If it hasn’t crossed your radar yet, let me be the first to tell you that Irish food is better than ever. During my recent visit to Dublin, I literally ate and drank my way across the city over the course of four days. There is so much delicious food in Dublin, and really all across Ireland, thanks in part to Irish chefs coming home from abroad to start up award-winning restaurants and cafes in the capital. From champagne tea at some of the city’s best hotels to local pubs with live music to fresh brekkies at tiny cafes and a food tour with a local expert, I definitely enjoyed my foodie experiences in Dublin.
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Food in Dublin, Ireland and what’s different now…
There is so much to celebrate about Irish food. Promise, I’m not just making that up. There’s fresh food, homemade jams and honeys, locally sourced meats and cheeses, and fresh seafood. You can even find great vegetarian and vegan restaurants… in this heavily meat and potatoes country. Spotted on a pub menu: a vegetarian burger and a homemade sundried tomato pesto. On the drink side, sure there’s whiskey and Guinness, but there’s also gin, tea, gin with tea, craft brewed beers and ciders, and more. Craft cocktails? You’ve got options galore.
If we go back just a few years, though, Irish food really had a bad rep. Overcooked veg, fried everything, and heavy beer topped the list. Today you can still find all the staples like shepherds pie, and a good Sunday roast, but think modern, think fresh, think local. Even Irish breakfasts, traditionally sausage fry ups and eggs with toast, are getting a makeover…
Now it’s avo on toast with a poached egg, some locally hot smoked salmon, chives cut from the garden, with Himalayan salt and freshly ground peppercorns. Oh, and a few fresh ‘maters and a drizzle of lemon (imported, of course).
Savoring Dublin, a Context Travel tour
One early Saturday morning (I know, right?) I met Kevin, a local Dubliner with a unique background. He’s a historian, knowledgeable about everything from the Book of Kells to the Easter Rising. But he also has a culinary background, making him the perfect docent to lead a food tour through the heart of this ancient city.
We started off in one of the city’s Georgian buildings, a once city home for the aristocrats and now a complex of artisan bakeries, flower shops, yarn shops, and more. From there, we walked and talked about the revolution of Irish food. Kevin attributes the rise in local coffee shops to the rise in the number of tech companies based in Dublin (Facebook and Google among them). Our journey took us through Dunne’s, an Irish grocery chain, before playing Spot The Difference at a gourmet grocery: Fallon & Byrne. There, we wandered the aisles looking at the ways products were displayed, then headed to the back for some cheese tasting. Afterwards, we crossed the street to Butlers Chocolates for some goodies to nibble on as we walked.
Fallon & Byrne gourmet market and wine bar
Damien, the general manager at Ballyfin Demesne, also recommended Fallon & Byrne. I already talked about the cheese bar and the local food available, but its also a wine bar. F&B is located right near the Molly Malone statue (affectionately known, by the way, as the Tart With A Cart (you’ll see why below)). On Friday night, I dropped in. Fallon & Byrne’s wine bar is located in the basement of the grocery store. The wine list is long, with glasses and bottles available from wine regions around the world. Of course, you can also purchase a bottle of wine to take home and one long wall is lined with those. Expect to see a lot of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French wine as well as a small selection from the US, South Africa, and South America.
Wine is a big part of my travel experience. As a food and wine specialist, I curate trips centred around great food and great wine. Find out more about various wine regions around the world here.
Did you know that grocery stores are one of my favourite places to pop into during my travels? Not only can you find the usual groceries from the locals, but you can also see what influences are strong. If there’s a big Indian or south Asian community, I assure you that is reflected in the grocery store. Do a bunch of Dutch live there? Chances are you will find stroopwaffels somewhere in that store. Remind me to tell you of the time I found Kansas City barbecue sauce in an Icelandic grocery store…
… and back to my tour
When we ended up at a hidden farmers market, we bought more cheese from a guy whose mother had made it for decades, yet can’t get it in a shop. We also sat down at an oyster bar complete with plastic tablecloths and folding chairs. Kevin ordered the 6 oyster special, which came with brown bread and a glass of wine. We got seven oysters, brown bread, and two glasses of wine for the same price, so not a bad deal if I do say so myself! I also scored a video of the shucker as he worked. Be sure to check it out on my Instagram page!
We ended our tour with a visit to Murphy’s, a local ice cream shop around the corner from Molly. While I tend to stay away from ice cream due to my intolerance to milk and cream, they had sorbet on offer… so how could I resist?! (Photo of Kevin’s proper ice cream below.)
Besides the fact that the food I tasted while walking with Kevin was delicious and the people serving it knew what they were talking about, I also learned a lot about the evolution of food in Dublin. In fact, I learned a lot about food in Ireland as a whole. On my way over, I joked to the guys next to me on the plane that it was no longer shepherds pie, but deconstructed shepherds pie. Turns out that’s true. Do not miss Dublin as a foodie destination, you will absolutely love it.
Tea at The Shelbourne Hotel
I had tea at the Shelbourne with Dana, one of the sales team from this revered Dublin hotel. As I noted in my review of the luxury hotels in Dublin, it was my first stop after arriving, so in addition to a nice heady glass of champagne, I also had some black Darjeeling orange tea, perfect for the dreary day and the jet lag. Dana ordered a flowering tea, which came in a clear glass teapot with a dark closed bud inside. As Isabel poured the hot water in, the flower tumbled against the stream of water and began to bloom before our eyes.
