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Taco Libre Bar food, but make it delicious Posted: 8 Feb 2022 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Taco Libre, a new Mexican at the bottom of Capel Street, seemed to have lots going against it. It's the latest opening from Galway Bay Brewery (their 15th in total), who also own The Black Sheep across the road, Against The Grain on Wexford Street, and recently opened The Beer Temple on Parliament Street. Why would a brewery care about food? Surely these places are just a way to sell more beer? However, in getting the story for this new openings piece , we discovered several things that made us sit up and take a closer look. 1) Their head chef Bruna is Mexican (always a good start), but also has Brazilian and Japanese heritage which she described entwining into the menu. 2) They're sourcing much of their ingredients from Picado on Richmond Street, so were clearly looking for the best. 3) They told us that everything, from the tortilla chips to the tortillas for tacos, were homemade. After the feature we threw a few options out to our ATF Insiders on where they wanted us to go for our next once over, and Taco Libre won by a considerable margin, so on a wet and murky February evening we tentatively set off for Dublin 1. Where should we sit? They've done a great job on the design in here - it's colourful, welcoming, and there are lots of seating options, from bar stools to booths, high tables to cosy little spots for two. There's a front and a back room, separated by a narrow corridor. The back is closer to the kitchen but further from the bar, so a bit better for privacy, while it fees like there's more action happening/more to look at out front. What's the food like? It's all small plates/sharing style, which suits us just fine, and if you're a table of 3 or 4 of you could easily get through the whole menu. It's split into bar bites, tacos, nachos, sides and sweet (currently just alcoholic milkshakes), and tacos are priced individually which is great because you can try more of them. There's no provenance information on the menu, but they told us that everything not sourced from Picado is sourced in Ireland, using local where possible, and beef, pork and chicken are Irish. It would be against the law not to start with their homemade tortilla chips, which come with guacamole and two salsas of your choice. There's salsa roja, hot sauce, crema, pico de gallo, and smoked roasted morija, and they all get a big fat tick from us, as do the tortillas. Homemade are just better - so fresh, so crunchy, so salty, so hard to stop jamming them into your mouth. Seen as 'moqueca' is emblazoned on the wall as you walk in, that was our next order. Bruna had said the prawn and cod cakes with dende oil (a fragrant, red Brazilian oil extracted from palm nuts) was inspired by her Brazilian heritage, and while we weren't expecting much from a regional spin on a fishcake, we were happy to be wrong. The delicately-flavoured breadcrumbed balls pack in a lot of flavour, with discernible pieces of fish and a crispy (but not oily shell), the chilli sauce on the side kicking it into an optional spicy space. We loved. Next up, their cousins in the same panko shell - elote croquettes. Again, expected little. Again, over-delivered. The menu said "toasted sweetcorn, cheese, jalapeño and coriander", and we could taste every ingredient. These have a bit of heat in them from the jalapeño, and the accompanying crema was the perfect dipping companion. 'Papas fritas' come with homemade chilli jam, crema and queso fresco (made in house and the real deal), and was a very tasty plate of potatoes, with sweetness and spice from the jam, saltiness from the cheese, creaminess from the crema, and the addition of micro coriander bringing another clever and complimentary layer of flavour. Then onto what we were really here for - the tacos. The tortillas are homemade (we presume from masa harina and that they're not nixtamalizing the corn themselves), and there's a choice of five. We tried four (side-stepping the chicken as it didn't say whether it was free range). Tortillas were nicely imperfect looking and the right thickness, and each of them had plenty of flavours going on. The tempura prawn comes with crema, white radish pickle and nori seaweed vinaigrette (another nod to the chef's Japanese hertiage). Is it Mexican, it is Japanese - when it tastes this good we really don't care. The beef taco comes with toasted sweet corn, sweet pickled red cabbage, avocado puree, diced onion, salsa roja and coriander, and was also enjoyable, if over-filled and a bit messy to eat. But our favourite was the pork, with marinated minty pineapple, crema and diced onions. Usually we'd be throwing the salsas onto tacos, but this needed nothing. It's a knockout, and the closest thing we've had to tacos al pastor for a long time. We also tried the 'tacos dourado' - a crispy pan-fried taco with mashed potato and onions, salsa roja, lettuce, tomato, queso fresco and crema. Another tasty small plate with great textures, but it needed the salsas to liven up the flavours - that is however exactly what they're there for. Currently dessert consists of two boozy milkshakes - a bourbon chocolate praline one, and a margarita one - "oh no" we hear you cry. We tried the margarita with lime whipped cream and salted lemon caramel sauce (more like lemon curd) and if we wanted 500 calories with our alcohol we'd definitely order again, but as you can imagine it's pretty heavy. A sip or two each would be plenty. What about the drinks? A brewery owned establishment could easily railroad the entire drinks menu into serving only their beers, but they're not that shortsighted here. Many other Irish breweries are named on the beer menu, with interesting choices from abroad too, making it a great spot for craft beer drinkers. It's mainly their own beers on tap, and we really liked both the Weights and Measures (a citra IPA) and the Bay Ale (a red ale). Wines are basic, and cocktails come from Irish Craft Cocktails around the corner. And the service? Very friendly and welcoming but casual. All of our food arrived at once so order in stages if that irritates you. No one checked in on whether we were enjoying it or needed anything else, but that's generally the vibe in most bars - we were probably lulled into feeling like we were in a fancier restaurant because the food was so good. You might also notice from the photos that several of the staff weren't masked, which felt sadly strange after the last two years. This will bother some of you, whereas others don't seem to care anymore now that we're edging closer to the old normal. And the damage? €70 for enough food to make three feel uncomfortably full, with two drinks. Can't argue with that kind of value for this quality of food. The verdict? We're struggling to stay focused on the fact that Taco Libre is a bar first and foremost, because so few bars have food this good, food that ends up becoming the main attraction over and above the drinks. When we were there an English couple had wandered in after watching the rugby, clearly not able to believe their luck in the level of soakage they'd stumbled upon, and ever since our visit we've been dreaming of a world where the bars you want to meet your mates in put the food on the same level as the decor/cocktails/toilets and we never have to round everyone up to go and get food somewhere decent. Taco Libre are the exception right now - a menu with a genuine Mexican feel, and a kitchen with a talent for flavour, in a bar that you could just as easily drop in for a pint. We'll be back, and next time we're bringing a gang and settling in. Book it before word gets out. Taco Libre 199 King Street North, Dublin 7 galwaybaybrewery.com/tacolibre New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Turkish grill and pidehouse just a few metres from the Ha'penny Bridge. Weekend mornings sees a "royal breakfast spread" served with almost 30 different elements for €25 pp, while the rest of the day, sees pide, kebabs and Turkish salads served at big bang for buck prices. There's no alcohol but try the şalgam (fermented vegetable juice) or Ayran (a salted yoghurt drink). Sultan's Grill Website instagram.com/sultansdublin Address Sultan's Grill, North Lotts, North City, Dublin 1, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Turkish grill and pidehouse just a few metres from the Ha'penny Bridge. Weekend mornings sees a "royal breakfast spread" served with almost 30 different elements for €25 pp, while the rest of the day, sees pide, kebabs and Turkish salads served at big bang for buck prices. There's no alcohol but try the şalgam (fermented vegetable juice) or Ayran (a salted yoghurt drink). Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Sofra Top-tier Turkish grill has some of the best value in town Posted: 29 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 Sofra? It was when casting our eyes over assorted iftar spreads around Dublin on social that we first felt the need to pay Sofra a visit - those fast-breaking platters of soup, mezzes, mixed grilled meats and baklava looked like exactly the kind of quality volume-for-value deal we’re forever in search of. The Turkish team that runs the place previously operated casual café Sweet O’Clock out of the same space, but made the switch right in time for Ramadan back in February of this year. Sofra is a Turkish term for a dining table, and the aim here is to foster a sense of community anchored in great food. The family-friendly space and sharing-style menu choices attest that every bit as much as those post-fast feast gatherings that caught our eager eyes in the first place. Equally head-turning is the mangal to the rear – this charcoal grill is the beating heart of Turkish barbecue, and the smoke-choked skewers of meat we gawped at as we arrived told us we were onto something good. Where’s good for a drink nearby? If you’re out for the night and fancy a pre or post-dinner drink (there’s no booze to be had here), you have your choice of pubs nearby. Capel Street’s Slattery’s is a perennially-popular Victorian-era relic that will keep plenty happy, but for our money you can't beat a seat by McNeill’s roaring fire a few doors down – just steer clear of the weekend tourist crowds. If you’re feeling like cocktails you could make for the newly-opened Sackville Lounge , sister to Bar 1661 (also a fine choice just 7 minutes’ walk away). The black-panelled room just off O’Connell Street is out to play its part in bringing glamour back to the city’s much-maligned main thoroughfare. Where should we sit? That all depends on the kind of meal you’re in for. Solo diners or a couple in a hurry will be glad to snag the window ledge, with a view out over the action on newly pedestrianised Liffey Street, but that's not the space for comfort to lean back and linger. Three four tops along the right wall were popular perches for younger families on both of our visits, while the pokey but perfectly-positioned table to the rear offers the only good vantage over the grill – if you’re in alone, and want to witness the magic, this the spot for you. If they’re all taken, fret not. What’s not evident from outside is the bigger room upstairs, a bright and open space whose thirty-or-so covers and the speed of service here make it likely there’ll almost always be a spot going. Up here it’s a little more cosy than the narrower space below - if you’re making a meal of it, head on up. What’s on the menu? A lot! It took us two visits to tick off enough of the menu to really give a clear sense of things, and we could have easily come back a few more times without repeating ourselves – if you’re keen to dig in we recommend rustling up a crowd. Start with çorba – if the tables of Turks who filtered in across our two times here for just a bowl of this red lentil soup are anything to go by, it’s got the taste of home nailed. Creamy-thick from slow stewing and spiked by a slick of chilli oil, it’s a nutty-noted broth with deep and dormant flavours brought out by a tableside squeeze of lemon. As appetite-whetters go, it’s essential. Though you might be in some trouble here if your appetite needs whetting to begin with. Turks are well known for their homely hospitality and huge spreads, and Sofra pairs both in the generous plates of mezzes that arrive out to accompany your order. Those of a nervous disposition should steer clear of the upstairs table just at the head of the stairs – seeing the wait staff ascend the narrow steps with piled-high trays is enough to induce vertigo. It's as tight a squeeze up the stairs as it is onto the table, with the crowded clutter of branded dishes a key part of the charm. Adana kebab is where you should start where mangal’s concerned - red pepper-spiced minced lamb kneaded with onion and garlic and gently squeezed into shape on the shish. The grill’s high heat gives a quick-seared crust that seals in the juices – the succulent spillover as you slice through coats the lavash flatbread and bulgur below with smoky-sweet flavour that needs to be tasted to be understood. We loved this one piled high with pickled peppers and acili ezme, a Turkish salsa that doesn’t skimp on spice, but more sensitive palates might be better to swap the Adana for paprika-scented Urfa instead, and pile on tzatziki or hummus. After the soup, the most common order we spied in Sofra was the Beyti kebab – small wonder once you see it. That same lamb mince reappears here but packed with cheese in lavash, and grilled wrapped before slicing to serve beneath a mild tomato sauce, and beside a mound of yogurt. You will want to be very hungry to have any hope of finishing this alone. Inspired by an upscale Istanbul restaurant dish whose namesake owner is still serving at the age of 96, Beyti has evolved its way to much more modest form than the lamb fillet original over the years (see Reyna over the river for another take). Nothing fancy here, just full flavour – and full stomach to follow. The menu mentions ciğer, or lamb liver, as a must for adventurous eaters - to us that just reads like a dare. You needn’t be an offal aficionado to indulge in this one though – the grill’s a great leveller and the crusty char these cubes bear contrasts nicely with the soft, mild meat encased inside. It’s served atop a round of bazlama, a yogurt-enriched fluffy flatbread we found a little too excessive against the tender taste of the liver – pile it up in lavash with sumac-sprinkled shepherd’s salad instead, and savour a truly delicious, nutritious kebab. The liver can be ordered in a durum wrap too from a section of the menu that looks built for the home delivery and takeaway crowds. We sampled the chicken