with a vivid looking and tasting purée of dried raspberries, which beats any chutney we've tried recently by a long stretch. What about the drinks? If you like wine you will not go thirsty in here. There's an extensive selection of sherry, sparkling wine, white, red and dessert wines at very reasonable prices, which is one of their hooks. We spotted wines that are €9/€10 on other city centre wine lists on here at €6.50-€7. You will probably end up drinking more rather than spending less, but the wines are great with that minimal intervention slant that tends to result in less of a hangover, so that's okay. The serious value seems to be in the glass selection, but they do have an additional few pages of bottles (including magnums that we could see ourselves having some group fun with) and we'd advise just telling the staff what you like and letting them make suggestions. You're unlikely to go too far wrong - we tried a lot of different glasses and there wasn't one disappointment. One thing you should be aware of is that you'll be holding onto the same glass for the night, so if you're switching from sherry or red to white or fizz you might want to ask for a rinse. And the service? Pretty to the point at queuing stage but warmed up considerably once we managed to sit down. Staff were happy to chat and recommend wines, despite being run off their feet, and dishes were delivered by the chef, although we would have liked a bit more chat in terms of what we were about to eat - to be fair he's pretty busy in that solo kitchen so we get it. This is a very lean operation and they have to be given credit for keeping things running as smoothly and calmly as it was when we were there, and keeping smiles on their faces throughout. The verdict? Frank's has brought a lot of things to Dublin that it was in desperate need of - somewhere that you can always (attempt to) walk in without a booking, non-gouging wine prices allowing us to drink better while spending the same money, and the kind of counter, communal dining that's so popular in other cities but which we're lagging behind with. We would love to see things loosen up a bit to the point where you can just go in for a bottle of wine, but at the same time understand that priority needs to be given to people who want to eat, so for now there's the ledges on either side of the window. If they can improve their wait list system it will do much to alleviate any queuing-related anxiety you may experience while trying to eat and drink there, but once you sit down all is likely to be forgiven. Frank's 22 Camden Street Lower, Dublin 2 www.instagram.com/franksdublin New Openings & Discoveries More >>

D'Lepak Superior Malaysian street food hidden away in suburbia Posted: 14 Oct 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What's the background on D'Lepak? Wife and husband team Ira (front of house) and Sydian (chef) came to Dublin from Malaysia 23 years ago, with both working in hospitality across restaurants and cafés. A year ago the Palmerstown café in the middle of a housing estate that Sydian worked for (Easy as Pie) decided to close, and the couple decided to take the leap and bring the food they eat at home to Dublin 20 locals, but were they ready for it? Ira said that at first regular customers didn't know what to make of the new dishes, asking if they could still get their usual burger or chicken salad. They kept these items on the menu, supplementing with iconic Malay dishes like curry puffs, Nasi Lemak and Mee Goreng, but she says that now most people have come around, and order the Malay dishes over the old Western ones. They would love to get to the point where these dishes are removed completely, and we think that would be the turning point for D'Lepak to gain a wider following, moving from a locally loved café to a Malaysian food destination. What's the seating situation? This is a café set up, so not somewhere you're likely to settle in for hours. Chairs are hard plastic or backless cushioned benches (most with cushions), but it's a sweet place to sit surrounded by Malaysian artwork and fans, and a large fake flower wall complete with "just lepak and chill!" in neon letters. Some Gen-Z driven Instagram/Tiktok thought went into this decor. There's a cute garden out back too if it's mild enough for outdoor dining, with more fake flower + neon sign photo opportunities just crying out for a place on your social feeds. They do take reservations so you can also request where to sit (benches by the window for us), but when we tried to use their online system it wasn't working so we had to call. What's on the menu? You have to cut through a fair amount of filler food to get to the supremo Malaysian stuff, but that's where we come in useful. Needless to say you are not here for the chicken burger, steak salad, or chips, but from the Asian sections there are some key winners and ones to avoid. Beef and lamb are Irish, but chicken may not be, so avoid as required. The only two small plates that are fully homemade are the curry puffs (or karipap) and the Malaysian chicken satay skewer (€10.90), and these should both be in your order. You want to talk about going the extra mile? D'Lepak's satay sauce is from a family recipe, made with fresh ingredients and zero shortcuts, including grinding peanuts fresh instead of using bought in peanut butter. The barbecued chicken skewers are smoky and tender, and while the plain chunks of cucumber, red onions and compressed rice cubes might seem dull at first glance, you would eat the top of your finger dipped into this sauce. Curry puffs (€6 for four) come filled with curried potato or sardines, in the crispiest deep-fried pastry shell, and they'll default to potato if you don't specify which on ordering. If you drove out here and just had a plate of these you would leave with no regrets, and probably order a second portion to go. €1.50 per puff feels like you're ripping them off. We've spent years trying to find a version of Nasi Lemak (the country's national dish) that's as good as the ones we fell in love with in Malaysia, and Normah's in London is the closest we've got without jumping back onto an Ethiad flight, until now. Order it with the lamb rendang (€15) - a spiced meat curry rich in coconut and fragrant with lemongrass, and pick and mix with the spicy sambal sauce, crunchy peanuts and anchovies, refreshing cucumber, soft egg and rice cooked with coconut milk and pandan leaf. It's unusual to serve the egg in this common breakfast dish fried instead of boiled, but we quite liked the yolk running all over the rice. The weekend sees specials hit their social media feeds, and ask about them if they don't offer them up on arrival - we had major heart eyes to find out they were running a special of roti with dahl, and the flaky, buttery flatbread had barely hit the table before it was ripped to shreds and inhaled by all present, but the dahl covered in a thick oil slick was very high on the spicy scale, and should probably come with a warning for fair-weather Irish palates. The roti is sadly bought in (it is a quality version), but the couple hope to extend their kitchen if business goes well so that they can start making their own (we also hope for this as