The best high-budget places to eat in Ireland that are worth treating yourself to
Treat yourself to a feast at some of the best 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 high-budget restaurants included in that selection that are worth splurging on.
Dede is the cafe-deli that, almost accidentally, instead wound up as a Michelin two-starred restaurant. Yet service, never less than highly efficient, is delivered with the same casual offhand charm that might be more expected in a cafe-deli and diners love it. The room itself is tricky, long and narrow, but it still works and, in the right kind of weather, the outdoor courtyard to the rear offers the best seats in the house.
The best Irish restaurants build on premium Irish produce; few do it better than chef Ahmet Dede, co-owner with Maria Archer of this Baltimore restaurant that has taken Irish cuisine in entirely new directions.
Key has been his increasingly deep immersion in the flavours of his Turkish childhood, allied to stunning West Cork produce.
Turkish street food is often reimagined as genuinely original Irish fine dining fare: Sogan Dolma (onion stuffed with Turkish rice, dried apricots, mint and spices) or a deeply addictive grilled lobster kebab.
Dede venerates local fish and seafood and Cape Clear lamb is an ever present: Adana kebab, served on flatbread with red pepper puree and wild garlic yogurt. Jacques Beauregard superbly curates the room and a sublime wine and cocktail list.
- €€€€€, customshousebaltimore.com
A truly great restaurant is not just one thing, it is about every ingredient, every sauce, every plating decision, every member of staff, whether front or back of house, all working in finessed harmony. Chapter One does this better than most restaurants on the planet. Chef Mickael Viljanen’s cooking is as creative as it is flawless but can also include whimsy and fun. On one hand he revives lièvre à la royale (royal hare), perhaps the most baroque dish of the French classical tradition, while, on the other, he adds jalapeños to the sauce with your scallops. Yes, the cooking in Chapter One is outstanding but so too is the welcome. It’s a Finnish-helmed fine French restaurant that somehow feels utterly Irish.
- €€€€€, chapteronerestaurant.com
Chef Stephen Toman and sommelier Alain Kerloc’h opened Ox in 2013 and within weeks the whole of Ireland was aware that something thrilling was happening in Belfast. Michelin also noticed and they were awarded a star within two years.
Housed in a former tile shop, the room has a dramatically high ceiling and a large picture window looking onto the River Lagan but somehow manages to feel intimate and welcoming. Toman’s cooking is poised, elegant and exciting, his teasing of strictly seasonal ingredients into explosions of flavour can leave you breathless.
Every plate looks like a painting and every ingredient on that plate will shine in its own way while contributing to the harmony of the dish. Ox wine bar next door is a favourite little sister too.
- €€€€€, oxbelfast.com
Australian by birth, Hibernicised by marriage, Damien Grey’s intimate little Dublin restaurant is a phenomenal dining experience. Deeply wedded to premium Irish produce, from land and sea, and steered by the evolving seasons, Grey deploys superb technical ability with commendable restraint, yielding exquisite flavours and textures that occasionally present with almost theatrical flair, stunningly beautiful creations on the plate. It is modern cuisine but buttressed with timeless techniques such as fermentation and preservation, each dish representing a deep dive into the ingredients and landscape from which it derives, with the taste of the terroir remaining key. Grey has surprised at every step of his career but the word is now well and truly out about this world class Irish restaurant — adding a third Michelin star would shock pretty much no one at all.
- €€€€€, liathrestaurant.com
Hardly a wet weekend in situ and yet to live through a full cycle of the annual Irish growing season, chef Lewis Barker might be forgiven a few stumbles as he comes to know the local shopping basket.
That he never once falters over the course of a recent meal suggests his current offering on the plate has all the potential to evolve into something truly special in years to come.
Bavarois of Rossmore oyster is elegant and clean, while dry-aged Skeaghanore Duck as the savoury ‘pinnacle’ of a tasting course harks to his extensive experience cooking in Asia.
- €€€€€, castlemartyrresort.ie/terre
While the heavily made over Oak Room can land like a set from a period drama, chef Mike Tweedie’s cooking is entirely authentic. It took time for him to adjust to the local larder after arriving in Ireland but he is now as intimate with fine seasonal Irish produce as any native and cooks it better than most.
Elegant dishes present with jewel-like precision to the eye, but it is fulsome flavours and terrific textures that seal the deal, superlative produce from land and sea, all immaculately cooked.
- €€€€€, adaremanor.com
Click to see the full list of 100 Best Places to Eat 2026
