Irish Dishes by Region: Traditional Irish Food and Where to Eat It

Irish food is better than its reputation. For a long time Ireland was known for boiled meat and potatoes, but Irish cuisine has always been built on very good raw ingredients: grass-fed beef and lamb, butter and cream, Atlantic seafood and bread made with buttermilk. The potato arrived in the late 1500s and became the staple food of the poor until the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, a turning point in Irish culture that sent millions of Irish immigrants abroad, and you still see it on every plate, mashed, boiled, fried or baked into bread. Traditional Irish food is regional in a quieter way than in Italy or France. The same Irish stew is served across the country, but oysters belong to Galway, coddle to Dublin, drisheen and spiced beef to Cork, and the Ulster fry and champ to the north. This guide is for travellers, not cooks: it is not a list of traditional Irish recipes to make at home, but a guide to good Irish fare and where to find it. First comes the menu, with every popular Irish dish and authentic Irish speciality and the place it belongs to. Then we go region by region, from Dublin to Galway and Connemara, Doolin and the Burren, Dingle, Killarney, Cork, Kilkenny and Belfast, with what to order there, when it is in season, and where to stay so dinner is a short walk home. If you are still planning the route, our 7-day Ireland itinerary connects most of these towns by road.

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Short answer

• Eat each dish where it belongs: coddle in Dublin, oysters in Galway, drisheen and spiced beef in Cork, the Ulster fry in Belfast.
• Pubs are where most Irish food is eaten; kitchens often close by about 9 pm.
• Belfast is in the UK: prices in pounds sterling, and a different name for the breakfast.

Where to eat it

Where to eat traditional Irish dishes, region by region

Region 1 of 8

Dublin: Irish stew, Dublin coddle and a pint of Guinness

Dublin is where most visitors eat their first traditional Irish food, and usually in an Irish pub. Old pubs serve a hearty Irish stew of lamb, potatoes and onions, and Guinness beef stew, braised in stout and served with mashed potatoes or under a pastry lid. The dish only Dublin claims is Dublin coddle: pork sausages, rashers (Irish bacon), sliced potatoes and onion simmered slowly in one pot, the Saturday-night comfort food of the old inner city. Jonathan Swift is said to have liked it, and it still turns up on pub menus in winter. For seafood, take the DART train to Howth, a fishing village on the north side of Dublin Bay, for Dublin Bay prawns, fish and chips and seafood chowder by the harbour. Back in town, a takeaway from a chipper is as Dublin as it gets: ask for a “one and one”, one fish and one bag of chips. Guinness has been brewed at St James’s Gate since 1759, and the Guinness Storehouse is the city’s most visited paid attraction. Boxty, a potato pancake from the north midlands, now has its own restaurant in Temple Bar. If it is your first trip, work out how many days in Dublin you need before you plan the meals.

Order hereDublin coddleIrish stewGuinness beef stewDublin Bay prawnsOne and one

Region 2 of 8

Galway and Connemara: Galway Bay oysters, seafood chowder and Connemara lamb

Galway is the seafood town of the west coast, and the oyster is its symbol. Native flat oysters from Galway Bay are in season from September, and the Galway International Oyster and Seafood Festival marks the start of the season each September; Pacific rock oysters are farmed all year. Eat them raw with lemon, buttered brown soda bread and a glass of stout. Almost every pub around Quay Street and the Latin Quarter serves seafood chowder, a creamy soup of smoked fish, salmon, mussels and potato, and fish and chips are sold on every corner. On Saturdays, the street market beside St Nicholas’ Church sells farmhouse cheese, smoked fish, bread and hot food. Drive west into Connemara and the menu turns to Connemara lamb, raised on mountain grass and heather, and to mussels farmed in Killary Harbour, a long fjord on the Mayo border. Connemara is also smoked salmon country, cured and smoked over oak. Our Ireland itinerary shows how Galway links to Clare and Kerry.

Order hereGalway Bay oystersSeafood chowderConnemara lambMusselsSmoked salmon

Region 3 of 8

Doolin and the Burren: smoked salmon, goat's cheese and pub chowder

Doolin is a small village in County Clare, close to the Cliffs of Moher, and it is known for traditional music more than restaurants. Its pubs are where you will eat: seafood chowder with brown bread, crab claws, fish and chips and bowls of Irish stew, with a music session after dinner. Inland, the Burren is a bare limestone landscape where farmers move cattle up to the high ground for the winter, an old practice called winterage, and beef and lamb from these farms appear on local menus. In nearby Lisdoonvarna, a smokehouse cures Atlantic smoked salmon over oak, and you will find it on brown bread at lunch across the area. Look out for goat’s cheese and other farmhouse cheese made in County Clare, and for the Burren Food Trail, a group of local producers, farms and cafés that welcome visitors. Lisdoonvarna also holds a matchmaking festival every September, more about music and dancing than food. Doolin is one of the ferry ports for the Aran Islands, where the islanders still fish and farm small walled fields; the year-round crossing leaves from Rossaveal in Connemara.

