We're just wrapping up our trip to Ireland & I wanted to share some restaurant/hotel/city thoughts & impressions while they're still fresh in my mind.

Our itinerary:
Dublin: 5 nights at the Radisson Blu on Golden Lane. Decent hotel in a central location.
Galway: 2 nights at the Meyrick Hotel on Eyre Square. Older hotel that seems to be one of the better places in town, but seems to cater to a lot of tour groups, etc. Would stay there again, but might also opt for newer place.
Killarney: 2 nights at the Cahernane Hotel. Gorgeous hotel set on a lovely country estate with a view of the mountains.
Cork: 1 night at the Hayfield Manor House. Luxury hotel set in a residential neighborhood about a 15 minute walk from the center of town.

Dublin notes:
Our two best meals were at The Pig's Ear, which has been written about extensively in this thread, and Rustic Stone on South George Street.

The Pig's Ear is worth all of the recommendations and you should absolutely eat there if in Dublin. A lot of Irish food seems to be about 20 years behind the times (what my Grandmother would call "Continental cuisine." The Pig's Ear is a great example of "new Irish" food.

Rustic Stone is a new restaurant owned by Chef Dylan McGrath, who won a Michelin star at his prior restaurant, Mint. My friend & I have spent a lot of time since this meal debating how to describe the food, and the best description probably comes from the restaurant's website: "To add creativity and flavour to the finest ingredients in the most nutritious way possible. In today’s ever changing restaurant environment, there is a demand for greater choice and the need to cater for individual tastes and nutritional requirements. At Rustic Stone we feel we have something for everyone. Our restaurant is a fun, inviting and relaxed place to eat where everyone’s needs, diets and indulgences are provided for." It's sort of a Whole Foods of restaurants: You're not going to find trans-fats or GMO here, and while some dishes are specifically designated as protein-packed, full of superfoods, etc., you'll also find fried foods--but fried in healthy oils, etc.

I'd also recommend the Dublin Tasting Trail. I felt as if it got off to a bit of a slow start, but by the end I was really won over. It will get you into to neighborhoods that are off the beaten tourist path and you'll eat enough that it can double for lunch. One of our best discoveries from the tour: Murphy's Ice Cream, with locations in Dingle, Killarney & Dublin. Neither of us eat much ice cream, but after sampling the brown bread ice cream and the Dingle sea salt ice cream, we both returned for more.

We did get to Elephant & Castle, which I thought was overrated (though I had a decent curry chicken club sandwich). Chili Club was OK Thai...nothing to write home about, but you could do much worse. We also spotted an Indonesian restaurant just off Temple Bar that advertised rijstaffel, but didn't make it there.

Galway:
We ate at The Malt House and another Italian restaurant whose name escapes me, both of which are on High Street. Ard Bia, which is just past the Spanish arch, was highly recommended but we didn't get there.

Honestly, Galway restaurants left me disappointed. I think we made a mistake by trying to eat on High Street, which is very touristy. The Malt House decent, but not memorable. If you're heading to Galway, search out some of the less touristy places.

Killarney:
We ate at the Bistro/Cellar Bar (in the Cahernane Hotel) on our first night there. This place is a hidden gem and worth seeking out even if you're not staying at the hotel. I had a smoked haddock/seafood chowder that I'll be dreaming about for years. It was absolutely packed with seafood (no potatoes, which made me happy). I also had the roast beef salad, which was great. My friend had the salmon "fingers" (which were really just pan-fried fillets) and pronounced them the best salmon he had in Ireland. Irish breakfast at the hotel was great in the morning.

We ate at Gaby's on our other night in Killarney. It was a decent seafood restaurant, but nothing spectacular (heavy on the cream and butter, with nothing particularly innovative about the food).

Cork:
We ate lunch at the Farmgate Restaurant on the second floor of the English Market in Cork. Lunch was above average, but you might do better by just grazing through the stalls below. (Note, however, that much of the food sold at the market is raw, but there are a few places with prepared foods. We also grazed on a sausage, which was terrific.)

Breakfast at Hayfield Manor was delicious, but we didn't have a chance to try their restaurants for dinner.