there are few higher pleasures in life than good, homemade roti). A Malay dish we've never seen served in any other restaurant here is kuay teow ladna (€16), a dish of flat rice noodles in a silky egg soup, with prawns, chicken, squid and vegetables. The chicken stock-based, egg-enriched soup has a deep flavour profile, with meat and seafood quantities more generous than we expected, and a squeeze of lime over the top livening it all up. There's a bit of a "chicken soup for the soul" vibe going on here - the next time you're sick or feeling "tired" (read: hungover), we bet this would improve things. Mee Goreng, a fried noodle dish with chicken and/or seafood is commonly sold at food stalls around Malaysia, with egg noodles in a sticky, sweet sauce. D'Lepak's has chicken, prawns and plenty of fresh, crunchy veg, topped with a fried egg, fried onions and freshly fried prawn crackers. It's not a reason to drive here like some of the other dishes, but if you're craving noodles you'll be very happy. As is too often the case, we left feeling short-changed that we hadn't been able to try more. Next time (on the owner's advice) we're trying the Nasi Goreng Ikan Masin - Asian style fried rice with salted fish, chicken onion, choi sum and a fried egg on top - and the Maggi Goreng chicken chop - instant noodles fried in Malaysian sauces with vegetables, crispy breaded boneless chicken leg and a fried egg . The less said about this 'Gear Box' special - a Northern-style vermicelli soup with bone marrow - that we also missed out on the better. If you're hungry enough for dessert, skip the fridge with bought in sponge cakes and profiteroles, and look to the counter for Malaysian specials like 'Serimuka', a two-layered dessert with glutinous rice and green pandan custard, and 'Talam gula merah', with a palm sugar based and a coconut milk topping. The serimuka was our favourite, but we wouldn't class either as a must eat. We'd rather have another curry puff. How was the service? Totally charming, with owner Ira genuinely interested in everyone that walks through the door, wanting to know how they're finding the food, how they heard about the restaurant, and whether they've been to Malaysia before. Their two children help out at the weekend too when they're not in college, and it's the kind of place you'd feel yourself drawn to regularly if you lived locally, for the welcoming energy as much as the food. What was the damage? A bargainous €67 before tip, for two starters, four mains, and two Malaysian sweets, with plenty of leftovers to take home, or for four people to feel very full eating in. What's the verdict on D'Lepak? There's so much heart in this little café, and if they just ditched the burgers and bought in fried food and stuck to where the soul of the operation is, this could end up as much an out of the way food destination as Normah's in London, in its back street shopping mall in Queensway. For now they're too nervous to make the leap, but maybe once word spreads about the curry puffs and nasi lemak, they'll move things up a gear and focus fully on what they're best at. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Clanbrassil House A new kitchen team, bistro vibes and people-watching in D8 Posted: 26 Oct 2021 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope ! New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Lock's Grown-up, canal side dining that's worth a trip for the butter alone Posted: 3 May 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Locks has been around since the 1980’s but has had more incarnations than Madonna. At one point it gained and lost a Michelin star within a year (as Locks Brasserie), which led to the restaurant closing in the summer of 2015. That Autumn, it was taken over by Conor O’Dowd (ex-head chef at Dax) and Keelan Higgs, who’d been a chef in Locks Brasserie for the past few years, along with Paul McNamara (ex-head chef at Etto). Since then it’s been gaining a steady buzz with one great review after another. Higgs has since moved on, and in February this year Locks announced that they had hired a new head chef , Chris Maguire, formerly of The Ledbury and Trinity in London (both Michelin starred). We thought it was time we went to check it out. Where’s good for a drink beforehand? If it’s a sunny day most of Dublin will be at The Barge , so you may as well join them. Otherwise The Bernard Shaw is slightly closer and has a good range of beers as well as cocktails and an impressive selection of no and low-alcohol drinks, in case you’re saving yourself for the wine list at Locks. What’s the room like? Really beautifully laid out, like being in a very plush house. The killer tables are the ones by the window, where you can gaze out at the canal all night, but the whole room is ultra comfortable. The private dining room upstairs has serious wow factor, and if we were organising a group night out or a little celebration it would be right at the top of our list. What's good to eat? The smart money’s in the chef’s tasting menu on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which includes five courses (different each week) for €45. There’s also a very good value market menu available from 5:30pm – 6:30pm Tuesday to Saturday, with two courses for €25 or three for €30. We went á la carte. Whatever other choices you make, do not neglect to order the sea trout and dulse butter, which no description can do justice to. It comes with homemade sourdough and brown bread, and honestly if we’d had three courses of that it would have been worth the trip. Another snack that’s difficult to fault was the whipped chicken liver with brioche, grapes and apple - beautifully light and perfectly balanced between richness and freshness. For starters, we loved the roast cauliflower risotto with morels and truffle, which was an umami bomb. The violet artichoke, duck hearts and padron pepper (which came as a sauce) was more understated and didn't wow in the same way, but a nice dish nonetheless and the duck hearts were perfectly cooked. From the mains their signature dish seems to have become the Delmonico salt aged rib-eye for two, with braised short rib, duck fat chips, salt and pepper onion rings and king oyster mushroom, for €65, so we felt we had to try it. The rib-eye meat had extraordinary flavour, so much so that we wanted to eek out every bite, and the short rib and mushroom, which came on two separate plates, felt like more of a distraction. They would have been highly enjoyable by themselves but the steak was the star of the show and hard to compete with, and by the end we were getting close to the meat sweats. Saying that, if you go hungry, or don’t order snacks and starters, you will probably be very happy. The salt and vinegar onion rings were a genius move and highly addictive, but the duck fat chips were more bendy than crispy, and we couldn’t understand the reasoning behind making chips curved and taking off their lovely crispy edges. Dessert was a struggle after so much meat, but we wanted to try the peanut butter tart with banana milk ice-cream after seeing it all over Instagram. It was very well done, the milky banana perfectly offsetting the dense peanut butter tart. What about the drinks? We