When the towering platters of sandwiches and treats came out, it was like staring at a colourful garden. There was in-house smoked salmon, avocado sandwiches with poppyseed rolls, fresh scones and breads, lemon raspberry tarts with edible violets, and more.
The tea menu is extensive, with nearly twenty pages of teas from around the world. Of course, Irish tea is a big deal, and the popularity of afternoon tea has surged in the last ten years. Every hotel I visited had something good to say about the rise in popularity of their tea service.
Coffee, while popular in Ireland, is not locally sourced. It may be locally roasted in places and I certainly tried my fair share of coffees, lattes, and flat whites from local and organic cafes. I’ll talk more about the coffee culture in a minute.
Balfes and Wilde
My last site visit was at The Westbury, a gorgeous, stylish hotel tucked off Grafton Street. Following the tour with Eimear, I settled into a corner banquette at Balfes, their casual restaurant at street level. As it was a Saturday, around 1pm, they were still serving the brunch menu. It’s pretty traditional brunch with a modern upscale twist. The cocktail menu is long, inspired by local authors. It was here, skimming the news, that I read that Gatsby might have been inspired by Connecticut rather than Long Island. I think he would have felt right at home here too, sipping a whiskey cocktail while Zelda downed champagne.
On my way out (lunch was delicious) I stopped to talk to the manager. She told me the kitchen is headed by a young Irishman back from working abroad. There’s a few other Irish in the kitchen, but there’s also other nationalities. Upstairs, at Wilde, the upscale restaurant, the head chef is Indian assisted by a lot of others. She said his Indian background sneaks into the food and it’s fabulous. So, is Irish food totally Irish now? Or is it a fusion Irish food?
Irish pubs
Yeah yeah, could you let me get away without talking about Irish pubs? They’re a staple here, from the rowdy pubs in Temple Bar (all tourists) to the more relaxed ones further afield. There’s a few that came recommended, but you truly cannot cross the street without finding one, so it’s total personal preference when it comes to local Irish pubs. The traditional ones, with dark wood and snug booths, are my favourites. They’re cozy, hence the term “the snug” that describes a private part in an Irish pub. Kevin described a cafe as public, while a pub is like hiding away from it all. The typical dark wood, stained glass, and dividers are kind of a dead giveaway that you’re in a real Irish pub.
I stopped into O’Donoghue’s, a popular pub up near The Shelbourne. At 9pm on a summer Friday, it was packed with people. The interior is dark and small, but they have an exterior back patio as well as a secondary interior space. Because in general I am not a beer person (happy to taste, don’t usually drink more than one), I opted for a Citra IPA by Open Gate Brewery. This craft brewery is actually operated by Guinness, which I didn’t know until I was sipping away listening to the buzz of people around me.
the oldest pub in Dublin?
On a cool, rainy evening, not wanting to drift too far from my accommodation, I headed to Ireland’s oldest pub, the Brazen Head. The current building dates to the 1750s but it appears in documents as early as the 1650s and some say even earlier, to the 12th century. It’s located just off the River Liffey in a warren of buildings, and its tiny exterior hides its true size. I stepped into the stone tunnel that led to the courtyard, only to find it packed with people watching the Leinster match.
Luckily I snagged a table right away and asked for the wine and whiskey list along with the menu. Here’s what I can tell you… the wine list was far better than I’d expect from an Irish pub and the menu was equally as impressive. Burgers, beef medallions, Irish stew, fish and chips, seafood chowder… they’re all staples of the pub menu yet they use 100% Irish beef, locally sourced fish, and Irish cheese. And every good pub in the city is doing this. They’re telling you where their food is sourced from. It’s a big deal, guys.
You can truly find a great Irish pub anywhere in the city. Kevin recommends The Cobblestone, a live music venue in Smithfield.
coffee in Ireland
As I noted twice already, the coffee culture is changing. Twenty years ago, Kevin says, coffee was made with the instant crap, and you couldn’t get a decent cappuccino to save your life. Now, cafes are buying their beans in bulk and roasting them themselves. They’re pulling espresso shots, crafting exquisite flat whites, and pouring soya, almond, oat, and coconut milk.
I haven’t seen more than two, maybe three, but apparently there are over 50 Starbucks in the city. What I have noticed, though, are the tiny cafes in the small streets, the ones with five tables and a window seat stuffed with pillows. Kevin really does believe that this rise in independent coffee shops has to do with this tech revolution sweeping Ireland right now. I might even go so far as to say that the rise in great food in Dublin also has to do with this…
The first coffee shops came about when the first printing presses were invented. They were places of intrigue and thought, places where the thinkers of the day could congregate. We had the Reformation. In the next wave, during the 18th century, coffee shops and printers go hand in hand again, especially in the era leading up to both the French and American revolutions. And, finally, modern day. Printers have given way to the tech scene, and who loves Java more than a computer engineer? No one, I tell you. So now we have the influx of tech companies and with it coffee shops where coffee truly is the star.
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I truly believe that the food scene in Ireland is exponentially different than it was twenty years ago. So does Kevin, and so do a lot of others I met. Food in Dublin is global, yet very local. Even if you want international food, its there. And guess what? They are using local products to create international dishes. If you are a foodie traveller, then Dublin, Ireland is one destination to put on your list!
