Weirdo Guide to Dublin Pubs: Best Pubs for Food

Broadly speaking, it’s more common to find food (beyond crisps) in Irish pubs, compared to their counterparts in the UK. This is, of course, a huge generalisation – Old Man Pubs, in particular, tend not to have a food offering that isn’t of the pre-packaged variety*, and we’re all still recovering from the term ‘wet pubs’ as employed by the Irish government during the Covid lockdowns to indicate (effectively) pubs without kitchens.

But for those pubs here in Dublin that do serve food, there are a few loose categories: spots that offer a fairly typical pub grub lineup of burgers and wings, the usually-central pubs that have a more ‘touristy’ offering with Irish stew year-round, those that specialise in pizza, and then what we might call more of a ‘gastropub’ experience – plus a few outliers. But we’d argue that for the ‘gastropub’ category, it’s a subtly different sort of thing here; Irish ‘gastropubs’ still feel like pubs with top-notch food, whilst UK ones (often) seem more like restaurants that happen to be in an old pub building. Again, this is painting with broad strokes, but we argue the overall sense of that is accurate. As an aside, the gastropubs here tend to still have at least a few (and sometimes more) good local indie beer offerings, whilst ‘restaurants’ of equal calibre frequently just offer the same typical macro beers alongside their curated wine and spirits list – but we digress.

This is a ‘best’ post, so we’ll focus on a few favourites for each of those broad categories mentioned above. For more-than-just-reliable pub grub – especially with kids – we love The Bald Eagle or The Cat & Cage (which also has surprisingly good tacos, as well as pizza); Dudley’s also has a very nice burger, though we find ourselves there more often just for drinks. Arthur’s holds the middle ground between pub grub and a tourist menu, as does The Hairy Lemon and O’Neill’s. The Porterhouse’s food menu is very firmly in the ‘tourist menu’ category, but its sister pub Tapped has what we might call ‘hipster pub grub,’ plus brunch on weekends (a topic we may return to more specifically in future, as it’s largely represented by The Botanic, Brickyard and a handful of others we have yet to visit). We can’t leave the ‘tourist friendly food’ topic without mentioning The Gravediggers – the general tapas approach is a nice touch, but there are a few dishes you typically otherwise only see in a place serving this many visitors (coddle, anyone? and yes, we know this will trigger the coddle enthusiasts).

Moving on to pizza, it’s a shorter list, but there are a few pubs that are flying under the radar for their pizza. Rascals is the obvious standout for great beer and pizza at their brewpub, but there are others: Doyle’s Corner has QR codes to order in Vice from across the street (a vastly superior experience to queuing for a slice of Bambino’s to eat standing next to a busy road, for our money), but we think that the pizza at MeMa’s is quite underrated, while Bonobo and its sister pub Kodiak are both pizza stalwarts. For a ‘proper pub’ experience with excellent pizza, it’s tough to beat The Morris Bar – it’s a true hidden gem. The Circular and its relation, Lucky’s, both have tasty pizza as well.

Finally, we move on to the pubs that we go to for special occasions, because the food is just that good, but that you can equally go to for simply a pint or some nibbles – airs and graces are not required. We love L. Mulligan. Grocer for their amazing food (suitable for all palates and needs – vegetarians and vegans are very welcome), and the drinks are just as carefully chosen. For the steak fan, The Bull & Castle is outstanding, and The Old Spot is another ‘event meal’ spot that caters to all sorts – there’s a very handy ‘nice’ kids’ menu, too. A recent entrant to the ‘foodie pub’ category is Barebone – it’s an ideal spot for a ‘nice’ meal before a show, but you can still pop in for a casual drink, and the same can be said for Caribou (though it does get crowded). The aforementioned Brickyard even has ‘gastropub’ in the full name, but there are no pretentions here, just good food and drink – once again, families are very welcome. And let’s not forget Juno’s transformation from Old Man Pub into an award-winning dining spot that still manages to keep the pre-event vibe welcoming before games or concerts at Croke Park.

And these are really just a few highlights – there are great pubs all over town with a wide variety of cuisines, not just standard ‘pub food’ – we’ll give special mention to Hynes’ Bar and The Barber’s Bar for their tasty Asian street food options – with new spots popping up all the time (so it seems of late), we feel this page may be a moving target…

*We’re leaving out Fidelity Studio as it has real ‘restaurant’ vibes – the food is excellent, but although connected to Fidelity’s bar, they are quite separate experiences.

**Though it’s worth noting that some do handy toasties – something we’ll save for a separate list.