Restaurants in County Cork
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English Market
Cork picnickers are a fortunate bunch. The wonderful market is a self-caterer's paradise with so many tasty delicacies to choose from it's hard to show restraint. The emphasis is on local produce, with cheeses, ham, buttered eggs, sausages, bread and smoked salmon on offer, but there are some imports such as olives and wine too.
If you have cooking facilities, the fresh-fish sellers will tell you exactly what to buy and how to cook it. Otherwise, perch at stall-side counters or take your lunch to Bishop Lucey Park, a popular alfresco eating spot.
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Jola's
With double-height ceilings, exposed brick walls and a stunning chandelier, Jola Wojtowicz's restaurant brings a dash of metropolitan style to Kinsale. The food is equally adept, confidently marrying Eastern European and Irish cuisine. The pierogi (dumplings) made with Clonakilty black pudding are divine, but are merely preparation for the mouth-watering mains, which include a particularly lovely dish of lamb cutlets with basil and walnut pesto.
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Cornstore
Bustling and buzzy day and night, this modern restaurant has a swish bar, where you can enjoy creative cocktails while waiting for a table. Some tables are minute, but if you're having the amazing house special of lobster hold out for a large one so your elbows and shells can fly. There's also excellent fresh fish, steaks and pasta.
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Queenstown Restaurant
Inside the old train station with the heritage centre, this simple cafe is best right when the doors open and the scones are emerging from the oven, warm and fragrant. Other times the food is fine but akin to what you might have had shipboard in 2nd class.
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Stuffed Olive
This exquisite bakery and deli has a fine coffee bar and stools along a narrow counter in the sunny front window. Luscious baked goods are displayed like, well, a bunch of tarts. Find your picnic lunch here and nab one of the excellent bottles of wine.
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Glebe Gardens & Café
The beautiful gardens here are an attraction in themselves; lavender and herbs add fragrant aromas that waft over the tables inside and out. Food is simple and fresh, sourced from the gardens and a list of local purveyors.
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O’Connor’s Seafood Restaurant
The tank full of lobsters and the three wooden yachts in the window give the game away – award-winning O’Connor’s offers Bantry seafood at its posh best. It’s an exquisite experience and one to savour.
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Stolen Pizza
An old neighbourhood pub has been reborn and has a welcoming dinner menu of Italian classics. It's great for when you want to say no to mussels and say yes to spaghetti and meatballs. There's excellent pizza and, in a nod to local tradition, fine seafood ravioli. By day this charmer is good for a coffee and a pause along the gentrifying street.
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Tom's Artisan Bakery
Window displays at Tom’s Artisan Bakery are suitably artful.
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Farmgate Café
On a mezzanine overlooking part of the market is one of Cork’s best eateries. Farmgate Café is an unmissable experience. Like its sister restaurant in Midleton, this cafe has mastered the magic art of producing delicious meals without fuss or faddism. The food, from rock oysters to the lamb for an Irish stew, is sourced from the market below. There are tables but the best seats are at the balcony counter, where you can ponder the passing parade of shoppers. We still have memories of the seafood chowder and the raspberry crumble.
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Otto's Creative Cooking
You have to book at this remote spot at a stunning location near Butlerstown. There's plenty of choice on the set menus, with all the produce locally sourced and much of it organic and coming from Otto's itself. A four-course lunch is available for around €35, a five-course dinner for around €55. Why not make a night of it and stay in one of the individually decorated guestrooms (around €110/€130 for a single/double) reserved for diners?
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Currans
A retirement home for Cork's unwanted fixtures and fittings, Currans' interior is entirely made up of artefacts salvaged from the city's demolished buildings. The wood panelling comes from the GPO, the radiators from Linville Hospital, even the lift is reclaimed from the tax office. The menu is a similar hotch-potch of reliable favourites - pizzas, burgers, seafood and steaks - and there's a delightful rooftop terrace if you ever tire of the interior.
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Market Lane
It's always hopping at this bright corner bistro with an open kitchen. Service is quick and attentive, but you may want to pause at the long wooden bar anyway. The menu is broad, and changes often to reflect what's fresh: how about braised ox cheekstew to challenge the palate? Steaks come with awesome aioli. The €10 lunch menu, with half a sandwich, soup and tea or coffee, is a steal. Lots of wines by the glass.
