It has been a busy year for restaurants, and despite the heartbreak of the closure of some of our favourites, I find I have even more contenders for the Food Oscars this year.
So here are my restaurant gongs for 2023.
Restaurant of the year
Homestead Cottage, Luogh North, Doolin, V95 KH30, Co Clare; homesteadcottagedoolin.com
Robbie and Sophie McCauley’s divine restaurant in a 200-year-old cottage has enchanted just about everyone, including the Michelin inspectors. From the delightful bursts of sweetness of home-grown peas to magnificent Burren beef, everything is cooked with love and skill.
The restaurant I wish was down the road from me
Da Mirco, 4 Bridge St, Cork, T23 H10E; damirco.ie
Handmade pasta, an all-Italian wine list and warm service in an unfussy room can be improved by only one thing and that is price. And €39 for a starter and a main, and €32 for a main and dessert, means that Mirco Fondrini’s delightful restaurant is one you can afford to return to.
Dark horse award
Delahunt, 39 Camden Street Lower, Dublin, IE D02 K277; delahunt.ie
The secret of a tasting menu is not making it seem like a tasting menu. Few of us feel like genuflecting to the worthy components of each dish. The tasting menu in Delahunt was a joyous parade of delicious dishes underpinned by considerable skill in the kitchen.
Swankiest restaurant
Terre, Castlemartyr Resort, Cork, P25 X300; terre.ie
You will need to raid your piggy bank but it’s worth it because I’m still thinking about the quality of the produce and the precision of Vincent Crepel’s cooking at this one-Michelin star restaurant.
It’s full-on theatre, starting in the kitchen, moving to the diningroom and finishing in the salon for a petits fours trolley service.
Best value
Fayrouz, 117 Cork Street, The Liberties, Dublin 8; fayrouzrestaurant.com
My fellow food writer, Joanne Cronin, put me on to Fayrouz, where Palestinian owner Akef Odwan and his head chef, Ahmed Ziyadet, cook the food they grew up with and love. Prices are accessible, allowing you to feast on mezze and grilled meats with the added bonus that it’s BYOB.
Most heartwarming
Gursha, 7a Poolbeg Street, Dublin 2; gursha.ie
Mamay (Yagerenesh Tadesse), the chef in Gursha, Ireland’s only Ethiopian restaurant, cooks food that is made for sharing. It’s a supper club, so you pay €28.50 in advance for a large platter of her injera flatbread with a myriad of tasty dishes, which are mostly vegetarian.
Best lunch
Lisboeta, 30 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 2NG, England; lisboeta.co.uk
We’re going to London for this one, for a taste of Nuno Mendes’ Portuguese food. Tiny pork pies were followed with delicate amberjack carpaccio; the grilled Iberian pork with tomatoes was heavenly, and the egg yolk and pork fat custard was a revelation. It’s not cheap but it’s special.
Best fish
Brighton Road, 3 Brighton Road, Foxrock Village, Dublin D18A97; brightonroad.ie
I’m never quite sure what to expect in the posh neighbourhood of Foxrock (blaming Ross O’Carroll Kelly for that), but it seems that they’re well able to keep it casual. Elaine and Alan Wang now run the former Bistro One/Pala Pizza establishment, serving outstanding sole on the bone. It was a beautiful fish to start with and was cooked with precision.
Best meat
Osteria Lucio, The Malting Tower, Clanwilliam Terrace, Grand Canal Quay, Dublin 2; osterialucio.com
A former Michelin-starred chef with a love for Italy is the person ensuring that the suckling pig shoulder cooked in the wood burning oven here is one of the nicest things you will eat. You can take Ross Lewis out of the Chapter One kitchen, but you can’t ... you know the rest.
Best vegetarian
Paradiso, 16 Lancaster Quay, Mardyke, Cork, T12 AR24; paradiso.restaurant
Anyone who has visited Paradiso knows that it is by far the best vegetarian restaurant in the country. If you’re still scoffing at vegetarian food (hopefully we’ve all moved on), the food here will change your mind.
Best small plates
Neighbourhood, 1 North Main Street, Naas, Co Kildare, W91 RH96; neighbourhoodnaas.com
One of the truly delicious dishes I ate on the small plates section of Gareth Naughton’s menu was Dublin Bay prawns that had been kissed with heat from the wood-burning grill. Topped with lardo, they were served with a delicate aioli made from the crustacean head juices and a touch of chicken fat.
Best dessert
Chapter One, 18-19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1; chapteronerestaurant.com
I was totally smitten by the pre-dessert we had in Chapter One for a recent family dinner (we had a lot to celebrate). Bridging the gap between the savoury and sweet courses, a frozen Brillat-Savarin marshmallow dressed with lemon, kombu and brioche was sublime.
Best snack
Space Jaru, 67-68 Meath Street, The Liberties, Dublin 8, D08 X959; jaru.ie/spacejaru
There are any amount of technically brilliant amuse bouches out there, but the snack that took me by surprise was Gunmoo Kim’s pimientos de Padrón with baby anchovies. The green peppers were charred and sprinkled with the savoury crunch of tiny dried anchovies with smoked almonds and flakes of sea salt.
