Dublin eats better than its stereotype: George's Street Arcade traders, Dublin Bay prawns landed at Howth, coddle simmering in northside pubs, and a craft brewing revival in the old Liberties distilling quarter. Three days of markets, seafood and pints.
Ireland's oldest purpose-built Victorian market (1881, red-brick Gothic façade). Open Mon-Sat 09:00-18:30. Browse Loose Canon cheese stalls and the Gallic Kitchen bakery, then coffee and a doorstop sandwich at Simon's Place, trading here since 1988.
Tiny 20-seat seafood room run by Jumoke Akintola and Peter Hogan, serving whatever the Kilmore Quay and Castletownbere boats landed. Blackboard menu changes daily; natural wine list. Lunch Wed-Sat, booking essential for the four-course dinner.
Kevin and Seamus Sheridan's shop is the cathedral of Irish farmhouse cheese: Coolea, Durrus, Cashel Blue, Gubbeen and raw-milk Hegarty's cheddar, cut to order. Upstairs wine cellar does cheese-and-wine flights among the shelves.
Victorian pub with the original 19th-century grocery snug, mahogany drawers still lining the back bar. No food beyond crisps and toasties, which is the point — this is where the Grafton Street crowd measures a properly poured pint of plain.
James Joyce worked in this building in 1912; it now serves the city's benchmark full Irish — Clonakilty black and white pudding, Wicklow rashers, fried soda farl — overlooking the Ha'penny Bridge. Brunch served daily from 10:00.
Trading since 1989 on Temple Bar Square, built entirely around boxty — the Leitrim potato pancake of grated raw and mashed potato. Fillings run from bacon and cabbage to Dublin Bay prawns; the beef and stout stew is slow-cooked eight hours.
First new Dublin distillery in 125 years when it opened in 2015, in the Liberties quarter where Jameson and Powers once ran. Tours every 30 minutes 10:00-17:40, ending with a tasting of Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt at the Bang Bang bar.
Run by the Kavanagh family since 1833 beside Glasnevin Cemetery, where gravediggers once knocked on the wall for pints. The bar side has no music, no TV and no card machine; the lounge serves coddle, oysters and Irish stew tapas.
Thirty minutes north on the DART. Nicky's Plaice has sold off the West Pier since 1959 — Dublin Bay prawns, monkfish, smoked mackerel from Wright's smokehouse next door. Beshoff Bros does the fish and chips to eat on the pier wall.
Dublin's rotating street-food yard culture: shipping-container kitchens turning out Filipino sisig, birria tacos, Korean fried chicken and loaded fries alongside a bar. Traders change monthly, so the menu is never the same twice.
Guinness's experimental microbrewery inside the St James's Gate wall, where brewers trial recipes that never reach shops — sour ales, coffee stouts, hoppy reds. Open Thu-Sat from 17:30 for the taproom; tasting flights of four one-third pints.
1766 licence, Victorian interior of crimson velvet, cut glass and a hand-carved wooden clock, largely untouched since 1881. No kitchen — a pint and a packet of Tayto is the full menu, which is the classic Dublin pub-food tradition in its purest form.