recognised barely any winemakers on the list which usually sets off alarm bells, but we had nothing to worry about. This is a list which has been put together with care and attention, and there’s a big focus on wines from Portugal, as GM Andressa is Portugese. Everything we tried by the glass was a good step above most restaurants in the city, including an Italian Vermentino, a Spanish blend of Treixadura and Godello, a red blend from the Douro in Portugal and an Italian Barbera. And the service? Our waitress couldn’t have been any more welcoming or lovelier, a rare find for restaurants at the moment, and another member of staff was happy to make wine recommendations and let us taste before deciding. It seems like a place where the staff are happy to be there. The verdict? This is grown up dining in a gorgeous canal-side location, close enough to town that you could walk, far enough away that it feels totally peaceful. Attempt to bag a window table, don’t miss the butter, and if you order the rib eye try not to gorge yourself on multiple courses beforehand. Next time we're going Tuesday or Wednesday for the chef’s tasting menu. Locks 1 Windsor Terrace, Portobello, Dublin 8 locksrestaurant.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Some of the best ramen in the city (if not country), with everything homemade in house, from the noodles to the broth. You'll find lots of fermented foods here, from kimchi to kombucha, all the small plates to share, and the space is large and laid back. Plenty of big tables for group gatherings. Soup Two Website soupramen.ie Address 44 - 47 King St North, Smithfield, Dublin 7 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Some of the best ramen in the city (if not country), with everything homemade in house, from the noodles to the broth. You'll find lots of fermented foods here, from kimchi to kombucha, all the small plates to share, and the space is large and laid back. Plenty of big tables for group gatherings. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Pi If this isn't the best pizza in Dublin we'll eat our smartphones Posted: 13 Jul 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? We'd heard rumblings of a new pizzeria opening on George's Street for a while, and to be frank we weren't particularly excited. In the realm of pizza/burgers/fried chicken it takes a lot to make us want to give up a meal for what's often over-priced, under-whelming fast food, but something about this one seemed different. After a bit of digging we found out that Laois native Reggie White, the man behind the perfect pizza, had been working in an auctioneer's in Dublin, before jacking it to follow a career in food. After a three-month course at Ballymaloe, his existing pizza obsession grew further, and after various cheffing jobs, and a stint at his brother's award-winning Italian restaurant Flour + Water in San Francisco, he came back intent on finding a site to showcase the Neapolitan-inspired pizza he's spent the past few years perfecting - the problem was where and how with the city's current property situation. It all started to come together when a friend introduced him to the man who would become his business partner, John Savage, who Reggie says had a "carbon copy" business plan of bringing the best pizza to Dublin. John managed to secure a prime site on George's Street, just off Dame Street, and oversaw the high-end fit out. They quietly opened a couple of weeks ago (no pre-opening fanfare here) and we thought now was a good time to find out if it was the real deal. Where’s good for a drink beforehand? We'd head for the newly opened Loose Canon Cheese and Wine , either before for some tasty natural wine or after for a cheese plate (and some tasty natural wine). For cocktails, Bonsai Bar is just across the road and has been getting great reviews for its Japanese inspired creations . You're pretty spoilt for good pub options in this part of town, with The Stag's Head , The Long Hall and Grogan's all a few minutes walk away. What’s the room like? Slick and almost futuristic, all red, black, grey and chrome. This was not a cheap fit out. There are low tables and chairs at the front and back, and high tables and stools in the middle. There's also counter seating in the window which is perfect for a quick solo meal or if you just like people watching. We loved the sleek white tile effect on the high tables (will we be shot for using the term 'insta-friendly?), and the red leather-look high stools and banquettes made it feel more like New York (or any ultra cosmopolitan city for that matter) than Dublin. The high ceilings give a sense of space that's not often found in city centre eateries, and the chrome wall that's supposed to look like used tomato tins is dramatic to say the least. What's good to eat? The menu is short and simple which makes the job of choosing easier. There are no starters or sides, just eight pizzas, three sauces and two desserts. The aim is to do a few things very well rather than spreading themselves too thin. If you only get one pizza, make it the margherita. It's rare that you eat something where the quality in every ingredient is so explicit, but here, the individual flavours of tomato, extra virgin olive oil and Toonsbridge Fior di Latte were almost shockingly good. The crust was the best we've had in Dublin (if not Ireland, if not the world) - springy and chewy but also so light from the four day fermentation the dough goes through before being put into the Stefano Ferrana pizza oven at almost 500°C. We recently heard an Italian pizzaiolo say that the mark of a good pizza is that you could eat another one, and we can't remember the last time we ate a whole pizza and didn't feel uncomfortably full. Three of the eight pizzas are biancha (no tomatoes), and we loved the 'Funghi', which comes with grana padano, spinach, 'hen of the woods' mushrooms, fontina, garlic and sage cream. An incredible amount of flavour, but really well balanced and not overpowering. The 'Zuccha', with Grana Padano, basil, courgette, garlic, house ricotta and salsa verde was another table silencer. Pizza bianca has a tendency to be slightly dry, due to the lack of tomato sauce, but the homemade ricotta on this one had a silky consistency and a lovely lemony tang. Salsa verde added another level of freshness, and the grana padano added a rich saltinesswhich really highlighted the fresh courgette. Both dips we tried were excellent, although the basil aioli was more addictive than the chipotle mayo for our money. Dessert options consist of a chocolate 'budino' (described as a chocolate pot with sea salt but really a set custard, they just didn't think that would sounds as appealing) and vanilla ice-cream with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt, with the sub-heading, 'Delicious... just trust us!' It was delicious, and one of the most simple, inspired, luxurious desserts we've had. The chocolate pot was so rich it was only a few steps away from being solid. We have no idea what chocolate they're using in this but we need to find out. One square a day and life's daily challenges would be a lot more manageable. We've also come to the conclusion that almost all desserts are infinitely better