Order hereSeafood chowderSmoked salmonCrab clawsFarmhouse cheese

Region 4 of 8

Dingle: crab claws, Dingle pie and sea salt ice cream

Dingle is a fishing town near the end of a peninsula in County Kerry, and it eats far better than its size suggests. Boats land fish, crab and lobster at the pier, so order crab claws in garlic butter, the catch of the day, or fish and chips eaten by the harbour. The local speciality is the Dingle pie, a small mutton pie in hot-water pastry that was once made for fishermen and fair days and is kept alive by local bakers, especially around the Dingle Food Festival in early October. Lamb from the peninsula’s hills is on most menus. Dingle’s ice cream makers turn local ingredients into flavours such as sea salt, brown bread and Dingle gin, and the Dingle Distillery makes whiskey, gin and vodka on the edge of town. Some pubs here still double as shops, a hardware store or a shoe shop by day with a bar at the back, and most have live traditional music in the evening. Our where to stay in Dingle guide covers the town and the peninsula.

Order hereCrab clawsDingle pieFish and chipsSea salt ice cream

Region 5 of 8

Killarney and the Ring of Kerry: Irish lamb, bacon and cabbage and Kerry apple cake

Killarney is Kerry’s busiest tourist town, with more hotels than anywhere else in the county and menus built for people who have spent the day outdoors. This is lamb and dairy country. Order roast or braised Kerry lamb, Irish lamb raised on the mountains around the lakes, or bacon and cabbage: a boiled joint of bacon with cabbage, boiled potatoes and parsley sauce, the dinner many Irish families still eat in the middle of the week. The Kerry cow, a small black breed native to the county, is one of the oldest cattle breeds in Europe, and good butter and cream go into almost everything. Brown soda bread arrives warm with soup, and dessert is apple tart with cream or Kerry apple cake, an Irish apple cake of buttery sponge baked around sliced apples. If you drive the Ring of Kerry, stop in Kenmare, a small town with a lot of good restaurants for its size, and in Portmagee for seafood chowder before the boats to the Skelligs. Our Ring of Kerry driving itinerary lists the stops.

Order hereKerry lambBacon and cabbageBrown soda breadKerry apple cake

Region 6 of 8

Cork: the English Market, black pudding, spiced beef and drisheen

Cork calls itself the food capital of Ireland, and the claim is easy to test. Start at the English Market, a covered market that has traded since 1788, where butchers sell spiced beef, a Cork Christmas tradition, fishmongers sell the local catch, and a few stalls still sell drisheen, a soft blood pudding traditionally eaten with tripe, and crubeens, boiled pig’s trotters. West Cork is farmhouse cheese country, and Gubbeen, Durrus and Milleens are the names to look for, while the town of Clonakilty is famous for its black pudding and white pudding. Kinsale, about half an hour south, is a harbour town known for its seafood restaurants. East Cork has Ballymaloe, the country house and cookery school that did a great deal to bring Irish cooking back to local ingredients, and Midleton, where Jameson whiskey is distilled. In the pub, Cork drinks its own stout, Murphy’s, as well as Guinness. Our southern Ireland itinerary combines Cork with Kerry.

Order hereSpiced beefBlack puddingDrisheenFarmhouse cheeseCrubeens

Region 7 of 8

Kilkenny: Smithwick's red ale, bacon and cabbage and the Waterford blaa

Kilkenny is a small medieval city with a castle, a cathedral and a strong local food scene. Its drink is Smithwick’s, an Irish red ale with roots in a Kilkenny brewery going back to 1710; the brewing has moved to Dublin, but the old brewery site now runs a visitor experience. The county around it is farmland, with apple orchards, cider makers and farmhouse cheese producers, and Kilkenny holds its Savour Kilkenny food festival each autumn. In the city pubs, expect the Irish classics done well: bacon and cabbage, beef and Guinness stew, shepherd’s pie and apple tart with cream. Kilkenny is less than an hour by road from Waterford, home of the Waterford blaa, a soft, floury bread roll with protected status that locals fill with rashers or sausages at breakfast. Kilkenny also makes an easy overnight stop between Dublin and Cork or Kerry. Our where to stay in Kilkenny guide covers the medieval centre.