shish to get a sense and while the marinated and grilled breast ticked all the boxes on juicy flavour, none of the rest of the fillings are reason enough to bother if you’re eating in. Stick with a grill plate (it’s the same meat in either) and mess around with the mezzes for all manner of build-your-own, mix-and-match delight. Whatever else you do, be sure to leave room for içli köfte. Variations on these meatball marvels are found all through the former Ottoman empire as kofta or kibbeh - the bulger-crusted latter, popular in Syria and Lebanon especially, is the closest thing to this. The crisped coating seals in the minced lamb, left to fry to perfection in its own juices. Skip the cutlery and bite right into these - all the better to savour every last drop that comes gushing out. No Turkish meal is over without tea, and it’d be rude not to try out dessert with it too – right? Baklava is the business here, the honey-syrup soaked layers of filo pastry and pistachio deceptively light after all those grilled meats. But it’s the künefe you’ll be thinking of long after you leave, with crisp shredded shards of filo dough layered with sweet cheese and cooked until crisp over the grill, before being soaked in syrup and served gloriously gooey. What are the drinks like? You’d be forgiven for missing şalgam and ayran alongside Coke and Sprite in the cold drinks section – don’t make that mistake. The latter, slightly thinned and salted yogurt, is sold by the carton in many places around town but not many make their own too. The branded metal cup it’s served in is a lovely little touch, all the better to appreciate the cool, refreshing quality – ideal to go up against anything spicy. The fermented purple carrots that make şalgam are an acquired taste we’re all-in on, especially in the spicy variation they also offer here - we loved it with the liver. How was the service? Friendly if frantic. At busier times they seemed a little run off their feet, and you might be in need of catching an eye to get your order if you turn the initial, early ask down – likely given the decisions to be made. The quick grill means mains come fast and furious, though the advised wait time of up to twenty minutes for kunefe when it's busy worked out at over thirty for us with a flood of orders backing things up. The wait is worth it, having to ask for updates a little less so. These kind of issues are common at the early stages - ironing them out will go a long way. When it’s quieter, the owner can be seen working the room and adding to the overall sense of heartfelt hospitality that makes Sofra special. And the damage? Our two visits averaged out just over €50 each, with all those mezzes, mains, drinks and add-ons, filling two each time to levels that would have doctors worried. For the quality of food here, and the feast you’ll make of it, that’s superb value. What’s the verdict on Sofra? Hot on the heels of the city’s best döner in Chiya across the river, and the phenomenal flatbread value of Sultan’s Grill right round the corner, Sofra slides in to secure a remarkable recent hat-trick of top Turkish food in Dublin that takes the city’s fare far beyond the after-hours offerings that mostly made it up before. There’s a constant craving about town for value like this – in this relaxed room, with these ridiculously generous portions, there’s a winning formula. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Grano The pasta place we've been waiting for Posted: 22 Jan 2019 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? December 2018 was quite the month for restaurant openings in Dublin ( Variety Jones , Gertrude , Uno Mas scraping in on the last day of November), and one that we were really intrigued by was Grano in Stoneybatter, where owner Roberto Mungo's Italian mamma had flown over and was in the kitchen making pasta. Mamma Roma quickly gained cult Instagram status , and social media was alight with talk that Dublin had itself an authentic Italian restaurant to eat fresh pasta in. Roberto is originally from Calabria in Southern Italy, and says he wanted to open a place that reminded him of home. A lot of the ingredients come from producers and farmers who are family friends, and he wanted the restaurant to be in Stoneybatter because of its sense of community - it's also where he lives. Before opening Grano, Roberto worked as a sommelier for Wallace Wine Bars , and a look online at the wine list made it obvious the wine was as important as the food. There are no flashy names, just small producers with loads of organic, biodynamic and natural options, and refreshingly reasonable mark ups. So far all was sounding a bit too good to be true. Where should we go for a drink first? There are loads of great pubs in Stoneybatter, including L. Mulligan Grocer for one of the best craft beer selections in the city, The Cobblestone for traditional Irish music, and Walshs which was voted best pub in Ireland at last year's Irish Restaurant Awards. Part of the reason for this (apart from the unfalteringly lovely staff) must be the price of the drinks - they sell sherry cask-aged Red Breast whiskey for €10 a measure, when it's more like €18 around town, and Aspall's cider for €5.80, when we've only ever seen it at €8+. Where should we sit? It's a really cosy, intimate room, with mostly two tops and some fours, but they will obviously move them together if there's more of you. We were probably at the worst table in front of the door so had an occasional blast of wind when people came in, but we booked late and were just happy to get in at all. If we have another summer like 2018, the one in the path of a breeze will be the one to bag. Otherwise we'd advise sitting as close to the pasta making action as you can get. What's good to eat? The format of the menu with nibbles, starters, pasta and secondi makes it way too easy to order all the food, but this is the only way to go if you want the full Grano experience (and you do). Portions aren't huge and prices very reasonable so you can get away with ordering from every section. From the nibbles we had the Capocollo ham cured in Primitivo wine, from a family friend's farm in Italy, which had incredible flavour, especially with the Calabrian red wine we were drinking. Marinated anchovies with frigatelli peppers, sourdough and tomato and basil cream were also demolished, and the nduja with crostini (which melts at your table in what looks like an oil diffuser) is the proper Calabrian real deal - which means super spicy. Enter with caution if you're heat-averse. If not you'll love it. From the starters, we had to go for Mamma Roma's stuffed artichoke special with caciocavallo cheese, which was as perfect as we'd hoped it would be. Another of Frisella de Farro (spelt rusk bread that's brushed with water to soften it and topped with cherry tomatoes, oregano, garlic and olive oil) was a bit too soggy for us, and they explained that it's been difficult to get the soakage level right - when it was harder they had people complaining that they were going to break a tooth. They're debating letting people brush their own water on at the table so they can determine their own level of softness, which we think is a great idea. For mains we obviously had to stick to pasta, but there are a couple of meat/fish dishes on there too. Only certain pastas are made in house, others need machinery and the space is too small, so they bring them over from Italy - look for the ones saying 'homemade' on the menu if you want to know what's what. One that is always made in house is the traditional Calabrian pasta fileja, made using a knitting needle. We had that night's special which was described as a cacio e pepe with artichoke and mint. It wasn't what we know as cacio e pepe, which is just made with pecornio cheese and loads of black pepper, but it was delicious nonetheless, and had a layer of slightly hardening cheese at the bottom that we took great pleasure in scraping off at the end. Another of Amatriciana with mezzamaniche pasta (imported), black pig guanciale (from the cheek), tomato sauce and pecorino was faultless, and if any dish was going to make us feel like we were eating in Roberto's Calabrian village this was it. So simple but with such explicitly excellent ingredients, there was practically no conversation while eating this. Continuing the pig fest they brought us a half portion of Italian cheeses with chutneys and a little bit of orangey fruit cake, which is surprisingly good in place of a cracker. We finished with tiramisu, which we thought was perfect except for needing more Marsala, until Roberto told us they don't put any in so that children can eat it too, and he has great memories of his mother making an alcohol free one for him and his siblings when they were small - it's hard to argue with that. What about the drinks? It's rare (although thankfully less so) to find restaurants in Dublin that think about their wine list as carefully as their food, and this is one of those places. Everything is Italian and most are organic, and the mark ups are on the low side in comparison to most places in the city which makes it pretty good value. We were recommended a red Cirò, one of Calabria's most famous wines made from the Gaglioppo grape, which was a bit like Nebbiolo - light and fresh but with good structure and soft tannins - and it was a perfect match for all of the tomatoes and cheese. They don't have dessert wines on the menu but they do have them so ask, and a white (or more like orange) one made from the grape Zibibbo (Muscat) was particularly good. And the service? Roberto is the ultimate host, and constantly has an eye on everybody whilst never being obtrusive. He happily doled out recommendations over the evening, all of which were spot on, and all around us echoed 'Ciao!' and 'Buona sera!' as customers (a lot of whom were Italian) came and left. All of the staff were lovely, and the whole place had a really laid back, neighbourhood vibe. The verdict? We were trying not to get our hopes up about Grano in case our instinct about it was wrong, but we can happily tell you it's as good as (if not better than) we hoped. Almost overnight this has become the place to go in Dublin for rustic Italian cooking and homemade pasta, and if they can keep these standards up it's going to be somewhere you'll need to book well in advance. We're always a bit wary when we hear a restaurant is importing all of their ingredients from another country, when we have so much fantastic produce on our door step, but it's really difficult to argue with food that tastes this good, and we've never tasted an Irish tomato with Calabrian flavour. We've already booked to go back. Grano 5 Norseman Court, Manor Street, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 grano.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Kaizen Go all in on dim sum in Ka Shing's Dublin 15 sibling Posted: 5 Aug 2025 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What's the story with Kaizen? The Chinese restaurant specialising in dim sum opened on the outskirts of Blanchardstown shopping centre last October. While we don't make a habit of going to shopping centres for our dinner, we'd make an exception here for two reasons. 1) It has the same owners as city centre dim sum den Ka Shing on Wicklow Street, serving their now famous food since 2013. 2) Dublin 15 is one of the worst suburbs in the capital for exciting places to eat, and if we had a euro for every reader complaint we get about how "there's no where to eat here!", we could retire from food writing. Where should we sit? We were taken aback by how beautifully appointed the upstairs room is (there is a lift and wheelchair accessible toilet for anyone who needs it). There's a very grand feeling to the marble effect floor, black chairs and gold accents, including on the dividers separating the tan leather booths. There's every type of table configuration you could want in here, but for groups of four we'd ask for a booth at the window. For larger groups, or if you have a buggy or other extraneous materials, you'll be more comfortable on the circular tables in the centre surrounded by plenty of space. Of course there's a large table with a Lazy Susan for easy sharing of dishes, and we saw a separate room in the back where it looked like a child's birthday party was taking place - beats the food at Funky Monkey's any day. What's the menu like? There are two menus in here - the dim sum one, and the Cantonese one. Our advice is to go all in on dim sum, and forget the rest. Two of our favourites were the char siu cheung fun (€7.50) - slippery lengths of rice noodle filled with smoky, sweet pork and greens; and the deep-fried taro croquette (€7.50) - a crispy croquette filled with the yam-like root vegetable, encased in the most delicate wisps that dissolve as soon as they hit your mouth. Stunning pastry skills. Xiao long bao (soup dumplings, €8.50) had deeply flavoured pork inside a chewy dumpling case, but in some the soup had already seeped out, while pork and prawn siu mai (€7) were a decent example of one of dim sum's most popular dumplings, with chunky pieces of prawn. Make sure to order the cucumber with black vinegar (€6) - crunchy, refreshing lengths of green veg in the tangiest dressing with little punches of garlic and chilli. Salt and pepper squid "whiskers" were the oily antidote to its freshness, but with tender tentacles and salty veg tossed through. We've never met a BBQ pork bun we didn't like (€7), and that didn't change here, the soft, fluffy buns encasing sweet, smoky chunks of char siu pork. Use the chilli oil on the table to amp up the heat. The swan puff pastries might look more like dessert, but there's a savoury and a sweet version. The savoury (€9.80) comes deep-fried, filled with custard surrounded by the crispest pastry layers and an edible neck and head, and they are so delicate, and so delicious, you may need all of your willpower not to order a second round. Beef balls with tangerine peel (€7.50) were a curveball order that paid off. Despite their semi-raw looking appearance, the juicy spheres had deep layers of savoury flavour, and the tangerine, vinegary dipping sauce was the lift it all needed. Pork ribs with garlic (€7) on the other hand would not be on our reorder list, with too much bone and fat and nowhere near enough meat. What about the Cantonese food? We got the feeling this isn't why they get out of bed in the morning, and it's more a case of giving the people what they want, than giving them what they need and they just don't know it yet. There's plenty here to satisfy diners, but it's not the reason we'd be making a special trip to Dublin 15. Firstly lots on the online menu wasn't available in the restaurant (we