Kinsale:
Apparently Fishy Fishy is the to-go place in Kinsale, but since they were booked, they referred us to Max's, which was fantastic. I had a baked mussels appetizer (mussels on the half shell with garlic, butter & breadcrumbs...hard to mess up). We both had the seafood hot pot which was delicious! Salmon, hake, ling (which I'd never heard of), langoustines and mussels in a terrific herb-packed broth, with sides of braised cabbage, roast broccoli and scalloped potatoes.

Giant's Causeway:
I did a day trip to Northern Ireland & we stopped at the Giant's Causeway at lunchtime. There are two restaurants here: An inn & a pub. (I don't have the names of either.) The pub was great...much better than you'd expect from a tourist stop. Great pint & fish, chips & mushy peas.

Other eating notes:
If you need to grab a quick bite, the M&S (Marks & Spencer) food hall offers a lot of prepared food options. We had lunch at the cafe at Kylemore Abbey in Connemarra & the food was better than average for a tourist site. A lot of the ingredients are sourced straight from the Abbey's own gardens.

chgoeditor wrote:Galway:
Ard Bia, which is just past the Spanish arch, was highly recommended but we didn't get there.

Ard Bia was definitely my favorite meal of the trip when I was there last October. This seems well-regarded and populated with locals (I think). We waited for a table for about an hour, but we were treated to a free wine tasting at the bar (apparently, the wine market in Ireland is a distant second to the beer market and a local wine shop was trying to get the word out). I still remember a sea trout and lentil dish to this day. This spot was certainly worth the wait and was the best thing in our short stay in Galway.

gastro gnome wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:Galway:
Ard Bia, which is just past the Spanish arch, was highly recommended but we didn't get there.

Ard Bia was definitely my favorite meal of the trip when I was there last October. This seems well-regarded and populated with locals (I think). We waited for a table for about an hour, but we were treated to a free wine tasting at the bar (apparently, the wine market in Ireland is a distant second to the beer market and a local wine shop was trying to get the word out). I still remember a sea trout and lentil dish to this day. This spot was certainly worth the wait and was the best thing in our short stay in Galway.

Shoot! Oh well...next time.

chgoeditor wrote:
Dublin notes:
Our two best meals were at The Pig's Ear, which has been written about extensively in this thread, and Rustic Stone on South George Street.

The Pig's Ear is worth all of the recommendations and you should absolutely eat there if in Dublin. A lot of Irish food seems to be about 20 years behind the times (what my Grandmother would call "Continental cuisine." The Pig's Ear is a great example of "new Irish" food.

Killarney:
We ate at the Bistro/Cellar Bar (in the Cahernane Hotel) on our first night there. This place is a hidden gem and worth seeking out even if you're not staying at the hotel. I had a smoked haddock/seafood chowder that I'll be dreaming about for years. It was absolutely packed with seafood (no potatoes, which made me happy). I also had the roast beef salad, which was great. My friend had the salmon "fingers" (which were really just pan-fried fillets) and pronounced them the best salmon he had in Ireland. Irish breakfast at the hotel was great in the morning.

Glad you liked Pig's Ear and Cahernane House, brings back fond memories - Pig's Ear especially was a restaurant firing on all cylinders. We also ate at a few other restaurants in Killarney but they weren't worth mentioning. Food Ireland is a pretty good resource too.

gastro gnome wrote:

chgoeditor wrote:Galway:
Ard Bia, which is just past the Spanish arch, was highly recommended but we didn't get there.

Ard Bia was definitely my favorite meal of the trip when I was there last October. This seems well-regarded and populated with locals (I think). We waited for a table for about an hour, but we were treated to a free wine tasting at the bar (apparently, the wine market in Ireland is a distant second to the beer market and a local wine shop was trying to get the word out). I still remember a sea trout and lentil dish to this day. This spot was certainly worth the wait and was the best thing in our short stay in Galway.

Oh *&^%$. I'll have to go back

Interestingly, we looked at the menu for dinner one night but got the impression that it might be a stronger lunch place. It sounds as if you were there for dinner & we were probably wrong.

Yes, we were definitely there for dinner. I can see what you mean about sizing up the menu and thinking of it as a lunch place (as most of the dishes seem on the simpler side). I just think everything was really well executed.

