?Over the past few months we’ve unfortunately seen lots of restaurant closures, but on the flip side, there’s been plenty of new restaurants opening as well. And then there are the great survivors of the restaurant industry who’ve been in business for decades.
Clifden Foyle and sister Louise Foyle of the Strand Inn in Dunmore East, Co Waterford, didn’t do anything by halves when it came to the setting up of The Dunmore, their stunning new gastrobar and restaurant on the main drag in Rathmines, south Dublin. They began with a stylish revamp of the former Bowery pub, unveiling the hidden treasures of this dramatic, high-vaulted space. Paring back, they’ve revealed the beautiful old brick walls as a backdrop to a collection of contemporary art.
Are you searching for that perfect spot for Valentine’s Day? It’s got to have great food and music and just the right amount of V-day vibes, but it also needs to be somewhere that you can hit the ejector button if your date turns out to be a total dud.
It’s only relatively recently that the affluent SoCoDu village of Blackrock has managed to attract and sustain good restaurants. Surprisingly, for most of my time living in the ‘borough of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown’, it’s been something of a culinary desert. I was thinking about this recently following the death of the wonderful chef and artist Colin O’Daly, who was highly respected and loved in the hospitality industry.
My first restaurant outing of 2024 was to the brand-new, hot-to-trot Allta in Dublin’s Docklands, which was always bound to attract critics, foodies and bloggers in their droves. There was lots of buzz about it pre-Christmas, and so, to secure a table, I found myself staring down at my iPhone waiting for the precise moment that bookings opened, managing to snag a seat online for its third day of business in mid-January.