when chunks of sea salt are added to them. What about the drinks? Three white and three reds by the glass and bottle, and a frizzante (basically prosecco) on tap. We tried the Sangiovese (the ultimate pizza wine) and Sauvignon Blanc which weren't particularly exciting but perfectly acceptable for pizza. The beer list has been put together with love and they have an interesting selection of cans and bottles. We tried the unfiltered lager from Ichnusa which was a crowd pleaser. There's also a decent selection of soft drinks. And the service? Charming if a little unconfident, but they've just opened so they can be forgiven for that. On one visit there was a mistake with a pizza but it was rectified immediately. Everyone was extremely pleasant. The verdict? We're not fans of hyperbole, but if this isn't the best pizza in Dublin right now we'll eat our smartphones. There's magic happening here and you'd be advised to go soon because once word gets out it's going to be rammed. People keep talking about how the restaurant scene in Dublin is overheated, and that we can't take any more openings. They have a point in terms of the current chef shortage , the general difficulty in recruiting hospitality staff, and the rising city rents, but Pi shows why new openings are so important - in with the great, out with the mediocre. Dublin has a lot of great pizza places, but a new bar has been set with Pi. Pi 10 Castle House, 73 - 83 South Great George's Street, Dublin pipizzas.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Table 45 A sweet taste of South American food and hospitality near Grand Canal Dock Posted: 10 Jun 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What should we know about Table 45? What was formerly Bodytonic -run, board game-filled pub The Square Ball near Grand Canal Dock closed at the start of 2024, and die hard fans of Andy Noonan's Fowl Play chicken wept at not being able to get their Nashville Hot Chicken burgers and smoked wings in the area any more. Two more people who weren't crazy about the news were married couple Daniel Kavanagh and Daniel Rivera who lived upstairs and were looking down the barrel of losing their apartment. Rivera worked for Bodytonic and had been in the hospitality industry for years in his native Chile, the US and Ireland, while Kavanagh is an interior designer and all round handy man. The landlord agreed to give them the lease for the whole building, and suddenly they owned a bar. A classy South-American themed refurb, an inclusive (and dog-friendly) policy, and a commitment to building a home-like space for their community later, all alongside a menu of South American and Spanish tapas and drinks, and Table 45 was open. (The name comes from the nickname given to the dining table in their apartment, due to friends ordering food and drinks at the bar before joining them upstairs) Where should we sit? The main bar space is at the front with warm wooden floors, exposed stone walls, and brightly coloured furniture bringing a rustic-modern feel to the former pub. There's a mixture of low tables with comfy upholstered benches and seats, high tables, and counter seating along a wall, as well as a cute little table for three in the window. The back room feels more like a restaurant (image further up), with less natural lighting and more mood lighting, and there is the most adorable high table for two set back into an alcove which will get you major brownie points if you can secure it for your next date. What's on the menu? A pretty extensive selection of Chilean/South American inspired small plates, with bites, meat, fish and vegetarian sections. This is the kind of menu that's ideal if you're out with group with varying tastes, appetites and budgets - everyone will find something they want. Start with the sopaipillas (€8) - deep-fried, disc-shaped Chilean pastries (here with the addition of squash), served with three sauces for scooping and dipping. A traditional Chilean pebre salsa seemed to be missing the vinegar, garlic and parsley, solely consisting of diced tomato, onion and green pepper. An avocado purée was also bland, but dipping deep-fried dough into wholegrain mustard honey with a spicy Michelada on the side is peak bar pairing. Uruguayan chef Luisina Perdomo is their in-house “Empanadera”, making beef and cheese empanadas, as well as croquetas and churros. Beef empanadas (€13 for two) arrived with underbaked, doughy pastry - a shame as the richly flavoured interior dotted with hard boiled egg and olive was perfect (they should have looked like this ). Again that Pebre salsa didn't hit like a good chimichurri (or a good pebre) would have. Tacos come in fish, pork or veggie versions, and our pan-fried haddock ones (two for €10) came with flaky, unbattered fish, smoky sweetcorn and Madras aioli underneath for an unexpected flavour direction that really worked. Patatas bravas (€9) were a homerun, the potatoes crispy outside, fluffy inside, the bravas sauce with just the right amount of heat, and the aioli on the side just garlicky enough, without leaving you paranoid about who you're speaking to for the rest of the day. We're so used to patatas bravas here being so bad that it's almost a shock to find a version this good. Croquetas (€11 for three) come in Jamón and spinach versions, and we went for the latter on the owner's recommendation. Plump, crisp and oozing filling, the citrus aioli and beetroot sauce underneath was another unexpected addition, bringing more punchy flavour layers. Chickpeas with black pudding (garbanzos con prietas, €10) is overdone on tapas menus, yet rarely done well, with chickpeas that haven't turned to mush and soft, crumbly morcilla-like pudding, instead of tougher, more commercial versions. Table 45's is immaculate, with sultanas, paprika, cumin, parsley and garlic oil tying everything up in the tastiest of bows. The universally favourite dish was the Lomo Saltado (a Peruvian-inspired beef stir fry, €14) - braised diced beef marinated for two days in cumin, black pepper and soy sauce, served with fried onions and red peppers (perfectly al dente), served on "crispy" potatoes. The last part was moot as the meat's juices turned anything that was previously crisp underneath it into soggy mush (they would be much better served on the side), but the flavour here was unbeatable, showing how time is often a chef's best tool in the kitchen. Chilean dessert means churros (€9 for four with two sauces), and while ours looked the part outside, they were raw inside. They made them for us again, and the second time were slightly more cooked through, but a sliver of raw dough persisted where a fluffy interior should have been - oil too hot perhaps. Chocolate sauce was good dipping material, but the dulce de leche was a solidified blob straight from the fridge, churros bouncing off on attempt to dip. It needed a knife for spreading like butter, instead of being the luscious pool of caramel we were expecting to stir with a churros baton. Chilean Torta di Amor is similar to Spanish Miljohas or French Mille-feuille , with layers of pastry, cream, custard and fruit. Table 45 's "mini torta di amor" (€9) came on a bed of raspberry purée, with dulce de leche, custard, and a thickened