Joe McNamee: I went on a three-week odyssey to find the best restaurants in Ireland
Ahmet Dede of Dede at the Customs House, No 1 on our Top 100 restaurant list. Picture: Larry Cummins
As a restaurant reviewer, most of the time it is a pleasure to eat professionally in 21st-century Ireland, but there are days when eating food for a living near meets its limits.
Such was the case as I recently rampaged up and down the western seaboard on what I dubbed the “Glutton’s Camino”, a three-week odyssey to dine at contenders for our recent and highly successful inaugural Ireland’s 100 Best Places to Eat.
I never eat breakfast, but also began to spurn lunch — unless reviewing one. I instead subsisted on water and coffee until evening fell, and it came time to suit up once more for the edible fray. Even though dietary restrictions ensured a physical appetite, mentally I was approaching “waffer-theen mint” territory — one more bite and I’d explode.
That I didn’t was down to the sheer quality on offer at the very best restaurants of my Glutton’s Camino, from casual all the way up to the pinnacle of fine dining, including some extraordinarily good dishes.
Everywhere I went, restaurants were packed out to such an extent that you’d imagine owners must be making money hand over fist after some extremely challenging years for hospitality. It must surely be a relief to have finally turned the corner. Except, we haven’t.
Restaurants may be full, but people are spending less.
Increased vigilance around health and wellbeing means people are eating and drinking less. Instead of three courses, diners now often settle for two — even sharing courses.
Some restaurants have had to resort to stipulating a minimum spend lest they end up turning tables at a loss. Wine sales have fallen off a cliff, and I counted multiple tables in multiple restaurants with not a drop to be seen. As the traditional restaurant model very much relies on wine and beverage sales to make the difference between profit or loss, it is hitting hard.
Neither do I need to tell anyone in Ireland about rising costs, which are especially crippling for the hospitality sector. The Irish restaurant sector is like a swan, calm on the surface but, below water, paddling furiously against a vicious undertow; turning over tables but often not turning a profit.
Too many make the mistake of dismissing restaurants as a “luxury”, therefore not worthy of State support.
On the contrary, hospitality is one of the country’s largest native employers — up to 250,000 at the height of the season, including summer jobs. Tourism was estimated to be worth €8.9bn to the national economy in 2025, €5.3bn of that from overseas visitors.
The dining sector is crucial to Irish tourism, one of the most sought out examples of our culture — do you really imagine, for example, that Italian tourists want to eat pizza in Ireland, any more than I would scour Rome seeking out a bowl of Irish stew?
The Vat reduction was a valuable lifeline, but the full benefits were almost immediately countermanded by the rise in the minimum wage.
Nobody in the sector begrudges this rise for their lowest paid workers; the problem is meeting those rising wage bills. That Vat reduction was a blunt instrument, also favouring thoroughly undeserving fast-food franchise operations who made out like bandits. Rather than waiting for the next big crisis for the sector, why not get ahead of the pack and put together a multi- departmental taskforce to ensure the future of Irish hospitality, offering truly innovative solutions rather than blunt instrument responses of limited effectiveness.
At an Irish Examiner business breakfast at the 2024 Cork on a Fork food festival, Conrad Howard, the co-founder of the Market Lane restaurant group, suggested Vat reductions should be tied to a restaurant’s support of its local producers.
It would be a grim irony were the Irish restaurant sector to fall away entirely just as it reaches the point when it is capable of matching the food offering from any other country in the world.
It's hard to keep up with all the new hotel openings, but I’ll certainly be popping into five-star The Hawthorn by Galway Bay, to see what happens when one of my most favourite chefs, Takashi Miyazaki, oversees the food concept and development in The Oystercatcher, the hotel’s swish new cocktail bar.
I was always fond of The Mountain House, in Ardfield, outside Clonakilty, in West Cork, so am delighted to see it open once more, under new owners, John Culloty and Niamh O’Sullivan, with talented young chef Joseph Quayne in the kitchen.
It is already showing all the signs of being a keeper, with a smart and creative menu in what has always been a homely and welcoming space.
Not only do the fruits (mango, pineapple) in Janet’s Just Delicious Mango chutney (RRP €4.65) sing clearly in the mix, but a restrained hand on the sugaring ensures a vibrant freshness that had me adding it to yogurt and oats, as well as pairing it with Ardsallagh Goat’s Cheese.