really wanted that meat floss), so prepare for possible disappointment. We love the semi-healthy feeling we get from prawn yuk sung (€12), with the finely chopped stir fry served in lettuce leaves that you roll up and scoop into your mouth. The one here is excellent, with all the expected flavours of oyster, soy and rice wine and sesame coating those chunks of prawn, pork and veg. A hot and sour soup passed the litmus test, but won't be winning any awards any time soon for outstanding flavour or generosity of ingredients, especially for €9.50. Barbecue spare ribs were too sweet for our palates, with not enough complexity in the flavours to make up for the sugary slant. The meat was as tender as you would hope for, but it didn't feel particularly generous for €10. We were hoping the Cantonese roast meats with rice (three for €30) might be another reason to hightail it to Blanch, but we didn't find anything travel worthy there either. The roast duck, honey roast pork char siu, and Macau-style roast pork belly were all drier and less juicy than we were expecting, and they felt more like a tick box exercise than something that's someone's staying awake nights trying to figure out how to improve. Beijng-style lamb (€25) is one dish we would order again, with rich umami flavour and plenty of veg, although research suggests this should be more of a slow-braised style, than Irish takeaway-style, complete with plenty of cornflour to increase the gloop factor. Tasty? Yes. Authentically Chinese? The jury's out. Last for the Cantonese mains was Beef Ho Fun (€25), a smoky, charred, oily mound of flat rice noodles with tender beef, onions and beansprouts. The beautifully charred flavours make it hard to stop going back for more, but the high fat content makes this one to share, or your stomach will tell you all about it. Desserts are worth saving space for, and were considerably more interesting in the restaurant than online's "deep-fried banana" and "sticky toffee pudding". Staff tried to turn us off ordering the "trendy little white jelly bunnies" (€7.50), and they are just a watery/milky jelly with little flavour, but kids will love the fun factor. The pandan and pumpkin sponge cake (€8.50 is where the big flavours are at, with an airily light swiss-style sponge and layers of pumpkin caramel in between. Served barely warm, it's all too easy to eat. What about drinks? The wine list is predictably commercial and uninteresting, but we had a (just about) drinkable glass of Albariño . We couldn't bring ourselves to try the cocktails, which include "Pornstar on the beach", and the long lost "Long Island Iced Tea". 2005 called - they want their cocktails back. How was the service? Quiet and uneffusive, but efficient. They're also happy to let you order at your leisure, a few plates at a time, which means you can make your meal as short or as drawn out as you like. How much should we budget per person? With dim sum coming in on average at €7 - €8 per plate, a spend of €25 per person will supply a feast of dumplings, buns and cheung fun, which sounds almost ludicrous in today's market. When we went back to try the Cantonese menu our bill was double, for far less impressive food. What's the verdict on Kaizen? You'll forget about the shopping centre surroundings as soon as you climb the stairs into Ka Shing's grandly-appointed sister restaurant, and it's not often the toilets are a highlight of a dining visit, but it's another thing to look forward to (we won't ruin the surprises). Our advice is to go all in on the dim sum, and take advntage of what has to be one of the best value dining experiences in Dublin. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

All The Food x Devour walking food tour of Dublin Explore ATF X Devour Food Tour All The Food and Devour have created a food tour to show the best of Dublin eating right now We've been devout fans of Devour 's European and US food tours for years, pointing our readers towards them on their travels, and being constantly impressed at how they won't settle for second best. When they asked us to help create their first Dublin food tour, we couldn't turn down the chance to show visitors (and locals) the best cooking, baking and ice-cream making in the city right now. We've come up with a morning of sausage rolls, seasonal pastries, Irish cheese, icon-status toasties and the freshest seafood at some of our favourite city centre spots . You'll get an injection of history and culture too as you walk through St Stephen's Green, Trinity College, Central Plaza, past Molly Malone and through Dublin's Victorian Architecture. Find out more and book the Ultimate Dublin Food Tour here . What's New News and recommendations. More >>

A Brazilian-style sushi menu that's more interesting than the average around town. Fresh fish, generous fillings and plenty of cream cheese (a la Brazil). The accompanying grill menu of burgers, risotto and steak feels random, but don't let it put you off the main attraction. Wasabi Portmarnock Website wasabi.ie Address 5 Strand Centre, Strand Road, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story A Brazilian-style sushi menu that's more interesting than the average around town. Fresh fish, generous fillings and plenty of cream cheese (a la Brazil). The accompanying grill menu of burgers, risotto and steak feels random, but don't let it put you off the main attraction. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Walk east from the capital's famous shopping street for private dining rooms, quality steak and sensational salads. Grafton Street - Kildare Street Our Take Walk east from the capital's famous shopping street for private dining rooms, quality steak and sensational salads. Where to Eat Amai by Viktor Aperitivo Comet Dolce Sicily Dunne and Crescenzi Featherblade Gloria Osteria Library Street One Pico The Pig's Ear Tiller And Grain

One Pico A new energy about an old classic Posted: 9 Nov 2021 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? You know One Pico . We know One Pico. Everyone knows One Pico. You were probably brought here for a graduation lunch, an anniversary dinner, or a private meal for your Granny's 80th in the Polo Room upstairs. It's been open since 1997 and has always been classic, consistent, dependable, but lacking somewhat in fireworks, and the culinary climbing of sister restaurant The Greenhouse ( awarded two Michelin stars in the 2020 guide ) meant it was over-shadowed by its younger sibling. The Greenhouse remained shut for the duration of the pandemic (two star food doesn't really translate to prepare at home meal kits), and in May of this year Head Chef Mickael Viljanen announced he had quit and was taking over Chapter One (below) as chef-patron, with Ross Lewis still involved in the background. That's proved to be a very good decision , but The Greenhouse remains empty and doesn't appear to have a reopening plan. Those of you with vouchers were getting anxious about whether or not you'd be able to use them, so there was a bit of relief when One Pico said they could be used there instead. Outside of this, we've noticed a slow but steady rumbling about what's coming out of the kitchen in recent months. There's always been a (generally older) cohort insisting One Pico should have a Michelin star, but it feels like something has shifted lately, with the lionizing getting louder and spanning more age groups, and it was enough to send us back for a midweek lunch to see what was happening. Where should we sit? The dining room is as classically formal as it gets, from the velvet seats to the white tablecloths, the lack of any background music to the staff crumbing your table after each course. In one way we've always felt this old-fashioned approach has held One Pico back, it's not generally what the youth are looking for in their food adventuring, but it does suit the older, monied crowd, of which One Pico's customer base is primarily made up of. On the other hand a bit of formality can be quite soothing and escapist at times, and we'd be lying if we said a midweek lunch on velvet seats with silver service wasn't very enjoyable. Tables are well spaced with covid-friendly dividers against one wall, and there's a nice banquette running along the back of the room for extra cosiness. We get a lot of questions from you guys about where to book for groups and special occasions, so take note of The Polo Room upstairs where you can dine in private from a set menu - exactly how many can attend will depend on Covid restrictions at the time (or maybe one day we'll be living in a Covid free world again, imagine...) What's the food like? Lunch is a set menu of €45 for two courses or €55 for three, with bread, tea/coffee and a petit four included. For dinner it's a three course set for €85, which is quite the jump considering a lot of the dishes are the same, but the supplements on some dishes are lower. Either way lunch is where the value is at. You can see current menus on their website . A beautiful bread basket of sourdough, brown and fruit breads set the tone for the meal, and the offer to replenish the pounced upon basket was a nice touch (just say no kids, we know it's hard). We'd seen the dramatic looking venison and beetroot tartare with blackberries and nasturtium on head chef Ciarn McGill's Instagram account and had to have it. It's a beautiful dish, with the mineral earthiness of the venison nicely balanced by tart beetroot and sweet blackberries. Our only complaint was that it was slightly over-seasoned with black pepper dominant, but as complaints go it's minor. Our other starter was their homemade ravioli that seems to be a cornerstone of the menu. At the moment it's filled with an aged parmesan and truffle bechamel, in a crystal clear cep mushroom consommé that's been clarified three times, with more truffle shaved on top, and it's the most perfectly hedonistic bowl of Autumn flavours. Don't miss it. When faced with a set menu there tends to be a tendency to "get your money's worth" with a meat or fish dish as opposed to the vegetarian option. We fought off those urges here because the Potimarron squash with Roscoff onion, gnocchi, chanterelles and pickled squash contained so many of our favourite things, and it's the best vegetarian dish we've had in months - and there wasn't even any cheese to be seen. There was more grated truffle on top though - tick. Chunky, chewy, crispy gnocchi, sweet onions, fruity chanterelles, what tasted like a considerable amount of butter. The squash still had a bite in the middle, which at first we wondered was a mistake, and then realised how much that little bit of crunch added to the dish's textures. Little pickled slices of squash were the acidic icing on the cake, and we were so sad to eat the last forkful. Our other main of Wicklow Sika deer was another powerful plate of food, thanks to perfect cooking and interesting accompaniments. A pear chutney for sweetness, last year's elderberries for tang, parsley root purée to soothe, a potato crisp in the shape of a leaf for crunch, and a few more chanterelles, because why not. Nothing out of place, nothing without a good reason for being there, and a beautifully cooked piece of meat. What is going on with potatoes? Everywhere we go lately places are majorly upping their spud game. The once afterthought of the sides menu is becoming the must order, and that's the case here too. Their charlotte potatoes were served with parmesan, crispy onion and shaved Autumn truffles (no you cannot have too much truffle in one meal but thanks for asking), and were salty, umami packed little flavour bombs, with excellent added crunch from the onions and sea salt. Something else we'd been giving the glad eye to since seeing it on social media was the dessert of "Poire Belle Hélène" - One Pico's riff on the original Escoffier dish of poached pears with chocolate sauce. If Michelin were giving out stars for desserts, this deserves one. The chocolate covered ring covered an almond sponge and a pear and vanilla mousse, chunks of pear so sweet and ripe they tasted almost fake (such is the general pear standards across the country), a Valhrona chocolate sauce, and a Poire Williams (pear liqueur) sorbet. This is in the top tier of desserts in the country right now, and we insist that you taste it. The other dessert of baked Guinness custard with blackberries and blackberry ice-cream we picked mostly out of curiosity, and are relieved to say did not taste of Guinness. There was a savoury, grain-like flavour to the custard, which was on the denser side, and the various blackberry elements from sauce to sorbet gave it a nice balance, but the previous dessert was in another league. Good coffee and a rich chocolate truffle finished off a pretty absorbing lunch, before sadly stepping back out into reality. What about the drinks? Wine prices are eye-watering and you'll struggle to find much under €40. It's very clear who this list is aimed at, and it's not the same people who spent the weekend in Note wine bar . The old world, particularly Burgundy and Bordeaux, takes up most of the list, and there are a number of big brands on there - presumably to soothe the TDs or those dining out on company cards who want to look like they know what they're talking about. The cheapest sparklings, a Crémant de Bourgogne and a Prosecco, are €75 - ouch - but needless to say, if you or the person you're dining with has endless cash under the mattress you can drink very well in here. Despite the classic lean, there are a few more organic/biodynamic/natural-ish wines hidden within, and their sommelier will happily give you recommendations - just make his life easier and tell him what you want to spend. We drank 'Le Mas' from Domaine Clavel, a grenache/syrah blend from the Languedoc at €52, and it was bright and juicy, pairing well with all of the dishes. The other thing you get for those prices is an elevated wine service - the cork left on the table, a side table for your wine. It's all very conducive to making you feel like a VIP for a few hours. And the service? Formal, smooth and very professional. You probably won't be cracking jokes with your waiter, but none of them will miss a beat, making for a very stress free experience. The only thing you'll have to think about is eeking out the food and wine for as long as possible. And the damage? Around €90 a head after tip with one lower priced bottle of wine between two. Not cheap by any means for lunch, but thoroughly recommended for a midweek skive every now and then. The verdict? It feels like there's a new energy about One Pico at the moment, like they're striving for something bigger, and of the multiple meals we've had here over the years, none impressed as much as this one. The pandemic was harsher on some restaurants than others, and places like One Pico who were dependent on tourists and corporate business more than some of their contemporaries, had it harder than others. We wonder whether it's made them think more about targeting the local food obsessives who spend each month scrambling for reservations in Variety Jones, Chapter One and Uno Mas, ditching the velvet chairs and white tablecloths, and easing out the suited smart set bit by bit. Maybe that's wishful thinking on our part, but the next time you're looking for somewhere for a special occasion meal, a food and wine splurge (we all need one now and then), or to taste the best pear and chocolate dessert of your life, head for Molesworth Place. One Pico 5/6 Molesworth Place, Dublin 2 www.onepico.