cream with raspberries on top. We had all the love for this little love tart, which felt like a perfect summer dessert (despite the non-summery rain outside). What about drinks? We reccomend sticking to cocktails and beer, which is what we'd wager the owners are most interested in. All the South American favourites feature, including Pisco Sours, Caipirinhas, Mojitos and Margaritas. A Pisco Sour was excellent, and a Caipirinha very enjoyable, but don't expect sugar crystals to flow up the straw like the ones you had on the beach in Rio de Janeiro - this one's smooth as ice. If you're a fan of both beer and Bloody Mary's, you need to try their love child - the Michelada. A cocktail of beer, tomato juice, lemon, Worcester sauce and Tabasco, it's served in a chilled glass with a salty Tajin rim, and is just the thing if you're feeling delicate from the night before. or sleepy from the day that's just been. There's a full spritz menu too, and the T45 with Vermouth Rosso, Prosecco and Soda Water is an easy afternoon sipper. The wine list is all South American or Spanish, and only marginally above your average pub in terms of interest. Draught and bottled beer on the other hand is way more interesting than your average pub, with plenty of less commercial brands, and good N/A options too. How was the service? Very pleasant if not effusive. We ordered a few plates at a time which seems to be the way to go in here, and they arrived nicely paced, never overwhelming the table (a constant complaint in reviews lately). A flat spritz (last night's Prosecco) and undercooked churros were replaced without question and with plenty of apologies. What was the damage? €141 before tip for seven small plates, two desserts, four cocktails and two soft drinks - a good amount of feeding and watering for three hungry adults, or two adults and two kids. €50 a head would be plenty to budget for a good night out here, but a Michelada, a couple of tacos and a filling plate of sopapillas and you could get in and out for €25 before tip. What's the verdict on Table 45? Table 45 is a sweet little taste of South America that's clearly tugging on locals' heartstrings and becoming a happy place for many - frequent posts on their Instagram account announce they're fully booked for the night, so don't expect to walk in at peak times and find yourself a table. There's a very real and wholesome feel here, and with a bit more attention to detail in the kitchen it could easily develop from a "sweet place" to a "must eat in place", but their legion of regular customers don't seem to have any complaints with the current offering. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Rush lucked out with 2023 opening Noisette, serving pastries and sourdough loaves from Vaarsha Baugreet (previously head baker at Bread Naturally in Raheny), and partner Jérémy Pastor (formerly at Tartine and Bread 41). You can expect long morning lines for their hand-kneaded and rolled croissants, danishes and ciabattas, but the staff make it all worthwhile when they hand over the good stuff with a smile. They serve Imbibe coffee and Belgian hot chocolate, and have free plant milk on offer - a major plus for the normally-penalised dairy-free drinkers. Noisette Website @noisetteartisanbakery Address 3 Upper Main Street, Rush, Co. Dublin Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Rush lucked out with 2023 opening Noisette, serving pastries and sourdough loaves from Vaarsha Baugreet (previously head baker at Bread Naturally in Raheny), and partner Jérémy Pastor (formerly at Tartine and Bread 41). You can expect long morning lines for their hand-kneaded and rolled croissants, danishes and ciabattas, but the staff make it all worthwhile when they hand over the good stuff with a smile. They serve Imbibe coffee and Belgian hot chocolate, and have free plant milk on offer - a major plus for the normally-penalised dairy-free drinkers. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Just south of the city centre, bordered by the Grand Canal, head to Portobello for café culture, Michelin-recommended dinners, and homemade pasta. Portobello Our Take Just south of the city centre, bordered by the Grand Canal, head to Portobello for café culture, Michelin-recommended dinners, and homemade pasta. Where to Eat Alma Bibi's Brother Hubbard South Dash Burger Aungier Street Lena Little Bird Richmond Sprezzatura Camden Market

Handsome Burger The Galway-born burgers come to Dublin city centre and the airport, but are they still Ireland's best? Posted: 17 Sept 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope & Maggie Fagan What should we know about Handsome Burger? Galway born Handsome Burger hit national headlines after being named best burger in Ireland 2019 , in a nationwide competition organised by meat company Kepak for National Burger Day (what a world we live in). Started as a market stall by two friends in 2017, they opened their first permanent premises on Galway's Dominick Street in 2019, before flirting with the Dublin market at Eatyard . In a surprise move, a Handsome Burger franchise opened next in Dublin airport in summer 2023, with a second standalone site opening on Chatham Street at the start of summer 2024. Their website says they "have two locations in Ireland and (are in) the process of planning a global takeover!" , and there's an inquiry form website for potential franchisees to get in touch. These guys have no interest in keeping things small and manageable. Franchising poses a big problem for business owners who like to be in control of their product - you're effectively handing the reins to someone else and hoping for the best. We've had multiple messages from readers who've passed through the airport and were sorely disappointed with their Handsome Burger experience, and now that the first location in Dublin city centre site is alive and kicking, we thought we'd check both out for ourselves. Where should we sit? Seating in Chatham Street is relatively limited, with just three low and three high tables inside, and more outside which will become defunct as winter wears on. The good thing is people should eat fast and move on, but we wouldn't fancy huddling in the middle of the room trying to dive on the next available table. Outdoor tables are all for two, so not the best idea with a group either, and you'll be blocking the central path if you pull two together. In the airport, it's an open mezzanine situation - sit where you want at seating so hard and uncomfortable it ensures you won't linger. What's the menu like? Complicated. The first thing you should know is that the menu on their website is not what you're going to find on Chatham Street or in the airport. There are five burgers on there that don't appear in either site, nor do the chicken tenders. On Chatham Street there's a choice of three beef, two chicken and a vegan Beyond Burger, as well as regular fries and two with toppings. In the airport it's more limited, with two beef, one chicken and the vegan, and fries are mandatory, with no option to just order a burger - they're not here to cater for the low carb girlos. You'll find their signature "handsome burger" on both menus, with cheese as an optional add on. It also has