Food · The guides
The dining guides
Ten guides, by region. Pick the two that sit on your route and ignore the rest.
Photograph ReubenGrayPhoto, CC BY-SA 4.0
We do not rank restaurants by ambition. We rank them by whether we would spend our own evening and our own money there, which is why a lobster bar at the end of a pier in Clare sits alongside a two star room in Dublin on the same page. Both are the best version of what they are.
The guides below are regional because that is how a trip is actually eaten. You will not cross the country for dinner, and you should not. Pick the two guides that sit on your route, book the one dinner in each that matters, and leave the rest of the week to whatever the boats and the weather decide.
We eat in these rooms and pay our own bills. Where a guide names a restaurant, the reservation goes straight to the restaurant. Nothing on this page is a paid placement. The long argument sits in our essay on eating in Ireland.
Start here
Dublin at the Table
Almost every trip begins or ends in Dublin, and this is the guide with the widest range: two star tasting counters, fire cooked rooms you can walk into, and the three places we book for ourselves. Read it first, then add one regional guide for wherever you are heading next.
Dublin
Dublin at the Table
The ten Dublin rooms we book ourselves, from the tasting counters to the ones you can walk into.
Dublin's Michelin restaurants
Every starred room in the city, what each costs, and which two are worth the flight.
Brunch in Dublin
Where to eat on a Saturday morning without queuing for ninety minutes.
Afternoon tea in Dublin
The three that justify the price and the ones we would skip.
Dublin's pubs
Where the food is genuinely good and where you should only drink.
East Cork
Ballymaloe and Beyond
The cookery school, the country house beside it, and the rooms we would book around them.
Galway
Galway at the Table
The market town that became the best eating city on the island, in one essay.
The west coast
Where to eat on the Wild Atlantic Way
Two thousand five hundred kilometres of coast, and the dozen rooms worth stopping for.
The whole island
The Irish seafood hub
What to order and when, the counters worth buying from, and the guided days worth paying for.
Galway, Clare, Carlingford, Belfast
The Irish oyster hub
Six oyster houses, the varieties, the festivals, and how to eat one without embarrassing yourself.
Then book it
Guided food days with live availability sit on the booking page. Seasons, costs and tipping are on the food travel guide, and the rest is answered on the questions page. Back to the food hub.
Build the trip around it
Where we would stay for a food trip
Hayfield Manor
Cork City
Ten minutes from the English Market and inside striking distance of Ballymaloe and Kinsale.
€€€€ · rates last checked July 2026
Glenlo Abbey Hotel
County Galway
A base for Galway's restaurants and the Saturday market without sleeping in the noise.
€€€€ · rates last checked July 2026
BrookLodge & Macreddin Village
County Wicklow
The Strawberry Tree cooks wild and organic only. The one Irish dining room built around its own supply.
€€ · rates last checked July 2026
Castlemartyr Resort
East Cork
The room we book for Ballymaloe country. Twenty minutes from the cookery school and the same again from Midleton.
€€€€ · rates last checked July 2026
Perryville House
Kinsale, County Cork
The best-eating small town in Ireland, and everything worth booking is a walk from the door.
€€€ · rates last checked July 2026
Clontarf Castle Hotel
Dublin
A base for the Dublin dining rooms without paying city-centre rates, with a fast run into town.
€€€ · rates last checked July 2026
The weeks this fits inside
7 Days in Greater Dublin: The Definitive Itinerary
Four nights in Dublin, three in Wicklow. The base change at Day 5 is the trick most itineraries miss.
7 Quiet Days in the West
Two houses, no rush, seven days. The West held at the pace it actually keeps.
7 Days for the Second Trip
Three bases, no first-time beats, the Ireland the second trip is for.