Order hereSmithwick'sBacon and cabbageShepherd's pieWaterford blaa

Region 8 of 8

Belfast and Northern Ireland: the Ulster fry, champ and soda farls

Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Ireland. Prices are in pounds sterling, not euros, and your phone may switch networks; there are no border checks on the road or train from Dublin, but most visitors who are not British or Irish citizens still need a UK Electronic Travel Authorisation. The food overlaps with the rest of the island but uses its own names. The Ulster fry is the breakfast: bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding and, the part that makes it Northern Irish, fried soda farls and potato bread. Mashed potatoes come as champ, with spring onions and butter. Chip shops sell the pastie supper, a battered patty of pork, onion and potato with chips, found almost nowhere else. From Friday to Sunday, St George’s Market, a Victorian market hall, has food stalls, local seafood such as Strangford Lough oysters and Portavogie prawns, and live music. Bakeries sell traybakes such as fifteens. On the Causeway Coast, the Bushmills distillery and Ballycastle, home of yellowman and dulse at the Ould Lammas Fair, make an easy day trip.

Order hereUlster fryChampSoda farlsPotato breadFifteens

How Irish cuisine works: Irish pub grub, the carvery and Sunday dinner

Most traditional Irish food is eaten in pubs, not formal restaurants. A pub kitchen serves lunch and an early dinner, and food is ordered at the bar in many places. A traditional Irish meal is meat, potatoes and vegetables, often with roasting juices made into gravy, and a main course rarely comes without potatoes. A few words help you read the menu.

Pub grub

Hearty pub food: stews, chowder, fish and chips, burgers and toasted sandwiches.

Carvery

A lunch counter where roast meat, often turkey and ham or beef, is carved to order and served with vegetables and potatoes, usually more than one kind.

Sunday roast

The big family dinner: roast beef, lamb or chicken with roast potatoes and gravy.

Starter, main, dessert

Menus run in three courses. Soup of the day with brown bread is the usual starter.

Afters

Dessert, usually apple tart, crumble or bread and butter pudding, then tea or coffee.

Traditional Irish recipes worth ordering in Ireland

These traditional Irish dishes are simple, delicious Irish home cooking, and they appear all over the country, so you can order them in almost any Irish pub or restaurant. Irish stew recipes and soda bread recipes change from family to family, which is part of the fun.

Irish stew and Guinness beef stew: made with lamb or made with beef

The national dish of Ireland is the subject of friendly argument. The oldest versions were made with lamb or mutton, the meat of an older sheep, with potatoes and onions and nothing else; today most cooks use lamb and many add carrots, a little celery or parsnip and fresh herbs, and some thicken the stock with pearl barley. A good Irish stew is light, not a thick gravy, and comes with brown bread to mop it up. Guinness beef stew is a different dish: a beef stew made with stout, darker and richer, and a pub favourite in winter.

Traditional Irish potato dishes

The potato has been the staple of Irish cooking for four centuries, and it still turns up two ways on one plate. These are the potato dishes to look for.

Mashed potato two ways: Irish colcannon and champ

Both are mashed potato with something green. Irish colcannon is mixed with cabbage or kale; champ, from the north, with spring onions (scallions). Both are served with a knob of Irish butter melting in the middle, and both go well with sausages or boiled bacon as a side dish.

Boxty, the Irish potato pancake

Irish boxty is a potato pancake from the north midlands and the border counties, such as Leitrim and Fermanagh. It is made from grated raw potatoes mixed with mashed potatoes, wheat flour and buttermilk, then fried on a griddle. Restaurants now serve it as a wrap around fillings, or boiled as dumplings.

Irish potato soup and Irish vegetable soup

Almost every Irish menu starts with a soup of the day, served with brown bread and butter. Potato and leek is the classic Irish potato soup; others are thick Irish vegetable soups of carrot, turnip and parsnip, or carrot and coriander. They are cheap, filling and good after a wet walk.

Irish brown bread, Irish butter and Irish cheddar

Ireland is dairy country, and bread, butter and cheese are where it shows.

Irish soda bread and Irish brown bread

Soda bread is raised with bread soda and buttermilk instead of yeast. Irish brown bread is soda bread made with wholemeal (whole wheat flour); white soda bread is often baked as a round loaf with a cross cut on top, or as a flat griddle bread in the north. With raisins added, it is called spotted dog. Baking it at home is still common.