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Speciality coffee by the sea in Clontarf, with morning pastries and lunchtime sandwiches from Greenville Deli. Also runs as a wine bar from Thursday - Saturday, with an interesting natural wine list, and simple cheese and charcuterie plates. Surge Coffee Website surgecoffee.ie Address SURGE Coffee Clontarf, Clontarf Road, Clontarf West, Dublin 3, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Speciality coffee by the sea in Clontarf, with morning pastries and lunchtime sandwiches from Greenville Deli. Also runs as a wine bar from Thursday - Saturday, with an interesting natural wine list, and simple cheese and charcuterie plates. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Popular neighbourhood café with Cloud Picker coffee and an interesting menu of things on toast and in buns. All the café reliables with some curveballs, like beef brisket toasties and coconut chia pots. A decent amount of seating at the front, in the back and outside, and they're openly dog-friendly. The Orange Goat Killester Website theorangegoat.com Address The Orange Goat - Killester, Collins Avenue East, Clontarf West, Dublin 5, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Popular neighbourhood café with Cloud Picker coffee and an interesting menu of things on toast and in buns. All the café reliables with some curveballs, like beef brisket toasties and coconut chia pots. A decent amount of seating at the front, in the back and outside, and they're openly dog-friendly. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

From the team behind Hakkahan in Stoneybatter, Nan Chinese is a more high end opening specialising in Huaiyang cuisine, which is subtler and softer than many other types, and usually reserved for banquets or special occasions in China. Don't miss the xiao long bao (soup dumplings), the crispy bottomed Shengjian bao, and the whole deep-fried seabass with sweet and sour sauce. There's also a private dining room downstairs that can seat up to 12. Nan Chinese Website nanchinese.ie Address Unit 1, Drury Hall, Stephen Street Lower, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story From the team behind Hakkahan in Stoneybatter, Nan Chinese is a more high end opening specialising in Huaiyang cuisine, which is subtler and softer than many other types, and usually reserved for banquets or special occasions in China. Don't miss the xiao long bao (soup dumplings), the crispy bottomed Shengjian bao, and the whole deep-fried seabass with sweet and sour sauce. There's also a private dining room downstairs that can seat up to 12. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Vegan and vegetarian fine dining in the centre of the city. Forget about stews, soups and sloppy lasagnes, Glas are making vegetables sexy again, with kohlrabi rillettes, butterbean ceviche, and roast onion with flamed halloumi. Plant-filled, stylish space, and a great drinks list. Glas Website glasrestaurant.ie Address 16 Chatham Street, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Vegan and vegetarian fine dining in the centre of the city. Forget about stews, soups and sloppy lasagnes, Glas are making vegetables sexy again, with kohlrabi rillettes, butterbean ceviche, and roast onion with flamed halloumi. Plant-filled, stylish space, and a great drinks list. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Amai by Viktor Brazilian food gets a fine dining showcase off Grafton Street Posted: 19 Aug 2025 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 Amai by Viktor? This one caught us on the hop. Usually when a new restaurant cooking at this level opens, especially one metres from Grafton Street, there's a lot of build up. A chef makes their name in one restaurant, gets backing to go out on their own, a PR company is hired and we're subjected to months of teasers before actually getting to eat anything. Up until a few weeks ago we had never heard of Viktor Silva, eaten his food (we think), or had any idea there was this serious a contender en route to the capital's restaurant roster. Amai by Viktor is a partnership between the chef and the owners of The Corkscrew downstairs on Harry Street (facing The Westbury, what a location). After the wine shop's last partnership with Sicilian restaurant Amuri , who they installed upstairs in their old location on Chatham Street, we're starting to think these guys could have an alternative career in spotting the next big thing in food. Silva's last position was as head chef in Amuri , and he's also worked in Bang , on events with Jordan and Maiken Bailey , and staged in multi-Michelin starred restaurants like L'Enclume. He grew up Brazil's favelas (scenes from which he's hand drawn on one of the dining room walls), and says the idea for Amai developed during the pandemic, when he was thinking about his family, identity and legacy. His grandparents were unable to read or write, and survived by cooking food which Silva's parents then sold in the city. Their sacrifices and " meals full of love " started his passion for cooking. Amai means "mother" in Shona (an African language and part of his heritage) and “to love” in Portuguese, and the chef says it's a tribute to the women who raised him. What table should we ask for? This is a beautiful old room (it used to be a shoe shop!) that's gotten the fit out it deserves, with comfortable, elegant seating, and Brazilian touches throughout - Silva's aunt's paintings are dotted around the room; a cavaco banjo hangs on the wall; a large black mural of an African woman covers the wall that greets you as you climb the stairs (painted by the chef). There are hanging florals, a parquet floor, a timber-lined bar with a swirling green marble countertop, rich dark wood and terracotta cushions on a creamy backdrop - it's a joy to take in, light flooding the room from those old sash windows. The best seats however are the two tables for two at the windows. On a muggy summer evening in Dublin it felt like having our own personal wind machine, the loveliest breeze drifting in through the window. Add to that the 10/10 people watching below (including right into The Westbury's lounge) and these aren't just the best seats in the restaurant, they're some of the best in the city. What's the menu like? It's a tasting menu only for €79 with no options (but they'll happily accommodate dietary requirements, just give them notice please ). Snacks first. A thickly crusted croquette with a rich feijoada interior (the famous Brazilian bean stew), animated by orange and nam jim on top. A smoky yucca (starchy root veg common in Brazil), egg and Gubbeen custard with lardo powder on top - dig deep for sweet and tangy black garlic underneath and scoop it up onto a crunchy tapioca cracker. A foie gras, coffee and açai (actual berries, not smoothie slush) tart that looked and tasted like it had come by taxi from Chapter One . If you weren't paying attention before, this opening salvo will have you correcting your posture. The statement cooking continues with barbecued o chra (a vegetable native to Africa but popular in Brazilian cooking), sitting on a ring of Ardsallagh Goats Cheese, with candied strawberries, nasturtium leaves and puffed rice. Watermelon gazpacho is poured in at the table, along with mint oil and fermented tomato honey (made in house, obvs). Getting your greens is rarely this exciting. Fennel brioche is a wow moment (the same way Jordan Bailey's brown soda bread course at Aimsir was), corn-cultured butter moulded into the shape of a corn cob. Tear open the sweet, fragrant bread topped with salty crystals and lather it on. This is not the stuff for scraping or scooping, this is bread that needs its own moment. Monkfish is next, and Silva's take on the Brazilian fish stew moqueca, with red pepper, coriander, coconut milk and red palm oil. The frothy top hides a deep red sauce underneath that you'll be using your fingers to scrape from the bowl, and the firm, meaty fish was needed for all that tang and spice. We're always surprised to see beef on menus these days with prices out of control, but it is synonymous with Brazil. AGM Mariana told us this dish represents the churrascos in her and Silva's home town of Porto Alegre, where meat is cooked over an open flame, but like everything else it's levelled up with vinaigrette (our favourite salsa-like Brazilian condiment), a rich jus, and a long wafer filled with potato salad. Smoky short-rib to the side, so tender you could eat it with a spoon, was the best thing about this plate, with the striploin too firm and the "jus bras" slightly too salty. Why are tasting menus "mains" always the least exciting part of a menu? We're still waiting on that restaurant with a tasting menu of just snacks. The culinary sparkle was back with a dessert of mango sorbet, mango pieces, lime, polenta cake, camomile infusion, and vanilla caramel tuille with bee pollen. Got all that? You will once it's swimming around your mouth, every flavour holding its own. A tenacious chef ends a menu with the same strong statement they started it with. A blow-torched lemon meringue tart; a banana caramel choux; a Capirin ha pâte de fruits. Three perfect bites, ideally paired with a decaf espresso (10/10), and you'll float happily off into the night. What about drinks? Being the national drink of Brazil, you've got to try a Caipirinha (€16) - this is the best one we've had outside of Rio de Janeiro, and just LOOK at those custom ice cubes (there are more than a few Michelin-worthy touches here). They don't have mocktails on the list but delivered a beauty of a mango one with N/A gin on request. The wines are coming through The Corkscrew downstairs, with Drappier the house Champagne at €22 a glass. Bottles start at €41/€43 for basic white and red, with the more interesting producers starting from €50-60. You'll find something you like here, but we would have liked to see some more exciting, off-beat choices, and they've gone high with margins - the same wines (like Pieropan's Soave) are available in other Dublin restaurants for a good 10% less. Must be the Grafton Street tax. Glasses are also 175ml which is large for this type of restaurant, so expect sticker shock looking at a glass of Portugese Dao for €20, or an Italian rosé for €17. How was the service? They posted on Instagram that what they hope makes them stand out is their " warm, welcoming spirit—that rare quality both Brazilian and Irish cultures share. The genuine kindness, generosity, and love for making people feel at home that's fundamental to who we are ." That statement of purpose sums up our experience here, and the generosity that flowed from arrival to departure. From the broad welcomes on arrival, to the offer of any table we'd like, to the generosity of time chatting and explaining more about the food and concept, to the offer of any drink you want on the house to end your meal (what a novelty!), it's like sitting through a crash course in what it means to be "hospitable". What was the damage? The tasting menu is €79, and if you go all in on cocktails, wine and coffee you'll easily spend €150 a head after tip. We considered that money well spent. What's the verdict on Amai by Viktor? Dublin is on a hell of a roll right now. 2025 has already brought us Lena , Comet and Chubbys , all operating at the very top of their game, and now Amai by Viktor has swooped in as a challenger to the best of them. We said Comet was bringing something unique to Dublin that didn't exist elsewhere - now here's another player a couple of streets over doing exactly that. Brazilian food has never had a showcase at this level of cooking in Ireland, and it's clear from the first few bites that this is a chef with an obsessive focus, who's pushing harder every day (just look at Google reviews to see how the plating has developed over the first few weeks). Take our advice - book Amai by Viktor now before the Michelin men and national critics write about how impressive, unique and exciting it is, and those window seats become a lot harder to secure. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Parrilla The Mexican wave reaches Ranelagh, with buzzy crowds sipping top-quality cocktails Posted: 1 Oct 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Parrilla? When does a trickle become a trend? It seems long past time to declare Mexican cuisine the new flavour of the month in Dublin, as Parrilla sees the wave wash up in Ranelagh. Jules Mak – of the much-loved Chinese up the road – had the idea in mind long before Tacos Lupillo , Pickosito and Chilangos arrived on the scene, and the Friday night crowds we waded through en route to our table would suggest this market is nowhere near saturated. The name comes from the charcoal grill cooking style popular across Latin America. Mak has staffed his with a primarily Mexican crew, including several new arrivals to Ireland, and brought many of his namesake restaurant’s management staff across to avoid the opening hurdles – speedy service and prompt but unpushy turnover times make that seem like a smart move. Where should we sit? The bright, spacious and well-appointed room is built around a long central bar, with booths for groups of four to six adjoining it, and two and four-top tables along the walls ready to be pushed and pulled to accommodate whoever walks in the door – they’ll take online reservations for up to six only. None of the seats have much of a good look into the kitchen pass at the back, nor is there much in the way of intimate nooks and crannies - it’s less date night vibes than gabbling groups you’re in for here. What’s on the menu? Ten “bites” of various sizes, five tacos, four grilled mains and four sides – plenty, in a word. 777 is a closer comparison than any of those other recent arrivals, with a similar grill focus and fewer fast-casual favourites like quesadillas in sight. Chips and guac is an obvious bar-setting entry point and a generally solid start - Parrilla aren’t making their own masa on-site but they’re getting the good stuff, and these are a strong showcase of where that makes all the difference. We won’t be petitioning for a retail range of the house salsas anytime soon though, we've had more standout versions. They keep the hanger at bay, but the portion sizing also needs a rethink – that’s either too much dip or not enough chip, we know which side we land on. It's in a dish like crab tostada that the rubber really meets the road, and we sensed no skidding on this plate with perfect balance. Shallots support the delicate sweetness of the meat, while the well-calibrated tang of chipotle mayo and salsa verde cut through rich avocado chunks. The crisp fried corn tortilla is just-right in how it breaks into bites rather than a shattered sprawl – far harder than it looks. We loved them all the more in retrospect as we masticated our way through the squid - a rubbery dud of a dish. There was no trace of the menu-touted coal-cooking in sight or taste, the neat kick of nduja and a tajin-spiked batter wasted on overcooked rings that never should have made it onto the floor. With well-cooked calamari we can imagine this singing the crab’s same hymn of poise and balance, instead of a one-note wail that couldn’t have ended soon enough. Who could have guessed something as simple as pineapple would save the day – not all heroes wear capes, some just bring a salty-sour-sweet symphony to cleanse your memory as well as your palate. We’d expect a lot of diners’ eyes to gloss over "Pina Caramelizada" (it reads more as a taco topping than a plate) but don't be among the deniers. Eyes will flare wide open at the intensity of flavour here, mouth-puckeringly pickled onions and tongue-twitching tajin playing off the sharp sweet flood of pineapple juice gushing forth from caramelised edges. There are Dublin prices, and then there are Ranelagh prices, and then there are Ranelagh prices in 2024. It is not Parrilla’s fault that the world is where it is and that the balancing act of marking margins stack up in that context is a near-impossible feat, but we winced at the thought of two tacos for €10-€14, a notable step-up in price-per-piece terms than anywhere else outside the canals and plenty within them – 777 is all we can think of that can beat it, and Taco Tuesday is the night to go there when it's two tacos for €8. In the case of the fish (€13 for two) we can almost allow it, chubby fingers of battered cod so generously shrouded in salsa and guac they’re almost a challenge to pick up. For the steak (€14) it’s a far harder sell, with the grill again failing to stand out in these chunks of under-rendered beef, barely basted by a dollop of avocado-courgette cream. Parrilla potatoes play like a Mexican twist on bravas, with tajin-sprinkled halves of baby spuds ready to receive the garlic aioli and chipotle salsa alongside. They were a touch less crispy than we would have liked, but the floury insides lend themselves well to the duo of sauces, which were good alone but better together. Dessert seems to change daily if early accounts are anything to go by, and our chocolate orange tart was a bit of a box-ticker, with fine flavours but texture wide of the mark. The sand-dry crust worked as nothing but vessel, while the chocolate filling needed far more cream - its thick-set consistency took such pressure to cut through it went flying off the plate. We wished we'd stuck with a digestif. What about the drinks? They're a big part of the appeal here. Parrilla has shacked up with Casamigos, the award-winning tequila brand that Diageo bought off George Clooney and friends back in 2017, for a margarita menu that should make this a popular spot for more well-heeled pre-drinks – the Friday night crowd all looked intent on heading out after. We were most excited for the verdita margarita but they’d run out of the namesake mixer – a spiced and herbed pineapple juice. We settled on a server-recommended Spicy Fox instead, with Tequila, spicy Aperol, passion fruit, pineapple, orgeat, cherry and lemon. This is one aspect that Parrilla gets pitch-perfect. With the michelada we’d had at our recent Chilangos visit still living rent free in our heads, we couldn’t resist another one here – you know, for research purposes. We’re sorry to say it was a wet whimper to the other’s big bang, and a price point (€10, where the Sol alone is €5.70) that added insult to injury. How was the service? This is a slick operation, with the Mak team’s involvement clear to see in the way the bustling room is tightly managed – keeping that many plates spinning is no mean feat for a new arrival. We’d worried showing up to the very last seating on a Friday night (good time slots at less than two weeks’ notice are few and far between right now) might have the staff hating us, but they couldn’t have been nicer. The kitchen crew is just as well-oiled, with food before us in remarkably quick order. If you want food fast, but not fast food, you’ll find it here. And the damage? Everything here plus two cokes took us to €120. We reckon you’d want to budget a minimum €40 a head just for food if this is dinner for the night, more if you feel like venturing into the mains. Our top tip for thrift is a cocktail, the pineapple plate, and tostadas to share – that’s the makings of a very good catchup for €30 each. What’s the verdict on Parrilla? It’s clear from the thought-through cocktail menu and the more inspired dishes that Parrilla is closer to the labour of love it’s proclaimed itself than the high-turnover business opportunity it might have been in more cynical hands, but there’s a few kinks that could do with ironing out for it to reach its full potential, especially in the crowded and quality Mexican wave we’ve happily found ourselves riding of late. Against some of their competition out in the suburbs, Parrilla has a central location, well-crafted drinks and an undeniably buzzy atmosphere to boast about, but it's less destination dining for now, more a good compromise candidate for groups looking to start a night off on the right foot. Hopefully with time and menu tweaks the only way is up. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Space Jaru Casual Korean food that's spicing up The Liberties Posted: 7 Mar 2023 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Ronan Doyle What should we know about Space Jaru? Korean street food vendors Jaru have spent a long seven years building their brand on the food market and festival scenes, together with a growing retail presence. As well as stockists like Supervalu and Fresh carrying their kimchi and rayu, they operate their Jaru Mart direct delivery service online, sending Korean storecupboard essentials, meal kits and ready to hit dinners across the capital. Founder Gunmoo Kim was just about to sign the lease on the business’s first sit-in space elsewhere in March 2020 when, well, we all know what happened next. Three years, a few pandemic pivots and plenty of recipe experimentation later, Space Jaru has finally settled down in Dublin 8, in the Meath Street site that was formerly home to Tasty8 café. Where should we sit? Both wide, floor-to-ceiling shopfront windows have benches running the full length of them, so they're ideal for solo diners or those who want to watch the world go by - and few Dublin streets are as good for entertaining outside watching as Meath Street. Otherwise, the left side of the space has a smattering of two and four-top setups spaced throughout, while the right plays host to a bigger ten-seater table, calling out for a group outing. It’s also got by far the best view of the open kitchen. What's on the menu? They’ve kept things clear and concise with four sections representing a good spread of Korean cuisine: small plates, banchan and sides, BBQ bowls and KFC (Korean fried chicken) burgers. The chicken is free-range too which we love to see. If you’re just in for a bowl it’s worth getting the full spread of banchan for maximum mix-and-matching pleasure - they're perfect for adding into rice. For our part we got stuck straight in to the small plates. First out was the Yangnyum chicken, an impressive mini-mound of twice-fried thighs drizzled in a spicy gochujang-based sauce. That intense, fermented chili paste is a staple of Korean cooking - the country’s mountainous terrain made preserved foods a requirement for more inland regions - and here it brings real flavour complexity to the tender chicken strips, nicely offset by cubes of pickled daikon. Crispy, flaky batter is delicately seasoned and a light scattering of seeds brings added crunch to the plate. This is a good one for sharing among those with different palates - spice lovers will lap up the Yangnyum sauce, while the more mild-mouthed can grab an uncoated strip if their chopsticks are quick enough. A plate of mandu came next - Korean dumplings not too far removed from the more familiar gyoza. These beef galbi (rib) ones arrived deep-fried with a cracklingly crisp finish, scattered with pickled onions. The duelling textures of skins and filling is really effective, a satisfying crunch yielding to the soft meat, but the flavour can feel a little one-note beyond the first bite and there’s only so much the little side bowl of soy sauce can do. Worth trying shared with a larger crowd, but this isn’t a plate we’d want all to ourselves. Our server cheerily called out the tteokbokki as her favourite plate as she set it down, and it’s one we'd been keen to try. In Korea you’ll find endless variations on this popular street food dish, centred on log-shaped rice cakes usually tossed in a spicy sauce and topped with sliced spring onions, sesame seeds and a soft-boiled egg. Space Jaru ’s interpretation centres on gochujang pork and it’s a resounding success in our book, rendered fat and fiery sauce happily lapped up by the squidgy cylinders and lightly tempered by the unset egg. There’s hearty, heavy eating in this, but we couldn’t keep our chopsticks from flying back for more. Edamame felt like coming up for air after all that, and we salute the unfussy treatment here that gets out of the way and lets the light, fresh, firm soybeans speak for themselves. A tell-tale blistered skin on the pods speaks to a short pan-fry finish before the sprinkling of cashews, sesame seeds and coarse salt that adds a very pleasant crunch. BBQ bowls are one of the centrepieces of the Space Jaru menu, and a mainstay of their market trade. After much wrangling we went for pork jeyuk - thin cuts of fatty meat marinated in apple and gochujang and stir-fried into submission. The bowls come with a choice of purple or kimchi rice and one of six sauces served on the side for drizzling or dipping - choose your own adventure. We usually like our kimchi with a little more tang than this but it plays well against the sweeter notes of the meat. Tired-looking limp leaves of rocket took away from an otherwise bright bowl, well-balanced with textures and flavours, though after trying the bulk of the small plates before it there wasn’t much new to note here. If you’re going in for a bowl alone, you’ll likely come out satisfied. The only reason we didn’t go for the beef bulgogi bowl was wanting to try the appa burger instead, which comes with two generous layers of the soy-marinated meat, slopped over two slices of cheese, sandwiching a fried free-range chicken breast. 'Appa' is an affectionate term for 'Father' in Korean, and this does feel like something yer Da might mangle together over a summer barbecue - and we mean that in the best way possible. The bulgogi is beautiful - the cheaper cuts of meat usually used mostly reflect a history of commoner cooking, but it also yields muscly mounds of meat with maximum surface area to soak up the intensely-flavoured sauce. The chicken is just as good as in the yangnyum to start, and doesn't skimp on size. If there’s a drawback it’s the cheddar which dissolves into a largely flavour-free ooze. The bun itself doesn’t stand out much either, but there’s no pretence here to being anything other than a vessel for everything in between. What are the drinks like? The wine list stands out as seriously considered - a lot more thought has gone into these picks than most comparable casual eateries around town. We went with the Judith Beck Ink - always a nice natural one to see by the glass— and the fresh red fruits and minimal tannins make for a perfect pairing with the lightly-spiced pork and bulgogi. For spicier dishes you might want to stick with white - we can vouch for the Von Winning Deidesheimmer Riesling as a good way to balance out the bolder dishes. For a traditional Korean flavour there’s sool and soju going - fermented rice beer and spirits, respectively - while non-alcoholic options include Irish-produced kefir and kombucha. How was the service? Fast and friendly - we had our first plates inside 15 minutes of arrival and the whole lot came in quick succession from there. It’s worth asking for dishes to be divided out into starters and mains if you don’t want to be overwhelmed. Staff were very happy to help with recommendations and couldn’t have been more apologetic when one side we were really keen to try (padron peppers with baby anchovy) wasn’t available that day. The place got busy quickly when we visited on a Sunday evening, and while servers largely left us alone once everything was on the table, it was easy to catch an attentive eye if there was anything else we needed. And the damage? €80 before tip for two, with wine and kombucha and frankly far too much food. You could easily fill up for under €25 a head before factoring in drinks. At lunch, it’s a very reasonable €13 across the board for a slimmed-down menu of BBQ bowls and KFC burgers with chips. What's the verdict on Space Jaru? A welcome new space for casual catchups, Korean style, in the heart of the Liberties. With its well-honed menu, excellent drink options and fair pricing, we can see Space Jaru becoming a popular spot for quick bites on the go, kicking off a night out (it's right around the corner from Vicar Street), or just somewhere to spend a few hours in good company over unfussy food. Grab a group, order a bit of everything, and share a bottle of soju - you’re in safe hands here. Space Jaru 67-68 Meath Street, The Liberties, Dublin 8 jaru.ie/spacejaru New Openings & Discoveries More >>

French crêperie specialising in savoury galettes and dessert crêpes. Voici also functions as a wine bar, with cheese and charcuterie boards to accompany your bottle of Bordeaux. Voici Website voici-creperie.site Address 1A Rathgar Road, Dublin 6 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story French crêperie specialising in savoury galettes and dessert crêpes. Voici also functions as a wine bar, with cheese and charcuterie boards to accompany your bottle of Bordeaux. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