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Farmgate Restaurant
The original and sister establishment to Cork's Farmgate Café, the Midleton restaurant offers the same superb blend of traditional and modern Irish in its approach to cooking. In the front is a shop selling amazing baked goods and local produce, including organic fruit and vegetables, cheeses and preserves. Behind is the farmhouse-style cafe-restaurant, where you'll eat as well as anywhere in Ireland.
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Ivory Tower
Hiding behind an unpromisingly shabby entrance is this delightfully eclectic place done up like a granny's parlour - albeit a granny whose tastes run to upright pianos, safari hats and moon-and-star motifs. The menu is equally intriguing - chef Seamus O'Connell's 'missions' to Japan having influenced the accomplished cuisine, and few concessions are made to the timid (the speciality is blackened shark with banana ketchup).
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Fishy Fishy Cafe
Arguably the best seafood restaurant in the country has a wonderful setting, with stark white walls splashed with bright artwork and a terrific decked terrace at the front. All the fish is caught locally; have the cold seafood platter, a tasty spectacle that's a concert of what's fresh. Scallops are dollops of goodness. Front-of-house staff are charmers, but waitstaff can look tired. The Fishy Fishy empire also includes a superb fish 'n' chip shop.
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Jacques Restaurant
With almost three decades in the business, Jacqueline and Eithne Barry have built up a terrific network of local suppliers to help them realise their culinary ambitions – the freshest Cork food cooked simply. The menu, served in an elegant dining room, changes daily: we loved the fennel risotto with beef short ribs. Clattering dishes in the upstairs kitchen echo down this spot's tiny lane.
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Jim Edwards
Like many places in Kinsale, this much-frequented eatery has bar food of a restaurant standard. A steady Irish touch is nicely frothed with European influences. In the bar you may need to fight for attention amid the clamour, but once served you'll want to stay all night. The restaurant specialises in steaks and fish, and does an excellent seafood platter for around €30.90.
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Boqueria
The flavours of Spain shine (even if the sun doesn't) at this ever-popular tapas bar. In addition to the usual onion-garlic-tomato combinations, the chefs use local creations, such as sourdough, Gubbeen cheese and salmon, to create tasty Irishified tapas. It's a dusky, intimate spot, favoured by couples in the evenings, and at lunch by friends seeking a civilised glass of wine.
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Hackett's
The town's social hub, Hackett's rises above the norm with a creative pub menu of organic dishes prepared from scratch. Black-and-white photos and tin signs adorn the pub's crooked walls and there's a mishmash of old kitchen tables and benches on the worn stone floor. It's a democratic place, where swells mingle with crusty locals inside or out front on the sunny benches.
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Organico
The milk in the organic latte here is fairtrade – just one example of the green ethos prevalent throughout this very attractive bakery-deli-cafe. Enjoy fine baked goods throughout the day; at lunch there's an array of daily specials. The soups are hearty and fresh, the salads innovative. Everything is meat-free but not dairy-free: cheese lovers, enjoy!
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E Kirby 66
An old neighbourhood pub has been reborn and has a welcoming dinner menu of Italian classics. It’s great for when you want to say no to mussels and say yes to spaghetti and meatballs. There’s excellent pizza and, in a nod to local tradition, fine seafood ravioli. By day this charmer is good for a coffee and a pause along the gentrifying street.
reviewed
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Les Gourmandises
Remember those beautiful fresh fish you saw in the English Market? Many of them end up at this cute little restaurant that reminds you of that perfect place you stumbled upon in Paris once… The talented kitchen turns out an array of local fish, and meats also get their due: the rack of lamb is a perennial fave. Service is gracious and calm.
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Idaho Café
It looks like a traditional old caff from the outside, but take a gander at the menu and you'll find all sorts of creative takes on Irish standards. The tea selection includes scads of herbal numbers and there's a good per-glass wine menu. Tight seating means nothing is private. Idaho Café makes a good place to regroup while touring or shopping.
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An Súgán
A traditional bar with a national reputation for excellent seafood. You dine in a room crammed with knick-knacks – jugs dangle from the ceiling, patrons' business cards are stuffed beneath the rafters, and lanterns and even ancient fire-extinguishers dot the walls. But there's nothing idiosyncratic about the food – the seafood chowder is great for a light meal, the crab cakes are memorable and there's a choice of around 10 different kinds of fish, depending on the daily catch.
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