I also really enjoyed The Mermaid Cafe in Dublin, but it appears to have closed.

We'll be in Dublin in October and plan to eat at The Pig's Ear. Has anyone been there recently and is it still as good? Thanks!

Extended family still likes the Pig's Ear and its estimable cellars, but recommended Vintage Kitchen as a happening spot for modern Irish cuisine if you'll bring your own wines. I have not eaten at either personally, and have oddly or not ended up at extremely satisfying Brazilian (http://www.saborbrazil.ie/) and Southeast Asian (http://www.chameleonrestaurant.com/, rijsttafel!) in Dublin, plus the Indian, Japanese, and Chinese takeout places are often excellent and a relatively good value.

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Should you or anyone else be getting to points significantly south and west, I offer a few points from a June 2013 swing.

Still flying under the radar in charming Kilkenny is the Kilkenny Design Centre dining room for Thursday-Saturday dinners in a stunning room high in the fortified city walls (http://www.kilkennydesign.com/Restaurant.aspx). This is also the full Irish breakfast location for Butler House accommodations. Best lamb, bread service, and creative plating on our trip, with the young chefs showing regional pride along with a local ingredient pipeline and artistic flair.

And in the soulful Dingle Peninsula:



Murphy's Ice Cream, sea salt and local honey, house-made ultra-crisp cones

Out Of The Blue, wow.

The Chart House, more formal dining room full of peninsula pottery, orchard fruits, local sausages

The Little Cheese Shop, destination-worthy in every sense.

The Boatyard Restaurant, nautical kitsch, and the only better fried squid preparation I've tasted in my life was kettle-cooked on a beach in Santander

The Skipper in Ventry, an unexpected revelation:







Coffee and rhubarb crisp (not pictured) outside of some magical farmhouse in Coumenoole:



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On the Rock of Cashel on the way back to Dublin; only food up there is for sheep.

Matt-

Lovely photographs! What is this beautiful dish?

Dingle has had considerable Spanish influence since the 16th century; one particular pier (An Caladh Spainneach) was treated like an embassy or foreign enclave, and also served as the ferry point for pilgrims on the Camino del Santiago, of which the Dingle peninsula is considered a northern extension, Cosán na Naomh.

This is to say: it's flan, done old-school and exactly right!

Now I need a rec for dinner in Killarney. If the restaurant happens to be near an excellent pub that you could also recommend, well, you get extra credit.

Treyvaud's for a modern take on Irish regional with a sense of humor and lots of game.

Bricin for slightly more touristy-but-worth-it, enter through a bookstore into the upper floors of an 1830s storehouse, great seafood, and boxty (which is relatively hard to come by in the South) is really perfect.

Will you have time to drive through Killarney National Park, which is a jaw-dropper in the fall? Kenmare may have even better restaurants (at least better views), and it's not that far. No. 35 and the room at the Park Hotel come to mind (this intel is some years out of date, but confirmed via more recent reviews online).

In Ireland, pub finds you. I wouldn't worry too much there!

hoppy2468 wrote:Now I need a rec for dinner in Killarney. If the restaurant happens to be near an excellent pub that you could also recommend, well, you get extra credit.

From my post above:
Killarney:

We ate at the Bistro/Cellar Bar (in the Cahernane Hotel) on our first night there. This place is a hidden gem and worth seeking out even if you're not staying at the hotel. I had a smoked haddock/seafood chowder that I'll be dreaming about for years. It was absolutely packed with seafood (no potatoes, which made me happy). I also had the roast beef salad, which was great. My friend had the salmon "fingers" (which were really just pan-fried fillets) and pronounced them the best salmon he had in Ireland. Irish breakfast at the hotel was great in the morning.

And just to prove myself right: I am still dreaming about that seafood chowder.

Just to say I am currently in Dublin, and will be for a few months. If you need/ want an eating compatriot, PM me. First on my list is Matt the Thresher - looks like excellent seafood. I will report back. http://www.mattthethresher.ie/

lemoneater wrote:Just to say I am currently in Dublin, and will be for a few months. If you need/ want an eating compatriot, PM me. First on my list is Matt the Thresher - looks like excellent seafood. I will report back. http://www.mattthethresher.ie/

Um, not going to be there, but...jealous! Enjoy.

