The best places to eat on a budget in Ireland, according to our food critics
Some of the best-value restaurants that feature in 100 Best Places to Eat 2026
Over the last 12 months, the food team at the Irish Examiner has been busily working on our inaugural 100 Best Places to Eat list. Here, we list the best-value restaurants included in that selection.
Kevin St, Dublin 8
Assassination Custard serves food with heart, and sometimes they serve actual heart from Broughgammon Goat Farm and it is utterly delicious. Ken Doherty and Gwen McGrath’s tiny 8-seater restaurant is open for lunch Wednesday to Friday only, the strictly seasonal menu is handwritten (on a brown paper bag) and largely based on Jenny McNally’s organic vegetable delivery, plus carefully chosen fish and meat, usually off-cuts; you can stay vegan or indulge in perfectly cooked offal. Self-described as “sort of Italian” you might find homemade Pugliese tarralli with cannonata or a bitter leaf salad with guanciale or simple slices of blood orange sprinkled with dried oregano. The joyful cooking and tiny space combine to create an unforgettable experience, one you will want to enjoy often.
Too often Indian restaurants in Ireland focus on Northern Indian dishes, but not Chef Shantosh and his wife Milli who present the very best of Tamil Nadu and the Malabar coast. Go for weekday lunch and have a thali (tasting tray) and order extra Malabar paratha, their incredible fluffy, flaky pulled bread. Or go at the weekend and order everything on the menu from the nilgiri prawns in mint coriander and coconut to vada pav potato dumpling sliders, to the fish curry and the slow cooked lamb shanks in a rich spicy tomato sauce. Wholesome flavourful and always delicious.
- €, 3leaves.ie
Like a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner pitching up at the local point-to-point, the Dede team’s more casual Baba’De often sails close to Michelin star cooking but never Michelin star pricing, making it exceptional value for some truly magnificent food. An all day option of breakfast, brunch/lunch, and dinner, the Dede formula prevails, local Irish produce with Turkish inflections: Lahmacun kebab of beef and lamb; Baba’de style fried chicken; and Ali’s hummus, the finest in the country. Great wines and lovely cocktails complete an offering every bit as wonderful and welcoming as the original Dede mothership around the corner.
- €, babade.ie
Fish Shop, on unprepossessing Benburb St beside the Luas tracks, is tiny, with a tiny menu centred around that everyday food – fish and chips.
Yet it undeniably deserves to be on this list, Start, perhaps, with oysters, crab on toast or prawn croquettes, before the main reason that you are here: the featherlight crispy batter encasing the translucent hake or haddock, chunky chips, and the brilliant wine list offering pet-nat, manzanilla or garganega to perfectly match the fish.
- €, fish-shop.ie
George’s Quay, Cork City
Izz Cafe has come to symbolise the beating heart of the Palestinian support campaign in Ireland to such an extent that you might be forgiven for forgetting that it is also a great restaurant. That fact comes flooding right back the minute you sit down before one of their divine mezze platters, a dazzling vibrancy of colour, flavour and texture to kick off, before exploring further this canon of Palestinian culinary classics, in an ever bubbling city centre space with real soul. Be sure to always finish with Palestinian coffee and medjoul dates.
- €, izz.ie
A tiny space, a handful of stools, dining shelves along two walls, orders handed out through a high serving hatch, it is hardly surprising that most diners take away their food to eat elsewhere, most often to O’Sho, a pub across the road. Miyazaki is Takashi Miyazaki’s interpretation of Japanese street food that first turned him into a national culinary superstar.
With Mike McGrath now running the kitchen, fine and funky flavours are the order of the day, not least in great healing bowls of char siu pork, but always make sure to add a tasting of Miyazaki’s elemental and definitive dashi with plain noodles.
Wa means harmony and that is exactly what you will find in the cooking at Wa in Galway, just metres from Galway harbour. Yoshimi Hawakawa and her head chef, Paddy Phillips, have created a beautifully simple space to showcase the very best our seas can offer. The sushi and sashimi here is outstanding but treat yourself to the omakase menu and let the chef decide what you should eat and in what order, based on what is freshest and tastiest that day. What will unfold is a glorious journey that will move and delight.
- €, wacafe.net
