The Knowhere Guide

Eating and Drinking in Dublin, Dublin*

Dublin, Dublin Pubs, Cafes, Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Food

• Charlies 3 on westmoreland street and Fuschiardis on Liffey Street are both great places. Messer Maguires on the Quays beside O Connel Bridge also does lovely food.
• crepes in the city, a stall in temple bars food market every saturday.. the best crepe you ll ever eat and a great breakfast/hangover cure
• Cornucopia on Wicklow St. for 100% top veggie food. The Winding Stair bookshop cafe - excellent juices! The cafe is 100% better than the p***-poor selection of books.
• Food market in Temple Bar on a Sat afternoon mmmmm
• To many great restrants to mention
• After enjoying the end of last week in Dublin (and whoever recommended Halo for food, hats off) I had retired to my hotel's bar (The Morrison) for a few panache's and it was a veritable sleb fest. To my left with her night club owning boyfriend was the lovely Denise Van Outen (they looked smitten), Greg 'My face is massive' Rusedski was there with his lady, her sister and a mother of some kind, Ulrika wandered through looking lost and finally David Blaine was in the restaurant surrounded by a number of models who he would doubtless be 'making the sausage disappear' with later. Now I'm back at my desk eating soup.
• Eamonn Dorans - Temple Bar
• The Voodoo Lounge, Arran Quay. Food before 4pm
• Trastevere in Temple Bar is killer. Also check out Jacob's Ladder on Nassau St. just south of Trinity.
• TrasteVera, top of Lower Fownes St in the square.......TOP FOOD, GOOD ATMOSPHERE AND BRILLIANT SERVICE!! LOVE IT
• you gotsa go to odessa, mid priced vibey place with great food and groovy staff with no annoying tourists!
• McGowans in Phibsboro, you will never finish it.
• The best restaurant in the whole of Dublin has to be the Chameleon Indonesian restaurant in Temple bar. Book the upstairs room and order the full banquet. Little-known secret: La Cave, in a tiny cellar opposite Keogh's pub, South Anne St. serves very good French cuisine (the moules are particularly recommended), but after the pubs close becomes a wild, dancing-on-the-table salsa bar for middle-aged clientelle. Quite a sight. Café Moka, with branches in Rathmines and near the Hairy Lemon pub do excellent sarnies. Also off Grafton St. is Pasta Fresca for an excellent mid-range Italian meal. Steps of Rome next door does individual take-away pizza slices for after you've been on the Guinness. The best Indian restaurant (Indian food is more expensive than in the UK) is the Khyber Pass, but the Nagina Tandoori on George's St. is very good value. Not recommended as a pub, but doing the *best* Irish breakfast in the whole city (served all day and exquisite with a pint of Guinness as a 'cure' for the night before) go to Con's Pub in Camden St. After hours, go down the end of Camden St. and you've got the Billboard 24 hour café, the Manhattan and Vertigo II (both of these serve wine all night). For a great carvery on Saturday or Sunday lunchtime, go to the Big Tree on Lower Drumcondra Road.
• Burger King, Eddie Rockets, Cafe Kylemore, Bewleys and other little cafe you find when you're walking around.
• Winding Stair Bookshop/Cafe 40 Ormond Quay for a relaxed atmos, good music & good food. Brunch while you browse :)

Pubs

• Fibber MaGees, Eamonn Dorans. Avoid the rest of the places in temple bar, theyre ridiculously expensive. Upstairs in the Westmoreland is good too. Avoid the DiceBar, its like drinking in a fishtank
• The Ha'Penny bridge Inn. There is the most top blues / country night ever, played by an absoloute god of slide guitar in here on Saturday / Sunday nights. Even though it's in Temple Bar, it's retained a clientele and atmosphere. Still looking for a pub in the Dublin area with a decent garden for those sunny summer evenings though...
• Pretty much all of them are great
• The Foggy Dew - it's mentioned in a Mundy Song Big Jack's Baggot Inn - once owned by Jack Charlton, now runn by his son I think. The Neptune Lounge - bizarre, dark downstairs bar with a rock/goth juke box and a Grand prix decor.
• Eamonn Dorans - this is where TFI Friday was broadcast on St. Patrick's Day 2000. U2 were there and all...
• The Voodoo Lounge, Arran Quay. Brilliant joint, partly owned by Huey from Fun Lovin Criminals. It is the place if you're black,white, New Yorkian, Irish, or anywhat. Go and you won't be disappointed.
• Stag's Head is great. Temple Bar joints are too busy and touristy. But I guess that's what some people want.
• THE HALF PENNY BRIDGE INN ?. IS THE BEST PUB I HAVE EVER HAD THE PLEASURE TO PASS OUT IN. FANTASTIC PEOPLE, FANTASTIC HOSPITALITY. "BONNIE" FAE SCOTLAND
• anywhere in temple bar
• Got to try new trendy put Zanzibar. They flew those urns in from Sicily. Near the Hapenny Bridge.
• Keogh's on South Anne St. - young crowd, and the upstairs used to be someone's flat. The pub expanded into it, but didn't really change the decor. It's like being at a very crowded party. The Long Hall in Wexford St. for eighteenth-century ambience. There's a good traditional music session at the weekends upstairs in the Oliver St.John Gogarty in Temple Bar. The Castle Lounge near George's St. arcade is an old Beatnik hangout that hasn't been modernised. Great Guinness there too. The Dawson Lounge on Dawson St. is the smallest pub in Dublin and is cute, if you can get in. Johnnie Fox's up the Wicklow Hills is a good day out for tourists, although a bit twee, with excellent seafood and live traditional music.
• Avoid Temple Bar area, strictly for tourists both foreign and irish!!
• Fibber Magees, Bruxelles, The George (if you're gay that is) and some others I can't think of right now.
• The Hairy Lemon. Happening pub, great atmosphere. VERY expensive though - pint of Caffreys £2.55.
• Hogan's on Georges St, just up the road from The Globe. It used to be pretty posey, but nowadays the look-at-me's all go down the road to the Globe, so there's a good mix. The barmen serve Guinness at superhuman speed, too. ;)
• The Globe on Georges St. Where some of the hip-hop BYT's gather. -The Oak Jazz Bar on Dame Street for a quieter evening... Basically anywhere around Temple Bar is good..just have a peek inside to get a whiff of the atmos or age group. Usually all get packed out practically by 9pm.
• Club USI(Union of students of Ireland) just behind USIT on Aston Quay. Good launching pad to clubs or downstairs to The Furnace.

Cafes and Coffee Shops

• Theres a small cafe opposite the hostel in temple bar, near the music centre. I cant remember its name but its a great place.
• Bewleys (either in Grafton St. or Westmoreland St) should be visited once, and assuming you've won the lotto, are very enjoyable. Actually, if you've won the lotto, tea at the Shelbourne Hotel on Stephens Green is more entertaining. Try asking the grey-hair-in-a-bun grand lady who plays the piano in there if she knows "The Ace of Spades". Most coffee shops in Dublin are over-priced and full of posers. Don't go into Cafe-en-Seine except to look at the really lovely architecture unless you like seeing a day's pay go on two cappuccinos. Steps of Rome is genuinely Italian, and well worth going to if you are in town.
• My favourite coffee shop hang out is Simon's PLace in the St George's Arcade.
• Nobody beats Bewley's Grafton for the sheer cafe experience...

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Last updated: 2007-09-06