I'm resurrecting this thread for my trip later this month - I'll be in Dublin for 4 days, and then headed out to Cong for three days to attend a wedding, then back to Dublin for one night before flying home.

My grasp of Irish geography is exceeded only by my grasp of Irish pronunciation, so unless there's an absolute can't-miss, I plan to basically jot down every recommendation I see and then figure out what I can get to once I'm there. I'm staying with a close friend in Dublin, but she's vegetarian and therefore not to be trusted.

I'm definitely heading for the Pig's Ear based on the descriptions above. Is there anyplace that I'll forever regret missing if I depart the country without stopping by?

Without focusing on specific restaurants, I'd make the following general suggestions:

-- if you're going to the west coast of Ireland, be sure to take advantage of its great seafood, especially salmon and oysters. Smoked salmon on buttered brown bread and an Irish stout is a great meal, and the oysters are plentiful and tasty. What time of year is the oyster festival? I can't remember, but I'm going to plan my next trip around it.

-- I second the comment concerning Irish cheeses --- great in several categories; try different kinds whenever you get a chance.

-- As others have mentioned, I too would order lamb before beef there. The lamb is high quality and a relative rarity for Americans. We have access to plenty of good beef here.

--- Traditional Irish dishes such as colcannon and boxty are more interesting and memorable than plain potatoes. The same is true of great homemade brown breads and soda breads. These are the things I try to make at home to remind me of Ireland.

Heading to Ireland next week. We will be in Kilkenny, Kilarney, Limerick and Dublin. Any current recommendations for not to miss meals and bites?

Just getting back from a really nice trip to Ireland. From a food perspective, I was impressed with the overall quality of the raw materials used at all of the places we visited.

We were staying in Galway and doing a lot of day trips from there. Some of this will reference some places from above.

Ard Bia seems to be doing quite well. We were traveling with a 6-, 9-, and 13-year old and we didn't want to try and make a dinner work here for the sake of ourselves and other guests! Opted for brunch instead and waited about 30 minutes for a table on a bustling Saturday morning - with the Galway Food Fest in full swing right through the nearby Spanish Arch. Coffee (flat white) and tea were excellent. Kids devoured their pancakes, which may have been their favorite thing all week. I opted for the "hippy fry", a lacto-ovo vegetarian version of a trad Irish breakfast, adding a side of smoked salmon which was fantastic.



The Flat White



Some quick notes on a few other places, in no particular order:

Anton's Cafe (Galway) - while our airbnb was directly above a very well-stocked Joyce's grocery store, which we used to prepare some meals, I stopped in at this cafe, across the street, almost every morning for an americano and some pastries.



John Keough's (Galway) - new gastropub. Atmosphere might feel a bit contrived but the Guinness was great and the food was very good - chicken wings, potato wedges with chorizo, prawns, fish and chips. We shared plates and devoured our food. Service was very friendly. Nice turf fire right by our table for additional ambiance.

The Ivy Cottage (Doolin) - we skipped the pub in town and ate outside - it was a very sunny day. Really nice food. Even the hamburger my son ordered was well-received - which is a bit of an accomplishment for Ireland. I had the seafood chowder, full of big, tender chunks of a few different fish including salmon. Coffee and tea were very good, and you can't beat the view from a nearby overlook.



Coffee 4 (Maynooth) - after landing in Dublin we had a drive to Galway, so we planned a stop in Maynooth to eat lunch. We were hoping to hit a place called The Gate House but they weren't open yet due to it being spring break for the local university. Wound up at this place right next door for a quick meal. Irish Breakfast and BLT were of high quality. We may have been delirious from being awake for about 30 straight hours though (see John Keough's above which we hit later in the same day trying to push through our first day to get on Galway time).

Tigh Joe Macs (Inishmor) - we arranged for a private, 9-mile walking tour of the largest of the Aran Islands - if this is something that interests you, I know a guy! - which was a great way to explore the island but left us all feeling pretty hungry. We only had time for some quick toasties (the house special was cheese, ham, tomato, and onion - we asked the bartender to "hold the onion"), adding a couple of pints. We ate these up quickly before having to catch the return ferry. This place is worth seeking out over some more touristy alternatives if you only need a quick meal - regulars sitting at the bar chatting in Irish with the tender the entire time.