sticky onions, pickles, rocket and house sauce, which we're guessing is a mix of mustard, mayo, ketchup and gherkins based on this article . It's a juicy burger (if lacking in char) and the sauce is good, but we've yet to be convinced on rocket as a burger filling. At the airport it was an order at the kiosk situation. There were no options for substitutes (not cool in burger world), and it all felt very robotic and lacking in love - that taste came through in the food. Their flagship burger should be top of its game, but the Handsome was a flop. The meat was void of juice and lacked flavour. The pickles that should have been the welcome jazzy crunch to cut through the richness of the meat were soggy. The cheese, although seen, could not be perceived, and there was a serious lack of sauce. Not to mention the bun was dried out. Sad times indeed. The B.O.B. comes with lardons, crispy onions, double cheese and house sauce, and is a step up on the flavour scale from the handsome burger. The crispy onions and lardons add welcome texture to all that juiciness, but once again the burger itself needed more char. Despite asking three times in three different places if Handsome Burger 's chicken is free-range, we are still no wiser - their website says nothing about their sourcing. Their social media account told us that they use " Manor Farm free range Irish Chicken 90% of the time - occasionally we have to get another when demand is higher than supply ." They didn't respond to a follow up question about what it's replaced with. The staff in the airport Handsome Burger told us the chicken is not free-range. A senior member of staff in the Chatham Row branch told us it is - after a long pause where he didn't seem sure. We almost went round back for a root through the bins. The roost chicken burger (which may or may not be free range) had a buttermilk-fried chicken breast coated in a spicy buffalo sauce, which managed to remove all crispiness from the coating. There are pickles, lettuce and not enough Caesar dressing, but it was all so soggy it was probably better off. There's a proper kick to this one, so only dive in if your spice tolerance is high, and your crispiness craving is low. Meanwhile at the airport... Our vegan counterpart was convinced they had made a mistake with the burgers, as the Beyond Meat patty was so close to the real deal. Similarly to the carnivorous Handsome Burger, the pickles were a let down, and the bun dry. Chips were lacklustre and lukewarm. Rosemary and sea salt fries in Chatham Street were just about warm and lacking in crunch, but not as bad as in the airport. We didn't finish either portion, and it takes a lot to leave chips behind. The fries on their feed back in 2020 were declared hand-cut and triple-cooked, and look considerably better than what we were served in both locations. The loaded fries with chorizo, mint raita, grilled onions, chillies and garlic aioli was an unusual if enjoyable combo - somewhere between Indian and Spanish, but a €9 portion that was 25% onions felt steep. What about drinks? You're unlikely to be inspired by their drinks menu, and they're unlikely to want you to hang around once your burger's done, so everyone's happy. There's basic soft drinks or water, a white or red wine (Pinot Grigio or Malbec when we were in), a single Galway beer by can, and a German beer on draught. With all the brilliant beer being brewed in Ireland right now, it could be so much better. How was the service? Not very enthused. We had a muted greeting, and our food took almost 20 minutes to arrive - people who came after us got their food before us so something must have gone awry. What was the damage? €48.50 for three burgers, two fries and no drinks. A handsome burger, fries and a draught beer will cost you €20. In the airport the handsome burger and fries is €14.95 (5c cheaper). And the verdict? Maybe we're spoiled by craggy, crusty smash burgers, but Handsome's fatty patties didn't do it for us. Maybe back in 2019 their burgers and chips tasted better than this, maybe the focus on franchising has taken the focus off quality control. If you're in the neighbourhood and the queue for Bambino is too long you could do a lot worse. If you're in the airport, we wouldn't bother. As far as taking the Dublin burger top spot, Dash have nothing to worry about just yet. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Sister 7 BIGFAN's beer-based collab is another smash hit Posted: 16 Apr 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What do we need to know about Sister 7 @ Fidelity Studio? Not that long ago, the BIGFAN guys met the Whiplash Beer / Fidelity Bar guys, and bonded over food, beer, and mad flavour science. A trip to the brewery in Cherry Orchard was organised, and they fell in love over mash tuns and steam generators. The beer boys had taken the lease on the site next door to Fidelity and planned to open Fidelity Studio (with the guys behind The Big Romance ), a dog-friendly, late night, audiophile bar, with an as yet undetermined food offering. The idea for Sister 7, and BIGFAN's second restaurant was born... Sister 7 is named after Head chef Chung Lee, who has worked at Big Fan under head chef Alex Zhang since they opened. Her Chinese colleagues call her "sister", and she's the new girl boss character to Alex Zhang's BIGFAN boss man . Unfortunately she's had to temporarily return to China so missed opening week, and other staff members that Alex went to China to interview and hire haven't arrived here either, so at the moment it's a case of stretching who they do have across two sites. (Sister 7) They've said the menu will be 70% BIGFAN classics and 30% crossover dishes developed with Whiplash using beer or spent product from their brewery, and we're expecting constant collaboration and dish development. (Sister 7) We don't make a habit of doing a Lucinda and showing up on night one (in fact we've never done this), but we ended up looking for somewhere to eat on the day Sister 7 were opening, and knowing the calibre of these two teams we couldn't stop ourselves having an early peek. They'd had a few family and friends nights the weekend before to get to grips with things, and if it was terrible we'd go away and come back in a month. We booked a table for 4pm, but as we walked up to the door there were unloading our table from a van - this was not looking good. Staff laughed when we said we had a reservation, and that their furniture was delayed in arriving. We questioned why no one had called us to let us know, but we couldn't get an answer. We sat in Fidelity next door and given a complimentary drink while we waited for what we were told would be 10 minutes, then 15, then another 10, and it was close to 5pm before we actually sitting down. Not the best start considering we had to be gone by 6pm. "Please let this be good..." we prayed to the restaurant Gods... Where should we have a drink beforehand? If you feel like two venues for the price of one (not literally sadly, you will have to pay for drinks), head to original, brilliant beer bar Fidelity next door. As a Whiplash -owned bar they feature heavily, but you will find other breweries like Kinnegar , Trouble Brewing and UK-based Northern Monk . The 