Irish butter

Irish butter is yellow because the cows eat grass most of the year. It goes on brown bread, into mashed potato and on top of colcannon, and you will taste the difference from butter at home.

Irish cheddar and farmhouse cheese

Irish cheddar, made from the same grass-fed milk, is the everyday cheese in sandwiches and on toast. For something more local, look for farmhouse cheeses from West Cork, Clare and Tipperary on cheese boards in good restaurants.

Black and white pudding and the full Irish breakfast

A full Irish breakfast includes black pudding, a sausage of pork, oats and blood, and usually white pudding, the same without the blood, with rashers, sausages, eggs, grilled tomato, mushrooms and toast. Restaurants also use black pudding in starters, with scallops or in a salad. Vegetarian versions of the fry are easy to find in cities.

Irish apple cake and barmbrack

Irish apple cake is a simple buttery sponge baked with apples, served warm with custard or cream. Barmbrack is a fruit loaf with raisins soaked in tea, eaten toasted with butter. At Halloween a ring is baked inside, and whoever finds it is said to marry within the year.

Irish drinks: Irish whiskey, Irish cream and Irish coffee

Food in Ireland comes with a drink, and not always alcohol: tea is drunk all day, and a strong Irish breakfast tea with milk is the standard.

Irish stout and Irish whiskey

Guinness is the Irish stout everyone knows, brewed in Dublin since 1759; in Cork, Murphy’s is the local alternative. Irish whiskey is usually triple distilled and smoother than most Scotch whisky; if Scotland is next on your route, our traditional Scottish food guide covers what to order there. A hot whiskey, whiskey with hot water, lemon, cloves and sugar, is the Irish hot whiskey ordered on cold nights.

Irish coffee

The original Irish coffee was first served at the flying boat terminal in Foynes, County Limerick, in the 1940s, to warm passengers arriving from the Atlantic. It is hot coffee, Irish whiskey and brown sugar with lightly whipped cream floated on top. Do not stir it.

Irish cream

Baileys, the best-known Irish cream liqueur, was launched in Ireland in 1974 and mixes Irish whiskey with cream. Irish people drink it mostly at Christmas, often over ice.

Irish-American dishes you will not find on Irish menus

Some of the foods people outside Ireland think of as Irish come from Irish Americans, the families of Irish immigrants in the United States. They are fine food, but you will rarely see them in Ireland. And it is St Patrick’s Day or St Paddy’s Day here, never St Patty’s Day.

Corned beef and cabbage

In Ireland, the dish is bacon and cabbage. Irish immigrants in New York found corned beef cheaper than bacon and made it their St Patrick’s Day dinner, sometimes as a glazed corned beef from the oven. Corned beef was made in Ireland for export in the past, and Cork still makes spiced beef at Christmas, but corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American tradition and an Irish style of cooking only in America.

Green beer and shamrock shakes

Green beer, green bagels and mint milkshakes, with the luck of the Irish on every sign, belong to St Patrick’s Day in America. In Ireland, people mark the day with a parade and a pint of stout.

Irish soda bread with caraway

American “Irish soda bread” often has sugar, raisins and caraway seeds. Irish soda bread is usually plain brown or white bread eaten with soup or butter; the sweeter version with raisins is spotted dog.

When to eat what: Irish food by season

Irish cooking follows the farm and the sea, so the specials board changes through the year. Plan around a season and order what is on it.

• Spring (March to May): spring lamb at Easter, pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, wild garlic and rhubarb.
• Summer (June to August): new potatoes, strawberries, crab and mackerel on the coast, and the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle in late August.
• Autumn (September to November): native oysters from September and the Galway oyster festival, apples and cider, food festivals in Dingle and Kilkenny, barmbrack and colcannon at Halloween.
• Winter (December to February): spiced beef, Christmas cake and mince pies, stews and coddle, and the best season for a pub fire.

Ordering words

Rashers

Slices of Irish back bacon, leaner than American streaky bacon.

Chipper

A fish and chip shop.

One and one

Dublin for fish and chips.

A pint of plain

An old way to ask for a pint of stout.

A mineral

A soft drink.

Tea

The drink, but also the evening meal in many homes.

Spice bag

A takeaway bag of chips, chicken and peppers with spice, a modern Dublin favourite.

Sláinte

Cheers, in Irish.

When the Irish eat

Meal times are close to those in Britain. Many pub kitchens stop serving food around 9 pm, earlier in small villages, even when the bar stays open late.

Famous Irish food: FAQ