An Pucan (Galway) - after getting back to the mainland, we headed out for a proper dinner trying to find a place with music before 9PM (when children are expelled from pubs). From a music perspective this place was great - it was Good Friday and the start of the bank holiday weekend and Gloucester was playing Connacht in rugby in Galway the following day - so it was a bit rowdy. We also found out later it was the first Good Friday in which pubs were allowed to serve in something like 90 years. People seemed to be enjoying the lack of prohibition. Food here wasn't that great, save for the chicken wings. But the beer was tasty.

Murphy's of Dingle (Galway) - the ice cream place mentioned above now has a small outpost on Quay St. in Galway. We stopped in and had some very good ice cream. I got a scoop of Irish Coffee and the Apple Balsamic (!). I tasted the salted caramel as well as the sea salt flavor - the staff were very generous with samples. The sea salt and the vinegar flavors were novel to me but well executed.

I grabbed a serving of local oysters from Kelly's truck at the Galway Food Festival. The purveyors had two kinds of local oysters, a native species and a gigas introduced from Japan that has been farmed in Ireland's waters for many years. I opted for the local species. Very briny and very good. Places on Quay St. got in on the act as well, with Martine's on Quay St. restaurants spit roasting a pig for the fest. I really wanted to try the Harissa-lamb and the Hallumi from Kasbah Wine Bar but was absolutely stuffed. It was good to see so many take-out booths up and down the street in addition to the food trucks and booths at the Festival proper.





We were at a loss for Easter dinner and were going to be doing a lot of driving through the Connemara so I made a reservation at Cullin's in the Cottage on the property of Ashford Castle near Cong (of Quiet Man fame). This worked out well. For one, it enabled us to actually get on the property - a guard stationed out front wouldn't have let us on the grounds unless we had a reservation. For another, the dinner was fantastic. I had a serving of the gigas oysters which I skipped at the Food Fest and a seafood chowder. My wife had the salmon special. The kids menu had a great prawns dish as well as "really yummy" beef short rib. Proximity to the 5-star Ashford must elevate this place which is basically a clubhouse for the Ashford golf course. Highly recommended, though. This might've been the best value we had all trip. It wasn't cheap, but kid's meals were roughly €10 which was pretty reasonable given their high quality. My chowder and oysters were €22 together. Salmon was €18. I used Open Table for the rez, which was at 5PM. I think we got the lunch menu, which might've helped prices, since when we arrived their sign stated "lunch til 4PM, dinner service at 6PM". They had no trouble seating us though.





While in Limerick we wound up at Katie Daly's which seems to be a bit of tourist trap as it is right across from King John's Castle, but we were very pressed for time and couldn't afford much exploration. Had the roast lamb special - a nice surprise as it was a two really nice pieces of lamb leg with a sort of stuffing between them over potatoes and a gravy with steamed veg. Nothing too special about it but very solid.

Similar thing happened on our last day - we had some time to kill before our flight home and decided to spend it in Howth. Stopped into Crabby Jo's hoping for lunch but they were still in breakfast mode. Despite that, the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs were a great pre-trip meal as was my wife's "avocado toast" - big dice of fresh avocado and buffalo mozz on brown bread with two poached eggs on top.

Even More Random Notes:

I stuck to stout porters for most the trip, early I found the "American Pale Ales" of the island to be not so good, but you can find plenty of Founders, Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, etc in grocery stores in the cities if you want a taste of home. I did try a very serviceable NE IPA from New Ireland while at Oslo the brewpub mothership of Galway Bay Brewing, incidentally the two stouts of their own that they were serving were both excellent.

Special thanks to all the posters above, for pointing us in some specific directions (Ard Bia, etc) as well as general information like lamb before beef, seafood options on the west coast, etc. I used it to influence some decisions and things worked out very well.

As an ending side note, we saw quite a bit of the "probably the best .... in Galway" signs around. Seems to be a thing.