'Cellar Menu' is where the real geeks should head - the 500ml bottles there sell for as much as €38. Think of them as fine wine, and made for sharing. We tried the Whiplash x Allta dark sour, a heady, fruity mix with a vinegary whistle at the end, and a N/A version of their mango jalapeño cocktail, the heat from the jalapeño and hot honey deftly disguising the missing Absolute vodka. Where should we sit? It's business in the front, party in the back, with a DJ booth that looks like it's going to be busy. For something that feels like it's opened in a hurry, the design does not feel like a rush job. The colour scheme of black, sage green and rust feeling warm and contemporary, with little accents of gold bringing a bit of luxe. There are curved banquettes in the front room and on one side of the back, and we can confirm they're very comfortable to spend an hour on. There's also a cute counter for two along the divide across the rooms. Sound systems are not our specialist subject but we hear this one is very impressive, and expensive - if you want the details on subwoofers and coax compression drivers you can get it on their website . What's on the menu? Currently it's a lot of the dishes we know and love from BIGFAN , the baos, jiaozi, duck wings and more, but the cleverness and USP for this site is going to be the dishes they incorporate Whiplash beer and brewery by-products into. Start with the crackers made from spent brewery grain (€5). They sound odd, but taste amazing, some like puffed pork rinds, others with the short, crumbly texture of parmesan crisps. They come with an outrageous beefy chilli oil, complete with chewy, deep-fried beef floss - if there's one thing we've obsessed about daily since leaving here it's this condiment. Go, eat it, and beg them to make it available retail. Sweet heart eggs are another bar snack, cured with soy and bonito, with garlic and chilli oil (€5, or €13 with oscietra caviar added on). We didn't order caviar but it arrived anyway, and who's going to complain about that. The eggs were perfectly fudgy, but it's the garlic and chilli oil that takes it from "mmmm" to "mmmmaaagawd" so make sure it's spread all over. The caviar is a nice add on if you're in the black that week, and a more wallet-friendly way to try it than some other options around town, but our eggs were too cold, clearly not out of the fridge that long. We should have let them come to room temperature but we were too hungry. Bar snack number three, and it's a hat-trick with the Iberico char siu puffs - two for €7. The homemade pastry on this would make you weep - layer upon layer of crispy, flaky magic, not a soggy corner in sight, and the sweet, smoky, juicy filling will give Dublin pork puffs the best possible name, Most of Dublin have had Big Fan 's wagyu cheeseburger's jiaozi at this stage, and the new 'Chun Li' ones here, with chicken, celeriac and water chestnuts, are rolled in the same long style. They come with pickled mushrooms and a Whiplash dark sour vinegar (mimicking the traditional Chinkiang/black rice vinegar), and it's all very clever, and very delicious - despite the filling continuously falling out of the open-ended dumplings. We can nary pass up a soup dumpling, so the xiao long bao (€12) also went on our order sheet. They're filled with minced Andarl Farm pork and pork stock, with a ginger and black vinegar dip on the side. In case you don't know how you're supposed to eat soup dumplings, you pierce a hole in them over a spoon, squeeze out the fragrant soup inside, then dip the remaining dumpling in the dipping sauce. If you're a xiao long bao first timer, this is a great place to pop your dumpling. When it comes to the baos, the classic BIGFAN and Shan Ji appear here, but it's the Sister 7 one you want, with Whiplash Slow Life braised beef short rib, barley crumb, pickled ginger, ume and rhubarb fermented chilli, and cos lettuce. This is the type of bonkers combination that shows what a mad genius BIGFAN 's owner and chef Alex Zhang is. Rhubarb with beef? Why is this combination one of the best things we've tasted in months!? You may place a repeat order - we would have if we'd had time. Another beer-based take on a BIGFAN classic is the Fidelity fried chicken with a Blue Ghost and brewery grain batter, and a side of honey mustard yoghurt. These guys know how to brine and deep-fry to get the juiciest meat, but we waited a long time for this and when it finally did arrive it hadn't been drained properly - we can only put it down to a rush to get it out. The yoghurt was too heavy on the mustard, and we found ourselves coughing as it went up our noses. A couple of tweaks and all will be good. We ended with another new one - Lipsticks. Fermented rice is mixed with finely chopped vegetables including celeriac, shiitake, yam and cabbage, wrapped in tofu skin and served with a maple and miso mayo. BIGFAN have never snoozed on vegetarian options, and this is another good one to get your five a day, but we found the rich lipsticks and the sweet sauce in need of a jolt of acidity somewhere. The easiest fix would be to vinegar up that mayo. What's the story with drinks? Like the mothership next door, beer is the star attraction here. Whiplash beers come on tap, with a board for specials, which included the "Even sharks need water" IPA, and a "Pisco Sour" sour beer. Expect these to change regularly. There's also a standard selection of wines on tap, and some nice looking cocktails, including Basil Margaritas and Negroni Blancos. How was the service? While the food is BIGFAN , the servers are Fidelity , and despite our rubbish start, once we got in and seated they were all very pleasant and helpful. There was obvious beer knowledge so recommendations and tastes of things on tap won't be an issue, and we know BIGFAN will make sure everyone's up to speed on the food. Some dishes were slow in coming out, but it was night one proper so that didn't set off any alarm bells. And the damage? After the inauspicious start, they tried to not charge us for the meal, but as (we hope) you know, we don't write about food we haven't paid for, so we eventually accepted an opening night discount of 10% which they said everyone was getting that night. Prices here have a slight increase on what's on Big Fan's online menu , with some dishes up by 30c, others by 50c, but by and large they're very similar. This amount of food should have been €75 before drinks, and generously fed two. €50 a head is reasonable with a couple of drinks per person, but obviously the sky's the limit if you dig into the drinks list. Either way we thought it felt like brilliant value for money on the barometer of city prices right now. What's the verdict on Sister 7? It's not even open a week and it's clear that BIGFAN have another smash hit on their hands, the collaboration with Fidelity a thoughtful move for both. This kind of instant buzz is what restaurant and bar owners dream of, showing the strength of the fan-base both already had, and how it's multiplied by coming together. The real draw here is the collaboration between brewery and kitchen, the sustainable aspect of using brewery leftovers to make edible dishes, and the obvious passion both brands have for doing things right, giving diners something innovative and exciting to spend their earnings on. It's bar food, but so much better. