Dublin for foodies

Best restaurants

Dublin's restaurant map does not reward the traveller who follows the crowd down Grafton Street or into Temple Bar. The interesting cooking has spread onto Marlborough Street, onto Abbey Street Lower, along Ormond Quay Lower where the river does the marketing, and out along the O'Connell Street spine, the corners visitors tend to walk past on the way to a postcard. This is a working list of twelve, picked for the north-city and quay-side blocks where an English-reading visitor can eat well without paying the tourist-quarter surcharge: a steakhouse open from breakfast, a Telugu-inflected canteen, a Mediterranean brunch counter, a late-hours burrito bar, a proper sushi room, a wood-fired kitchen, a two-shift grill room, a chain that earns its place by keeping honest hours, a wine-bar Italian, a bakery-cafe, a burger counter that refuses to pad the menu, and an Irish room that has stopped pretending. Addresses, phones, websites and service hours all trace to their public sources; the opinions are the editor's.