Seafood · The counters
The fishmongers and smokehouses
Eight counters across the island, what we would buy at each, and what will survive the flight home.
If you are staying somewhere with a kitchen, these counters are the single best value in Irish food. A kilo of mussels costs less than a coffee, the crab is picked that morning, and the smoked salmon is a third of what the same producer charges in an American store.
Where we buy
Kish Fish
Dublin · County Dublin
The Dublin trade counter on Bow Street that supplies half the city's kitchens, open to the public since the 1960s.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Dublin Bay prawns and whatever whitefish the chefs were buying that morningNicky's Plaice
Howth · County Dublin
On the West Pier at Howth, family run since 1959, with the boats visible from the door.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Cooked crab claws and smoked haddock, eaten on the pierGannet Fishmongers
Galway · County Galway
In the Galway market quarter, and the counter most west of Ireland chefs name when asked.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Whole turbot, and the Kelly oysters if you are self-cateringSheridans Cheesemongers
Galway · County Galway
Not a fishmonger, but the shop next door in every sense: the smoked fish, the seaweed and the bread that go with all of it.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Oak-smoked salmon, Irish butter and a wheel of Coolea for the flight homeBurren Smokehouse
Lisdoonvarna · County Clare
A visitor centre as much as a smokehouse, on the road between the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, and the easiest legitimate food souvenir in Ireland.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Oak-smoked organic salmon, vacuum sealed for the flightUmmera Smokehouse
Timoleague · County Cork
A small West Cork smokehouse doing salmon and smoked chicken with a restraint most producers have abandoned.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Smoked salmon, and the smoked eel if it is onWalter Ewing Fishmongers
Belfast · County Antrim
On the Shankill Road, and the reason half of Belfast's good restaurants have good fish.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Dundrum Bay oysters, and Portavogie prawns in seasonKilmore Quay Seafood
Kilmore Quay · County Wexford
A working harbour on the southeast corner, and the shortest chain from boat to counter in the country.
What we buy
Visit the shop
Prawns straight off the boats, and scallops in winter
What travels home
Commercially packaged, vacuum-sealed smoked salmon is generally admitted into the United States and is the souvenir we buy every time. Hard cheese usually travels. Live or fresh shellfish does not, in either direction, and no amount of ice will change that.
Declare food on the customs form. Declaring something admissible costs you nothing but a question. Failing to declare it costs a fine that starts around three hundred dollars.
Cooking it while you are here? Four recipes for a rented kitchen. Eating out instead? The seafood days worth booking. Everything else: the questions page and the seafood hub.
Build the trip around it
Where we would stay for a seafood trip
Deer Park Hotel Howth
County Dublin
Above the harbour that lands the fish. Walk to the pier counters before breakfast.
Ballynahinch Castle
Connemara
Oysters, langoustines and the Connemara coast within an hour of the front door.
Perryville House
Kinsale, County Cork
The best-eating small town in Ireland, and the boats are visible from the room.
The weeks this fits inside
7 Days Walking the West of Ireland
Seven days, three bases, no walking day shorter than two hours or longer than five. The Atlantic the way it was meant to be met.
7 Quiet Days in the West
Two houses, no rush, seven days. The West held at the pace it actually keeps.
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.