Highlights Food and Drink

Westward, Ho! – A Trip to Dillisk

Published

The wind from the Atlantic is caught inside the stemless tumbler in my hand. I look down at its vibrant contents of sweet strawberry and beetroot juice, picked nasturtium leaves floating at the surface, and up again to swallow my surroundings: standing at what feels like the edge of the edge of Ireland, with a sandy, grassy beach under my foot and Aughrisbeg Lough around me. The four hour plus journey from Dublin to Connemara is made with my soon-to-be husband Niall, my friends Mark and Cherie ...read more

Restaurant Review: The Woollen Mills

Published

Do you think that there's always someone in your family’s past who was your parallel? I've been told about a distant cousin Mary that had an Eating House in Monaghan town in the 1950s. They pronounced it 'Ating House' and it was a place the farmers ate their dinners at noon when they came into town for the weekly mart. She had a black and white terrier called Shamrock whom she let sit on a chair in amongst the farmers – this was when dogs were not often allowed in houses so this was seen as ...read more

Restaurant Review: Salt Lick

Published

I use my chopsticks to slice through crisp tempura batter revealing silky tofu and then dip it in smoked garlic and wasabi sauce. The piece of slate in front of me also carries umami packed pickled mushrooms, garlic and soy grilled aubergine and tempura courgette. Yet I'm sitting in Hobart's of Ranelagh, the scene of a million hangover-busting fry-ups since 1999. Since April, chefs Brian McCarthy and William Toft have taken over the space on Friday and Saturday nights, serving a monthly theme...read more

Restaurant Review: Forest Avenue

Published

Words: Aoife McElwain “Aoife, it's really time to go now,” Niall says gently. I'm lingering by the door, looking back wistfully through an open dining room and kitchen to the corner table where we have been sitting for the past three hours. “I don't want to leave...” I whimper. I'm... in love. I'm in love with the place, the food and the couple who are running the show at Forest Avenue. John Wyer and Sandy Sabek met in a kitchen in Germany. After working in Spanish kitchens, they c...read more

Meet Your Maker: The O’Briens Winemaker Experience 2013

Published

“All our wines epitomise where they come from,” says winemaker Peter Saturno, “and we're very particular: if it's a bad year, we sell the fruit and we don't make any wine.” Saturno and his brother are the proud owners of Longview Winery in the Adelaide Hills, Australia, producing their range of Nebbiolo, Shiraz, Chardonnay and Riesling to exacting standards. I stick my nose into my glass of his Epitome Late Harvest, a golden passito-like wine harvested later in the season, closing my eye...read more
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Food and Drink

Barfly: The 108

The 108 is the latest of the Galway Bay Brewing’s menagerie of pint dispensaries, and one which represents craft beer fever extending its heavily-hopped, caramel-noted tendrils further into the leafy suburbs.

Restaurant Review: East Side Tavern

I try not to find out too much about a restaurant before I visit, preferring instead to wait until afterwards to research. I like arriving without any preconceived notions of who is running the joint and what they’re trying to achieve. So when our starters turn up at East Side read more…

Christmas in Dublin – The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Nothing quite beats the atmosphere of Dublin’s crowded streets at Christmas. The sing-song of canny street traders. Twinkling lights. A hint of the old Switzer’s magic… Though a dig too many from razor sharp elbows and excess of ‘Anyone for the last of the Elsa dolls?’ can leave your seasonal goodwill in tatters. Our advice? Make like the young European you are and ward off your inner Scrooge with a brief pause here and there for a bit of pudding, cake or something more substantial to set you up merrily for the task in hand…

Barfly: The Back Page

The Back Page will most likely be referred to as a ‘sports hipster’ bar, but fuck it, there’s actually not that many places that are specifically good for watching sport like this is, rather just there for watching sport.

Barfly: The Harold House

The Harold House is the kind of place that’d get mentioned as must-see, flawless Guinness serving ‘hidden Dublin’ gem, if it wasn’t so profoundly, unequivocally strange.

Restaurant Review: Peperina

Dunville Avenue is tucked away in Ranelagh’s back streets, running across the Luas lines near the Beechwood stop. On the same stretch as Morton’s sits a café and bistro called Peperina.

 
 
 
 

The Lure of a Carlingford Half-Holiday

The dog days are over, the nights are drawing in and the daily grind is getting you down. You’re itching for a break, but can’t afford to wander too far or be away too long. The remnants of your holidays have been carefully squirreled away in anticipation of one last hurrah at the end of the year. Frustrated and bored, those precious days off remain elusively out of sight, tantalizingly obscured by the misty horizons of Halloween and the unrelenting grimness of November.
What better then, than to lift the gloom with a quick overnight skite … Hop in the car, head Northwards and in just over an hour you can be safely ensconced in the medieval town of Carlingford. With its breathtaking views and relaxing vibe twenty-four hours there might just be enough to infuse your senses and sate your weary soul.

Barfly: Dip

Dip is about dancing yourself all into a lather, acting the mickey with your buddies and not being fussed with any of trend-hopping arseholery.

Restaurant Review: My Meat Wagon

‘I think I have barbecue fatigue,’ I say, in my best Kardashian sister impression. I mean, really, could there be a more first world problem? Sitting in My Meat Wagon next door to The Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield’s Market Square, I wonder if Dublin has had enough of pulled pork served with a side of slaw.

Back to the Future: Dublin Food Provenance

Food provenance is now very much in vogue with diners the world-over increasingly keen to establish the precise origin of the food they put in their mouths. Such global trends are replicated and reflected in the Dublin food and drink scene with restaurant menus detailing regional origination and aspects such as how the food they serve was reared, caught and prepared.

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