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

Assassination Custard Small, seasonal and perfectly formed Posted: 2 Aug 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Ken Doherty and Gwen McGrath's tiny restaurant on Kevin Street in Dublin 8 is probably on the radar of most self-respecting Dublin foodies, but because they only open for lunch Tuesday - Friday we know just a handful of people who've managed to get there. The limited opening hours are to allow them to have a manageable family life and see their two children, but they do occasionally do pop-up dinners, like the one at Green Man Wines a few months ago which sold out almost as quickly as it was announced, and we hear you can book the space (and the chefs) for private parties in the evening. Both Ken and Gwen had worked in places before where produce is king (Good Things Café, Café Paradiso, Dax), and it's the same in Assassination Custard. Vegetables come from McNally Family Farm, with Ken himself often cycling to collect them, and meat is locally sourced. Offal appears regularly. A fter very complimentary reviews this year in the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner (and from everyone we know who's been there) we thought it was time for a midweek pilgrimage. What’s the room like? Teeny, with a max of 12 covers we're told (if even). There's one long rectangular table that fits three, and another round table where you can expect to sit with strangers, which is all part of the fun. We would definitely advise getting here as close to opening as possible, unless you're not in a rush. By 12:30 they were full with four people outside baying for seats. Despite this there's no feeling that they're trying to turn tables at lightning speed and the whole things is very relaxed, like having been invited into someone's kitchen who's going to make you the lunch of your life. What's good to eat? The hand-written menu changes daily depending on what produce they can get their hands on, but we'd be surprised to find a dud dish, and it always reflects what's in season. The panelle (pronounced pah-nell-eh) seem to be constant - savoury, salty slices of addictiveness made from chickpea flour before being deep-fried. It would be very easy to do a portion per person. From the other dishes on the menu that day we loved the fish pickle with homemade piccalilli, the oily tuna and anchovies lifted and balanced out by the vinegary pickle, which made for a perfect palate kickstarter, the juices mopped up with their chargrilled, homemade bread. We also loved the jalapeños with labneh, the thick, creamy yoghurt a perfect accompaniment to the charred, occasional fiery hot peppers (there's a bit of Russian roulette involved with the McNally jalapeños). A steaming bowl of chickpeas with sobrasada was so simple and so comforting, particularly on a cold, wet day in July (the return of the Irish summer), and is the kind of basic but brilliant dish that makes you pledge to start making it at home. Pointed cabbage with tahini sauce, Sichuan peppercorns and a dusting of curry powder was a deliciously brilliant example of what can be done when vegetables are put centre stage. The dessert option when we were there was flan covered in a thick caramel sauce, which tasted like the filling from the richest, densest cheesecake. They're famous for their "ugly but good" meringues with coriander and hazlenuts but they weren't on that day. If you see one, grab one. We ate most of the menu and the bill came to just over €40, which was really good value for food of this quality. What about the drinks? They only serve chilled tap water and coffee, but you can BYO for free. And the service? Wonderfully warm, almost like being entertained in someone's home. It's just Gwen and Ken, and they talk diners through the menu, making suggestions when asked and delivering the dishes to the table. There's a really intimate atmosphere because of the size and you get the feeling that nothing would be too much trouble. The verdict? A really special place for lunch that's well worth a midweek detour to Dublin 8. If you like eating with the seasons and food that comes from as close to the source as possible, you'll fall in love with Assassination Custard as soon as you walk through the door. If you can round up a gang of family and friends and take over the space for an evening, even better. That's something that's just gone to the top of our food-related wish list - although unsurprisingly we hear they're quite booked up for the next few months. Assassination Custard 19A Kevin Street Lower, Wood Quay, Dublin assassinationcustard 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 >>

Milo's Dublin 9 gets the buzzy brunch spot it's been waiting for Posted: 16 May 2023 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What should we know about Milo's? Milo's is the second café from Taurean Coughlan and Kevin Roche, who own Two Boys Brew down the road in Phibsborough. The premises on Drumcondra Road Upper (opposite the Skylon Hotel) was a dancewear shop called Dimensions for decades, and this is a much needed upgrade. Any inhabitants of the hood will tell you that the area was in desperate need of a somewhere to stop for excellent coffee, cake and brunch, so the arrival of Milo's has been a bit of a big deal. Where should we sit? Milo's is more petite than its big bro down the road with around 18 seats inside and another 8-12 outside. They also do everything for takeaway if you want to grab and go (when we visited there was a line of people waiting for their orders to be bagged up and brought out). The lovely Griffith Park is a 12 minute walk towards town, and the Botanic Gardens a 20 minute walk or a five minute drive if you feel like a picnic. What should we have? Milo's has all the beautiful brunch sensibility of Two Boys Brew , with so much made in house that it's hard not to raise an impressed eyebrow. Pastries, breads, jams, nut butter, compotes, granola, chutneys - seeing this amount of effort put into a menu definitely helps to alleviate any price pain you might be feeling when eating out. Breakfast and brunch range from more simple options like granola, overnight oats and banana bread, to French toast, avo toast, and breakfast baps, with toasties served after 11am. There's also a cabinet full of cakes and pastries by the till that you'll need much willpower to swerve (we don't possess said willpower). We went twice so managed to try most of it (and more cakes than we'd care to admit). First things first, we need to talk about the banana bread. Thought you OD-ed during lockdown? This will rekindle your love. They make it in house, toast a fluffy inside/chewy outside banana-filled slice, then serve it with homemade hazelnut butter (the absolute best) and honey. For €6 we think this is one of the best (and best value) breakfasts you could eat in Dublin right now. Overnight oats (€8) came with plum compote, hazelnut butter and dark chocolate almond crumb (we'd expect the combinations to change regularly). and if you're someone who likes to dress dessert up as breakfast, this is for you. It was slightly heavy on mint throughout the oats (not listed on the menu), so if you happen to have an aversion you might want to avoid, or ask if it's in that day's batch. The fan-club worthy TBB granola is also on the menu, with raspberry compote so bright and sharp you'd almost think they grew them here, thick Greek yoghurt, and cinnamon oatmeal crumble for extra oomph. The Milo's brekkie bap comes with free-range scrambled egg, cheddar cheese, caramelised onion, streaky bacon, Milo's spicy tomato jam and rocket on brioche. Sandwiches like this can sometimes be sickly and OTT but we though this was pretty much perfect, the soft bun melding beautifully with the soft, folded eggs and cheese. some bite from the bacon, sweetness at the top and bottom from the jam and caramelised onion, and freshness from the rocket. We also tried the avo toast with confit cherry tomato, free-range fried egg, feta, sesame seed and hazelnut crumb, Two Boys Brew hot sauce (one of the best), and lime on toasted Firehouse sourdough (€13.50). This is not a dish lacking in flavour and every bite brings a taste of something new, although we found the thick bread slightly hard to cut and eat and would have liked a second egg on the other half of the toast (you can add one for €1.50). If you're more sweet than savoury, you'll probably find it difficult not to order the French toast, currently with rhubarb jam, vanilla mousse, roasted almond ginger crumb and maple syrup (€13.50 or add bacon for €17.00). With homemade brioche, and homemade everything else, this is an ordering choice we endorse, and the puffed up fluffy toast, tart jam and crunchy nuts somehow managed to once again make it feel balanced and not too much. There's plenty of homemade cakes and pastries, and while choosing was torturous, we went for a cinnamon knot and a chocolate and hazelnut babka. They were both great, but we'd caution that the babka is very dense so fitting this in on your own after another dish may be tough going. On another visit we took home a chocolate covered marble cake and a chocolate chip cookie, and both were top rate. What about drinks? Coffee is always on the money in Two Boys Brew and it was the same at Milo's. They use Root & Branch which is roasted in Belfast, and if you're a decaf drinker (by choice or force) theirs is one of the best around. Teas, ice coffee and hot chocolate are also available, as well as soft drinks including San Pellegrino and ginger beer. How was the service? Lovely, welcoming, lots of smiles, and the food and coffee came out fast on both occasions. We also love that they've put a no smoking sign up for the outdoor tables (why don't more places do this!?), because who wants second hand smoke blown in their face while trying to enjoy brunch in the sun. What's the verdict? Dublin 9 has been a café desert for as long as we've been around, so the arrival of Milo's is big news for the parish. Everyone wants to live within walking distance of somewhere like this, with consistently great coffee, thoughtful food, and a kitchen putting in more effort than most of us could contemplate on a daily basis. Locals around here are very lucky, and from the constant stream of customers coming to eat in and takeaway, they know it. Milo's 124 Drumcondra Road Upper, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 twoboysbrew.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Family run, Argentinean café in Portobello, with steak and chimichurri, choripan and dulce de leche pancakes on the menu. The letters in ALMA stand for the initials of the four daughters in the family, who help run it alongside parents Alejandro and Lucrecia. Weekend brunch queues have been the norm since soon after opening, and the iced dulce de leche lattés should not be missed. Alma Website alma.ie Address Alma, Curzon Street, Portobello, Dublin 8, Ireland Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Family run, Argentinean café in Portobello, with steak and chimichurri, choripan and dulce de leche pancakes on the menu. The letters in ALMA stand for the initials of the four daughters in the family, who help run it alongside parents Alejandro and Lucrecia. Weekend brunch queues have been the norm since soon after opening, and the iced dulce de leche lattés should not be missed. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Jaru's Meal Kit A Korean hot pot to warm up a winter evening Posted: 11 Jan 2022 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? Although restaurants are technically still open, a lot of you seem to be side-stepping the early dinners, and we've been inundated with questions about where to get restaurant meal kits over the next few weeks, until normality hopefully resumes - read more about what's available here . Korean food producers Jaru started out as a street food stall, but over the last couple of years have morphed into retail, ready-meals, takeaway, and meal kits, all from their Nutgrove production unit in Rathfarnham. Their Dublin-wide delivery service made them a favourite of ours throughout multiple lockdowns, and their heat at home meals, pots of kimchi, and Asian ingredients lit up many a meal round ours in pandemic times. A few months ago they launched a new monthly meal kit highlighting a different region of Korea, and January's "Jeongol hot pot" looked like a good substitute for your Friday night reservation getting canned. It's a dish that's usually served on New Year's Day, so it felt apt for our first once over of the year. How do I get it? Place your order on their website , for delivery on Wednesday or Friday (€6.95 or free over €100), or for collection from Nutgrove at no extra cost. Order cut-off is two days before. It's not hard to get up to €100 and avoid the delivery charge - fill up on noodles, kimchi and sauces from their Mart , or order some extra heat at home dishes for the fridge or freezer. What's in the kit? The star of the show here is the hot pot, but you get other sides and dessert too. The largest component is a huge tray of vegetables - cabbage, pak choi, butternut squash, carrot, pepper, courgette, assorted mushrooms, beansprouts, spring onions, greens - forget 5 a day, you'll easily get 10 in with this one - and there's tofu too. You also get a very generous amount of beef brisket suyuk (meaning boiled), Venus clams and hake Jeon (Korean style fried fish), as well as a bag of soy beef dashi. For the non hot pot items, a Winter salad comes with squash, feta, orange slices, pecans and greens, all zippily lifted by a ponzu dressing. As January salad ideas go it's a clever combination now firmly cemented in our brains. Jaru's kimchi has taken up permanent residence in our fridges over the past few years, and while the apple one with this kit was nice, it didn't have the depth of flavour we've come to expect, as if it hadn't had enough time to ferment - more salty than sour. Then the main attraction. For maximum show off points you would have a Nabe pot and a portable induction hob to cook in the centre of the table (particularly impressive if you've got guests over), but for us Nabe-less folk any wide bottomed pot will do - ideally cast iron. They tell you to arrange your vegetables, meat and fish in a clockwise direction, but there's so much here that you'll end up having to layer some and shove others in wherever they'll fit. Then you carefully pour in the broth, bring it to the boil, stick the lid on and let it cook for five minutes. When you lift the lid you'll find it's sunk down a bit, so don't