Galway eats from the Atlantic on its doorstep: Clarinbridge oysters, Connemara lamb, Aran smoked salmon and seaweed harvested off the Burren coast. Between a 400-year-old street market and two Michelin-starred kitchens, this is Ireland's most concentrated food city.
Street market trading beside St Nicholas' Collegiate Church since the 1600s, running Saturdays 08:00–18:00 and Sundays 12:00–18:00 (daily in July–August). Around 50 stalls: Connemara oysters, sushi from Rasta Pasta, doughnuts, raw honey, farmhouse cheese.
Family bakery on Shop Street since 1876, now in its fifth generation. Their brown soda bread and Galway barmbrack are city staples; the upstairs café serves scones with jam and cream. Open Mon–Sat 08:00–18:00.
Ireland's best-known cheesemonger, with the shop at street level and a cramped upstairs wine bar above. Order a board of Irish farmhouse cheeses — Durrus, Gubbeen, St Tola goat — with oatcakes and quince, plus natural wine by the glass.
Bright blue 18th-century pub at the corner of Cross Street and Quay Street, in a former townhouse of the Ffrench family. Serves over 100 whiskeys, Galway Bay Brewery beers on tap, and pub plates of seafood chowder with brown bread.
Jess Murphy's West End kitchen, a Bib Gourmand holder, cooks brunch from Irish smallholders: crab on sourdough, black pudding hash, buttermilk pancakes. Brunch served Tue–Sun; the blackboard changes with what arrives that morning.
Thatched cottage on the Dunkellin river estuary, run by the Moran family for seven generations. Native Galway Bay oysters are pulled from beds a few hundred metres away, served raw by the half dozen with brown bread and a pint of stout.
Fish-and-chip counter and restaurant on Quay Street since 1902, with wet fish sold at the front. Cod, haddock or ray in batter with chips, plus mussels steamed in white wine. The counter runs continuously from noon; tables fill from 18:00.
JP McMahon's terroir-driven kitchen has held a Michelin star since 2013, cooking only Irish west-coast produce: sea urchin, dulse, mutton, fermented roots. Set tasting menu of around 12 courses, served Tue–Sat evenings in a 30-seat room.
Drive the N59 into Connemara for smokehouse and dairy stops: Connemara Smokehouse at Ballyconneely cures wild Atlantic salmon over beech, and Killary Fjord Shellfish at Leenane sells rope-grown mussels straight off the fjord.
The strip between the Spanish Arch and the Claddagh basin fills with vans at lunch: Handsome Burger's smash patties, Tacos Mexican street food and Sabor Brazil skewers, eaten on the Long Walk grass facing the Corrib.
The brewery's flagship craft bar on the Corrib's west bank pours 20 taps, including Full Sail IPA and Stormy Port stout, plus a long Irish sour and barrel-aged list. Tasting flights of four thirds let you compare their Connemara-water brews.
Galway's first licensed distillery in over 100 years, built on six generations of Connemara poitín-making. Tours cover the still house and a tasting of poitín, Micil Irish Whiskey and their bogbean-and-heather gin, in a warehouse behind the Oslo bar.