Best room
Hawksmoor, 34 College Green, Dublin 2, D02 C850; hawksmoor.ie
Will Beckett and Huw Gott poured millions into the restoration of one of Dublin’s well-known buildings, bringing the city a spectacular diningroom with a 40ft cast iron dome. It’s not just about the room, you’ll also get great steak, and if you turn up on a Monday, €5 corkage per bottle will ensure that your bill is less eye-watering. Corkage is zero if you pick up the bottle in The Corkscrew and produce your receipt.
Best wine bars
Daróg Wine Bar, 56 Dominick St Lower, Galway, H91 K225; darogwinebar.com
Bar Pez, Unit 3, College Court, Kevin Street Lower, Dublin D08TY47; barpez.ie
This is a joint award because these two wine bars are not only great places to eat, you can also drop in for a glass and a quick bite. In Daróg in Galway, Attila Galambos brings Michelin-level skill to the kitchen, while Zsolt Lukács, who is joint-owner with his wife Emer McMahon, is hugely knowledgeable on wine.
At Jumoke Akintola and Peter Hogan’s Bar Pez in Dublin, the food is simpler, but also delicious. The award-winning wine list may appear pricey but not when you look at the margins. It is full of industry insiders on a Monday and it is well worth asking for wine recommendations.
Sommelier
Nick Craig, Ox, 1 Oxford Street, Belfast BT1 3LA, Northern Ireland; oxbelfast.com
I couldn’t resist Saturday lunch at Ox when I was researching a food and travel piece in Belfast. Nick Craig is the sommelier and not only has he an intuitive sense about wine pairing, he also has a particularly good way of landing a delicious glass on your table without too much palaver.
The takeaway gongs
Zaatar, George’s Street Arcade, South Great George’s Street, Dublin 2, D02 DH79; deliveroo.ie/menu/dublin/st-stephens-green/zaatar-d2
Adnan Shabab opened this delightful restaurant last summer bringing wood-fired manaeesh to Dublin, the Palestinian flatbread that is typically served for breakfast. Lighter than pizza, the most popular topping is zaatar, a mix of herbs that includes wild thyme, sumac and sesame seeds.
Snappy Snappy, 12 Pins Coffee, Letterfrack, Connemara, Co Galway; instagram.com/snappysnappycrab
The best crab I ate this year was at this wonderful food truck at Ballinakill Bay. Fresh, sweet crab is served on a Japanese-style milk roll or as an open sandwich on sourdough.
Plúr Pizza, Priory Road car park, Naas, Co Kildare, W91 XF59; plurpizza.ie
Chef Mickael Viljanen tipped me off about this favourite pizza truck in Naas, where the pizzas are cooked in a wood-fired Calabria brick oven. The veggie pizza with pickled red onions, courgettes and fior di latte is particularly good.
Dash Burger, 6-11 Kevin Street Lower, Dublin 8, D08 A440; dashburger.ie
Smash burgers are a wonderful thing and the triple smash at Dash Burger with its thin, cheesed patties with frazzled bits of meat and caramelised onion was spectacular.
Sprout, 3 Dawson Street, Dublin 2; sproutfoodco.com
Jack and Theo Kirwan now have seven Sprout restaurants where the organic produce from their farm is given the Ottolenghi treatment. The warm chickpea bowl was lavished with a spicy zhoug sauce, quinoa, pickled red cabbage, curried cauliflower, roasted peppers and hummus, and the satay chicken bowl was equally good.
The Pie Guys, The Black Market, Dornan’s Yard, Monahan Road, Cork, T12 NXN; thepieguys.ie
I love a good pie and Jamie Kelly sure knows how to make them. Butter pastry encases the most delicious fillings: Dexter beef with Beamish, free-range chicken with tarragon, and cheesy Kiwi (a New Zealand inspired pie) which is a mix of beef mince with Dubliner cheese.
Passion4Food, 27A Clanbrassil Street Lower, Dublin 8; passion4food.ie
This Persian takeaway is the one I order from most, for naan bread which has just come out of the tandoor oven and lamb doner kebabs. If you visit rather than get delivery, check to see if they have their speciality Kurdish dishes on the menu.
Deli 613, 89 Rathmines Road Upper, Dublin 6; deli613.ie
Ireland’s first kosher deli opened in March, serving delicious slabs of warm salt beef with mustard and pickles on rye bread. You will also get stuffed pitas, chicken soup with matzo balls, and potato latkes.
Miyazaki, 1A Evergreen St, Ballyphehane, Cork, T12 EO34; instagram.com/miyazaki_cork
The six counter stools at Takashi Miyazaki’s Japanese takeaway are among the most prized in the country. I was lucky enough to nab one and tucked into his wonderful beef noodles and 10 don prawn and vegetable tempura.
AndChips, Unit 3, Castle House, Davitts Quay, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, X35 DP60; andchips.ie
Eunice Power puts sustainability at the forefront of everything she does, so you know that the beautifully cooked fish she serves is wild. The ling goujons are particularly good.