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Thai food centred around a custom made charcoal-burning grill, using the best Irish meat, seafood, vegetables and herbs they can source. The menu aims to shine a light on the grilling culture of Northern Thailand, with the team saying they've been obsessed with Thai food since their first travels across South East Asia. They're not trying to replicate Thai dishes to the letter, but using the cuisine and culture as inspiration for amping up Irish food flavours, and they're doing a very good job at it. The cocktail and wine lists are another highlight, as are the fair prices. Achara Website acharadublin.ie Address Achara, Aston Quay, Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Thai food centred around a custom made charcoal-burning grill, using the best Irish meat, seafood, vegetables and herbs they can source. The menu aims to shine a light on the grilling culture of Northern Thailand, with the team saying they've been obsessed with Thai food since their first travels across South East Asia. They're not trying to replicate Thai dishes to the letter, but using the cuisine and culture as inspiration for amping up Irish food flavours, and they're doing a very good job at it. The cocktail and wine lists are another highlight, as are the fair prices. Where It's At Nearby Locales Gloria Osteria Cantina Valentina D'Lepak Pera Borgo Amai by Viktor Kaizen Chubbys Badam Table 45 Comet Daruma Malahide Lena The Pig's Ear Notions @ Two Pups The Rooftop @ Anantara The Marker Sofra Little Geno's Mama Shee Nutbutter Smithfield Shaku Maku Mad Yolks Rathmines Una Choux Bakery Parnell Street Bakery

Mr Dinh Daytime-only dim sum on Capel Street Posted: 20 Aug 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Mr Dinh sits at the far end of Capel Street, close to Parnell Street, in a site that formerly housed Vietnamese restaurant Hanoi Hanoi. We've been unable to find out whether the owner and manager of Mr Dinh are the same as Hanoi Hanoi, but they're both from Vietnam. This is not a restaurant we would have made a beeline for, due to their 'Asian fusion' menu featuring Japanese, Hong Kong, Malayasian and Thai cuisine - in our experience muddled menus usually don't make for spell-binding eating experiences - but then the Dublin restaurant whisper network started talking about Mr Dinh's daytime-only dim sum. If you speak to anyone from Hong Kong (or anyone who's versed in their food) about where to get good dim sum in Dublin you're likely to hear three names - Good World , Ka Shing and Mr Dinh . We hear that the pendulum swings between all three of them as the favourite depending on the week, but that amongst a certain group of Asian ladies who dim sum, Mr Dinh was currently in the lead. Dim sum is a day time food in Hong Kong, with small plates of everything from dumplings to turnip cake often accompanied by Chinese tea, and Mr Dinh only serves dim sum until 5pm, so it's lunch or a very early dinner if you want to get in on the dim sum action here. Where is there to go for a drink around here? If you're planning on having one of those long, drawn out lunches which turns into a boozy afternoon - great plan. We'd head around the corner to Bonobo in Smithfield, particularly if the sun's out and you can wile away a few hours in their beer garden. Otherwise McNeill's on Capel Street is great for Guinness and trad music, or if you're having a dry day but still want to stay out, head for The Virgin Mary for non-alcoholic cocktails. Where should we sit? There's plenty of space over two rooms so you should have your pick. If you're in a group the round tables complete with lazy Susans are great for avoiding awkward arm-stretching, but if you're looking for privacy you can easily slink into one of the corners on either side. What's good to eat? There are 32 types of dim sum on the menu, featuring everything from prawn dumplings to chicken feet (not recommended, even for lols). Of everything we tried our favourites were the pan-fried pork dumplings (deeply-flavoured with a perfect chewy, meaty texture), pan-fried vegetable and meat buns (light, slightly blistered dough filled with more flavoursome pork and green vegetables), and baked BBQ pork puffs - although the latter were barely warm and very sweet - proceed with caution. Prawn dumplings Chaozhou style were better than prawn and Chinese chive dumplings, whose thin, slippery wrappers had gotten completely stuck on the steamer, causing them to fall apart, and soup dumplings disappointed due to a lack of soup. Steamed turnip cake with a type of Chinese sausage split the table - you definitely have to be on board with the gelatinous texture and slightly too oily exterior, but we were, and sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf was very sticky, with a layer of something like a thick gravy with pork pieces and sweetcorn between two slabs of rice. Enjoyable at the time but not particularly memorable. Steamed BBQ pork buns were decent, but we've had better in the city (looking at you Lucky Tortoise ), and again that overly sweet BBQ filling could have done with easing off on the sugar, and BBQ pork cheung fun (rice rolls) had the sweet/savoury balance much more on point, although they could have done with a bit more filling. Pork siu mai were slightly bland and a bit too pink for our liking, and they weren't finished. What about the drinks? We've yet to encounter an Asian restaurant in the Capel Street/Parnell Street area with anything of interest to drink, and unfortunately Mr Dinh lives up to the stereotype. Wines come under the heading "avoid", and beers are basic. Under some grilling they said they would allow BYO at around €10 per bottle of wine, but wouldn't commit to a corkage charge. Definitely worth considering if you want something stronger than Chinese tea with your dim sum. And the service? Friendly but pretty perfunctory. The manager was very happy to answer a myriad of questions, and tell us about the exciting new Malaysian, Japanese and Thai menu changes to come on the main menu in a couple of weeks, but sometimes the staff bringing the food just dropped them on the table without telling us what they were. They always came back with a smile though when we called them to ask what type of dumplings we were about to eat. The verdict? Mr Dinh is dishing up decent dim sum and while it's unlikely to change your life it's very cheap, very filling and parts of it are very tasty. For €25 a head we had more food than we could eat - you could easily leave well fed for €15 - and if you're someone who likes small portions of multiple dishes and sharing food for the purposes of getting to try more, you'll have fun working your way through the menu here. Even if you get the odd dud you're unlikely to feel hard done by at prices like these. For us the dim sum debates rages on. We've already given Ka Shing the once over, so Good World's next on the list to complete the holy trilogy. Look out for that one some time in Autumn. Mr Dinh 101 - 102 Capel Street, Dublin 1 mrdinh.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>