worry about jamming it all in there to start with. They recommend eating at this stage, then when you've had the meat and fish, put the pot back onto the boil (either on the hob or at the table), add the noodles for three minutes, then go back for round two. We loved every bit of this hot pot - the veg lucky dip, the buttery soft beef, the firm chunks of hake, the flavours in the broth. They also give you four dipping sauces - sesame; soy; honey mustard; and gochujang, which added different flavour profiles to each bite and were integral to the whole experience, so don't forget about them. You also get a double portion of soy glazed salsify and carrot rice (one between two was plenty), which had a lovely savoury flavour and chewy texture, but it dried out a bit in the microwave. Next time we'd splash some water on top before heating - generally a good rice trick. For dessert there's a berry, orange and pistachio semifreddo (again a double portion when one between two would probably do most people). We presumed it would be an afterthought and the least interesting part of the meal, but we were wrong. Take it out of the freezer five minutes before you want to eat it, then delve in the fruity, frozen mousse that feels just light enough to squeeze in no matter how much hot pot you've eaten. The kit says it feeds two - three people, and we comfortably had enough for two very stuffed bellies, with generous leftovers for lunch the following day, and another semifreddo in the freezer for a future evening when dessert is desperately needed. What should we drink with it? We had a fruity Italian Friulano which worked well with the variety of flavours. We think a Riesling or an orange wine would also be a good pairing, or you get in some Korean beer if you want to really commit. And the damage? €55 for the kit, plus €6.95 for delivery if you don't spend €100. We thought it was really good value for money. The verdict? Jaru have been flying the meal kit flag in and out of lockdowns, so they're a great one to know about when you want to plan a night in without the heavy lifting in the kitchen. This kit was seriously enjoyable to make and eat, and there was a welcome bit of theatre - something we could all do with on these dark, January, curfew-filled evenings. This one's available until the end of January and if you want to order for this weekend head here . We don't think you'll regret it. Jaru 3A Nutgrove Enterprise Park, Nutgrove Way, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 www.jaru.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Clanbrassil House 2018 Dynamic, charcoal cooking in Dublin 8 Posted: 15 Mar 2018 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What’s the story? The second, more-casual opening from Bastible chef-owner Barry Fitzgerald and his partner Claremarie Thomas, with rapidly rising chef Gráinne O’Keeffe in the kitchen. Part of a contingent of young restaurateurs behind some of the most dynamic food in Dublin right now, Bastible's been showing up on every ‘best places to eat in Dublin’ list since opening, and along with their contemporaries like Etto and Forest & Marcy , have injected a new streak of energy into the Dublin dining scene. Clanbrassil House opened in Autumn 2017 and was supposed to be a more casual wine and small plates type of place, but we reckon most people are coming here for a full, multi-course meal. Where’s good for a drink beforehand? We liked 57 The Headline which has a brilliant Gin & Tonic menu, huge beer selection and comfy seats. If you want a more traditional pub you’ve got Leonard’s Corner , and if you’re after wine you’d probably be best to go straight to Clanbrassil House and see if they can seat you early for an aperitif. What’s the room like? Narrow and cosy. Very much ‘Parisian wine bar’, as opposed to ‘inner-city Dublin’. There are high tables and stools at the front, which is a lovely space with bare brick and deep blue walls, wine bottles lined up along one side and fairy lights in the window. It feels very grown up, and like you could be in any number of cool European cities. In the back are the normal tables where you can look into the kitchen, but we could see it from our high table too. What's good to eat? If you’re like us you’ll want it all, and the menu is small enough that if there were four of you (or two who were very hungry) you could just tell them to bring everything. They do a family style sharing menu for €40 a head where the chefs pick food from every section once the order goes in, and it works out as good value, but they’re not keen on telling you what’s going to come out in advance so it feels a bit like Russian roulette. We did tell our server there was one dish we weren’t keen on, and she managed to get it changed to the one we really wanted, but we would have liked full disclosure before deciding whether to go family style (which we did) or á la carte. From the snacks, Verdial olives were exceptional - the type you find in most good bars in Spain but rarely here. Iberico ham croquettes were good, but the knockout dish was grilled sourdough and hot smoked trout. The flavours of smoke from the grill were vivid, and it's come up in conversations a lot since. From the smaller plates, roast leeks, chopped egg and chicken skin was enjoyable whilst not particularly memorable (and maybe a touch under seasoned), but the chicken liver parfait with caramelised apple and brioche was rich, luxurious and perfect. When it came to the charcoal grill (larger plates) our expectations were completely flipped on their heads. We’d been eager to try the Picana steak with roasted bone marrow, parmesan and anchovy, and while it looked great and the flavours were good, the meat was tough and sinewy, and we didn’t enjoy it. The BBQ cauliflower however, with vadouvan butter, lentils and yoghurt (which we probably wouldn’t have picked) turned out to be one of the most memorable dishes of the night (and the year), culminating in a tussle over the last few scrapes of the plate. The cauliflower was almost meat-like, and the flavours were an another level. It takes a skilful kitchen to make a relatively flavourless vegetable taste this good (although the fact it was swimming in butter helped). The infamous hash brown fries were in fact just hash browns in the shape of chips (we're not sure what we were expecting after the mass hysteria on Instagram), and we couldn’t ascertain much pickled onion from the mayo, which it really could have done with to cut through the fat in the fries. Desserts were chocolate mousse, honeycomb and marmalade ice-cream - all very nicely done - and blood orange doughnuts with buttermilk custard, which had a nice texture but only the teeniest splodge of blood orange. The buttermilk custard was beautiful and delicately flavoured. What about the drinks? The wine list is very short. One sparkling, five whites and five reds – three of each are available by the glass). Personally we don’t think this is enough, and although we did have some lovely wines, if you’re only going to have a list this short, every wine has to knock it out of the park. The Mas Candi Cava is a a brilliant example of Spanish sparkling wine, and it’s refreshing to see something other than prosecco by the glass. For whites we had a Riesling from German producer Geil , which is perfectly good but not going to change your life, and the Spanish Louro from Rafael Palacios , which is stunning. For reds we had a natural Côtes du Rhône from Eric Texier , and an Austrian Blaufrankisch from Murh van der Niepoort . The Blaufrankisch had more to it. We had tasters of a few others but none were hitting the spot. If we were going for a single bottle it would have been Australian producer Jamsheed ’s Syrah, which is a brilliant, vibrant example of new-wave natural wine. And the service? Lovely – informative and accommodating. There when you needed them and not there when you didn’t. Our only issue was the speed the food came out at the start (although this isn’t the fault of the front of house staff). We had two snacks and three starters on the table within 15 minutes of the order going in and had to ask them to slow down. If the courses had been more well-paced and we we were told what was on the family style menu (again probably coming from the kitchen) it would have been a perfect 10. The verdict? This is exciting, innovative cooking from a kitchen that’s not standing still, and whilst it might not have been 100% perfect we love what they’re doing. When they get it right, they really take the food to a different level, and we're planning a return soon. On the night we were there Darina Allen flew in for a few plates before an early morning flight to San Francisco. Clearly the woman has her priorities right. Clanbrassil House 6 Clanbrassil Street Upper, Dublin 8 clanbrassilhouse.com New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Sophisticated French-Irish dining in the beautiful basement of an old Georgian house on Pembroke street. French owner Olivier Meisonnave started feeding the masses in 2004 and Dax has been consistently good ever since, but it got a new lease of life since Chef Graham Neville (formerly of Thornton's and Restaurant Forty One) took over the kitchen in 2017. Dax Website dax.ie Address 23 Pembroke Street Upper, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Sophisticated French-Irish dining in the beautiful basement of an old Georgian house on Pembroke street. French owner Olivier Meisonnave started feeding the masses in 2004 and Dax has been consistently good ever since, but it got a new lease of life since Chef Graham Neville (formerly of Thornton's and Restaurant Forty One) took over the kitchen in 2017. Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

La Gordita Exciting, original Spanish cooking, in a Bodega-style setting Posted: 4 Apr 2023 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 La Gordita? It's the second, more "grown-up" opening from Las Tapas De Lola 's Anna Cabrera and Vanessa Murphy, just around the corner. It's been pitched as 'bodega-style', but they're not actually looking for people to pitch up at the bar sipping sherry and eating olives. Instead this is somewhere to settle in for a three-course meal with all the wine, and leave feeling spoilt. The head chef here is Maria Luisa Moraleda, who was cooking with Killian Walsh at Clanbrassil House before being nabbed by the Lola girls, and he's clearly a fan . She seems to have been a brilliant and perhaps lucky hire, being on the ground, ready to make a move, and fitting the restaurant's spec so perfectly, coming to Dublin by way of Sevilla and Donostia. We'd imagine the opening menu is a collaboration between Maria and the owners, but she seems like someone with a strong style and a lot of confidence, so we can see her fully taking the reins before long. Where should we sit? It's a long, narrow room, with a few tables for two, four or six, and the rest bar seating. You know the story. Solo diners will love the bar option, as will a lot of couples. Any more than two and you're probably better off at a table for conversational reasons. They're aren't many though, two in the front and three in the back, and the maximum booking they can take is for six people. When we booked the website said there was only bar seating available, even though there were empty tables when we got there, and a staff member told us they're trying to keep the tables for bigger groups. If you're a two and would prefer a table, it's worth giving them a call to ask. Two of the tables in the front offer a great people watching vantage point onto Montague Street, while the ones at the back will give you views right into the kitchen. Again if you have a preference it's worth calling and asking if your preferred area is available. What's the lowdown on the menu? Something that may or may not come as an unwelcome surprise is the stipulation that you must order a main course, as part of a minimum two courses per person. A minimum order is never an issue, but when faced with 18 snacks and small plates before the "main deals", each sounding better than the last, being forced to use up so much of your budget and stomach space on the bigger plates might not be what you want. Our server explained that "we're not a tapas bar, that's around the corner in Las Tapas de Lola", but as it's been pitched as 'bodega-style' we assumed there would be more flexibility around ordering, especially as we (and we know most of you) want to try as much on a menu as possible. We pleaded with our server that we'd already picked what we wanted online (three snacks, three small plates, the lobster main and two desserts), and after some back and forth he agreed to let us go forth and eat. We know that being forced with a minimum spend on a menu doesn't sound great either, and that they can't survive unless people order an adequate amount of food, but would that many people really rock up and sit over a plate of almonds for a couple of hours? We don't know what the answer is other than trusting that diners who come to a restaurant actually want to eat, and if they don't having them justifiably removed by the heavies. We started with a couple of gildas, which are the only way to start a meal in any respectable Spanish establishment. Pair with a Manzanilla sherry for the perfect opening to dinner. Before these came a little bowl of complimentary olives from Antequera in Spain, which were richly flavoured, salty and tangy. Then the La Gordita version of garlic bread, or really garlic on toast. So simple, so perfect, so hard to understand why no one else has done this here. This isn't your 49c garlic from the fruit and veg aisle. Staff told us it's coming from Spain each week, and after a low, slow roast is so sweet, so savoury, so perfectly salted, squeezed out and slathered all over the crunchy toast. Our love for vinegar-soaked boquerones runs deep, but the ones here weren't the best we've had. The best ones are bright white, with plump juicy flesh, tang and oil beautifully intertwined. These ones had clearly been doused in some quality olive oil, but were greying and on the tougher side. An 'Asadillo con melva' - salad of roasted red pepper, melva tuna from Barbate in Cádiz, and garlic - on the other hand was simple and perfect. This is the good tuna, the one that makes John West look and taste like cat food, sitting on a bed of sherry vinegar marinated roasted red peppers and slivers of white onion. It tastes like sitting on a Mediterranean beach sipping a cold glass of white wine, feeling the sand between your toes and the sun on your arms. We were advised to order the bombitas de morcilla, one of their most popular dishes, which are Spanish black pudding balls with goat's cheese, served with tomato marmalade. The excellent morcilla is silky soft, and while you might not spot the goat's cheese amongst all the black, every so often you'll get a pleasing whack of it. We can never resist some berenjenas fritas con miel de caña (f ried aubergine with sugar cane honey for the uninitiated), and these were very good but different to every other example we've tried. They're cut so finely they're more like crisps and you don't get any aubergine texture, but once you pop you won't be able to stop, and the sugar cane honey was the ideal consistency, not too thick and treacly as is sometimes the case. For the 'main deal' we couldn't see past the 'Bogavante de Formentera' - fried lobster with potatoes, padrón peppers and fried eggs. It's €37 so it's a splurge, and you only get half a lobster so it's a tricky one to share - we wouldn't advise even attempting if there are more than two of you. It's a beautiful dish, the fresh Irish lobster just cooked, the potatoes cut thin as crisps, padrons oily and salted, and the fried eggs crumpled with all the right crispy edges, and oozing yolks. It's pretty plush, but you're worth it. We'd ordered the patatas panaderas (because trying all and any form of potatoes as an Irish person is mandatory), but as the lobster already came with potatoes our server suggested we try the 'espinacas cremosa' - creamed spinach with pinenuts and raisins, and we scraped every last sliver from the dish. It's the type of side you might try to make at home for steak night, but yours never ends up as silky and creamy and utterly delicious as this one. There are four desserts on the menu and a cheeseplate, but we think they've missed a trick not using the latter as an opportunity to showcase some of the incredible Spanish cheeses available in Ireland, like Manchego, Monte-Enebro and Cabrales. When we visited it was Comté, Delice de Bourgogne and Cashel Blue, which jarred with the rest of the menu and feels like an attempt at appealing to the masses rather than committing to the bit. We were recommended the Tarta de Manzana, a Spanish apple tart not unlike a Tart Tatin, with richly flavoured rum & raisin ice-cream, and while enjoyable, it needed to have been cooked for longer to up the caramelisation - we saw another leaving the kitchen beforehand which was a lot darker and looked more like it. The other headline-grabbing dessert is the Torrijas - almond milk-soaked bread with almond cream. It's a heavy choice to end a meal with, and one you might regret while walking for a taxi/DART/bus, but you'll have no regrets while spooning the burnished, milky, marzipan-esque toast into your mouth. What about the drinks? There are seven sherries by the glass, which is admirable by any Dublin restaurant's standards, but they're all Lustau bar one. Lustau makes some really great sherry, and the three we tried (a dry Palo Cortado, a 25-year dry Oloroso, and a sweet 'Solera' with dessert) were choice examples, but in a city where superstars like Callejuela and De La Riva are readily available we would have liked to see more breath. There's plenty of interest on the main wine list too (more so by the bottle), but we would have loved to see them do a solo Spanish deep-dive like Grano or Apertivo have done for Italy, and left the people pleasing Picpouls and Pouilly Fuissés to the others. Our advice - stick to Spanish, like Raventós' cava-style (but better than most you've probably tried) 'I Blanc', Raul Perez's Godello 'Ultreia', or Comando G's cult Garnacha 'La Bruja De Las Rozas'. There's a classic cocktail list too, plenty of spirits, and beer from Estrella. How was the service? Delightful, charming, hospitality personified. You know immediately that they're going to build up a roster of regulars, whose likes and dislikes they'll get to know, who'll have their favourite spot at the bar, a comped drink before going home. It's just that kind of place, and was always going to be coming from the same team as Las Tapas de Lola, known for one of the warmest welcomes in Dublin. What was the damage? This amount of food which happily fed (stuffed) two with five drinks will cost you €163 before a tip. And the verdict? We always think the mark of a great restaurant is when we're walking out the door looking for reasons to return, and in a city of constant new openings that we're occupationally compelled to try, that's not often the case. We were thinking up excuses to go back to La Gordita before we'd even left, for the caviar and crisps, the anchovies with blue cheese butter, the lamb ribs, the octupus with romesco, the weekend arroz special. Head chef Maria's cooking is exciting, original, honest, and we want more of it., We'd love to see the must order main course stipulation changed to a minimum spend (or dropped altogether), but if this doesn't happen we'd suggest going as a four or six so you can try as many snacks and small plates as possible. Otherwise the sadness at leaving so much unordered may be unbearable. On the other hand it's an excuse for another visit, not that you'll have to try too hard to come up with one. La Gordita 6 Montague Street, Dublin 2 lagordita.ie New Openings & Discoveries More >>

Agave Website agavedublin.com Address 19-22 Lord Edward Street, Dublin 2 Good For Tag 1 Cuisine Tag 1 Once Over Read our Review >> The Story Where It's At Nearby Locales Bell Pesto Bang 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

Dublin's Chinatown is just lacking an ornate red and gold gate at the top of O'Connell Street, but there's more to Parnell street than hand-pulled noodles and Sichuan dumplings. As well as excellent Korean and Vietnamese food, head here for some of the city's best sandwiches, craft beer and great music. Parnell Street Our Take Dublin's Chinatown is just lacking an ornate red and gold gate at the top of O'Connell Street, but there's more to Parnell street than hand-pulled noodles and Sichuan dumplings. As well as excellent Korean and Vietnamese food, head here for some of the city's best sandwiches, craft beer and great music. Where to Eat Afanti Choux Bakery Lee's Charming Noodles One Society Parnell Street Bakery Pho Kim The Big Romance

Cellar 22 Homemade charcuterie and 40 wines by the glass at Dublin's newest wine bar Posted: 23 Jan 2024 Neighbourhood Neighborhood Name Address Restaurant Address Website Website Name Restaurant Info View the Listing >> Written by: Lisa Cope What's the story with Cellar 22? Since The Cliff Townhouse closed its doors mid-pandemic at the end of 2021, number 22 St Stephen's Green has sat empty, crying out for a shrewd operator to move in and level up the space into somewhere with the potential to draw in all of those five-star tourists passing the doors each day - and the rest of us if they got the offering right. Last November, it was announced that the basement space (formerly The Cliff's seafood bar Urchin) was reopening as Cellar 22 , with whispers about a more formal restaurant to follow upstairs. The new owners (who also own The Fitzwilliam Hotel and The Bailey ) were obviously intent on making this more than just a tourist trap, because they brought in Delahunt 's head chef Chris Maguire (as well as some of his colleagues) to run the kitchen. Victor Nedelea (ex- Sole ) was brought in on wine, and teaser posts dropped on social looked like they meant business. Where should we sit? It's a quirky, cosy room, with a lot of dark wood and cavernous corners to sink into. There are low tables at the front, high tables in the middle, and booths to the right, as well as a semi-private room towards the back. There's also four counter seats in the back of the restaurant facing into the kitchen, so if live-action is your thing be sure to request them. As you'd expect with a basement restaurant, snug and intimate take precedence over bright and spacious, but that's just what we're looking for in these cooler months. We imagine indoor seating in a venue like this might suffer when the sun shines, but there are seats for 8-10 out front too. What should we eat? Cellar 22 has set out its niche as having a dedicated charcuterie menu, with the even more impressive declaration that 80% of it is made in house - that's enough to get us off the couch and onto a bus. If you're a meat eater, you're probably coming here for this, but first, bread. A 'selection of breads' - sourdough, focaccia and brown - will set you back €9, and comes with smoked butter (incredible), Parmesan fondue (forgettable), and beetroot and dill (questionable - why is this here without some kind of ricotta/similarly milky salve). Breads are very good - sourdough light and chewy, brown dense and crumbly, but the focaccia was a little too dry for our liking - unleash the oil. Croquettes get a bad rap for being on every menu in every combination, but sometimes you get one that reminds you WHY they're everywhere - because they're bloody delicious. Cellar 22's shortrib ones fit the bill, with crispy shells hiding sweet, melting hunks of beef, although the chive mayo could have been a bit more assertive. We were verrrrrry excited at the prospect of a brand new beef tartare in town, but this version with too tough meat and far more mayonnaise than has any business being in a tartare was disappointing. The crispy onions would have been a lovely addition if everything else worked, but we'd pare this one right back to basics. The pomme paillasson (straw potato cake) on the other hand could (should) be a dish on its own, with the tartare actually managing to distract from it. Pile em high and send em out. Then onto the main draw, the charcuterie board, which comes in small (€16) or large (€28). In the large you get all eight options, in the small a selection chosen that day by the chef. Of course we went large (this isn't a half once over), and at first glance were slightly disappointed with the portion sizes. It took a few minutes to realise why - the board photographed for their Irish Times review was noticeably larger, with an extra piece of all three cured meats, a pâté en croûte that was double the size, and twice the amount of (delicious) deep-fried crackers. In a world where over-delivering is tantamount to a great experience, under-delivering from promo photos is an odd move. But what about the actual charcuterie. Coming out on top was the Venison rillette (cured venison leg, slowly cooked in chicken fat for an immensely deep flavour ), the Pâté en croûte (pork, foie gras and smoked lardo in the most perfect savoury short crust pastry), and the chicken liver pâté (seasoned with brandy and silky smooth). The pâté de campagne was enjoyable as a more rustic terrine but not quite as wow, the ham hock terrine was pleasant but needed a flavour oomph, and the smoked pig's head definitely won't be for everyone - slices were mostly fat, with a gelatinous texture. There were delicious cucumber pickles too, and an apple butter which felt superfluous - another pickle or cornichons would have provided some more welcome acidity to cut through all that meat. The only two that are bought in, the Salchichón Ibérico de bellota and Coppa Piacentina, are excellent quality, and perfect nibbles alongside a glass of tangy red. There's lots to like here, but some of it could be that bit more exciting. A final small plate of Southern-fried maitake mushrooms with Boyne Valley blue ranch (served in half a roasted garlic bulb) was what deep-fried vegetarian dreams are made off, and once we popped it was hard to stop, but a couple of the mushrooms were more batter than 'shroom. When fully filled with fungi they were a crunchy delight - the batter is perfection, the dip inspired. They're keeping it simple for afters with cheese, affogato or 'variations of chocolate, banana and pecan'. For the latter we were expecting something thrown together in typical wine bar "we're too busy to care about dessert" style, but not so - someone in here knows their way around a pastry section. A chocolate mousse comes encased in more chocolate, with what tasted like meringue along with banana underneath a pecan bicsuit and banana ice-cream. A perfect sweet note to end on, particularly with a glass of Port. What about drinks? When we read through the wine list online it all felt a bit classic, with plenty of big names and commercial producers - more Sole than Fish Shop . However when we got in there was an additional short list of smaller, more natural producers, which our waitress told us will change regularly. It's a smart move to keep wine loving regulars coming back to see what's new, and brings the number of wines by the glass up to an impressive 40. If you've got cash to splash (entertaining clients perhaps) you won't struggle for showy bottles, with the most expensive wine a €750 Premier Cru Bordeaux from Château Figeac in Saint-Émilion. We mostly drank off the specials list, with Albert di Conti's brilliant pet nat on for sparkling, a beautiful dry palomino from Hacienda la Parrilla for white, and Catina Rallo's Ciello Rosso falling surprisngly flat on this occasion, but the Etna Rosso from Torre Mora on the main list is exactly what you want with charcuterie - all dark fruits and zippy acidity. A fino to start from Williams & Humbert Col was a poor example, lacking in those salty, oxidative flavours that make it such a great aperitif, but a 2016 Sauternes from Château Suduiraut is worth the €15 price tag for a special sweet to end on. Try it with Boyne Valley Blue on the cheese board for the dream French/Irish pairing. How was the service? Our waitress couldn't have been nicer or more helpful, bringing the wine bottles over to the table so we could see the labels, and offering helpful recommendations with no hint of an upsell. Another young waiter who came on the floor later to cover her break was equally as attentive, and made us feel very well looked after. They seem to have hired very well, because you can't train for that kind of genuine pleasantness. What was the damage? €150 for two before tip with three glasses of wine each. You could just as easily come in at lunch for a plate of pasta and a single glass and be down €25 for a lovely hour's pitstop. What's the verdict on Cellar 22? Cellar 22 has all the ingredients to join Dublin's wine bar hit list along with Note, Bar Pez, Loose Canon, Piglet, Frank's and a few more, but we'd love to see the food kicked up a gear, and more of a focus on cutting edge wines than commercial operators. For now it's a great place to share some charcuterie, cheese and picky bits over a few glasses of wine in a very cosy setting - basically the antidote to January - but with a few tweaks these could be some of the most sought after seats in town. New Openings & Discoveries More >>

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 >>