Are Irish food and restaurants underrated

v638sg7k1a92bx · 20-07-2015 3:53pm #1

Up until last year I was travelling back and forth between Ireland, France and Spain quite regularly and one thing that kept coming up was "oh I bet you don't miss the food in Ireland" or "what do you think of the food in France/Spain".

With all due respect, I think the food in Ireland is head and shoulders above what I've had in France and Spain. Especially our produce like Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Milk, butter, cream which don't even come close. My overall point is that there seems to be an almost accepted received message that the food is better on the continent and IMO the quality of food is much better.

Is it time we started calling people out and saying that this is BS, your food is not that great. In France, they smother everything in sauce and stuff themselves on bread and in Spain everything is fried in olive oil and garlic! What's the big deal, I don't see what is so special about European food and why is it supposed to be so much better than here?

Uncle_moe · 20-07-2015 4:12pm

If I lived in France I'd also stuff myself with bread. You can't get anything like it anywhere else in the world.
I'd also rate their dairy as better than Irish. The milk generally has a higher fat content so makes it creamier. Just try Brittany butter in Marks to taste the difference. In Spain their pork is better than Irish pork and they know how to actually age it.
Overall the food culture is still distinctly lacking in this country. I live in Dublin and I've probably eaten in a handful of restaurants I'd actually ever return to. I always find I eat better when I'm abroad.

Riverireland · 20-07-2015 4:17pm

I agree in general although the food in Spain and Greece is in my opinion better than Ireland. I do think irish food is under rated though. I'm reminded of this every time I'm in the UK.

Aongus Von Bismarck · 20-07-2015 10:23pm

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

Celly Smunt · 20-07-2015 10:31pm

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

I think that pretty much nails it on the head. It's not the produce that the Continental's use that makes their food good but the way they produce their dishes.

I feel that Dublin has some of the best food around but none of those restaurants would ever be traditionally Irish but more so the foreign influences/chefs. It's like how people say that New York has great food though in reality 9/10 times you'll just get crap unless you know where you're going. There are not many places in Dublin that I would avoided like the plague apart from certain chains.

If I want Lebanese I can get good Lebanese
If I want good french I can find good french
If I want good tapas I can find good tapas etc etc

Dublin 20-30 years ago was a completely different situation however due to nothing having the variety or influx of foreign chefs. These days we can get the same french dish in Dublin 2 as some place in Carcasonne or Toulouse.

katydid · 20-07-2015 11:52pm

Uncle_moe wrote: »

.
I'd also rate their dairy as better than Irish. The milk generally has a higher fat content so makes it creamier. Just try Brittany butter in Marks to taste the difference.
.

I have to disagree. I have never managed to find milk or butter in France that tasted anyway near the richness you get here.

enda1 · 21-07-2015 10:02am

katydid wrote: »

I have to disagree. I have never managed to find milk or butter in France that tasted anyway near the richness you get here.

It's a regional thing, but in Normandy and Brittany, the quality of dairy is way better than in Ireland. It simply is.

Shenshen · 21-07-2015 10:58am

I think some of the produce is very good indeed.
What's being done with it, though... a lot of it wouldn't be my cup of tea.

katydid · 21-07-2015 11:06am

enda1 wrote: »

It's a regional thing, but in Normandy and Brittany, the quality of dairy is way better than in Ireland. It simply is.

True enough, it's better in the NW than elsewhere. As good as Ireland

Dr Turk Turkelton · 21-07-2015 11:07am

Will agree that the cooking style on the continent has traditionally been better but we are fast catching up on that point.
The beef there has the consistency of a poorly made workman's boot though. The pork though is a better product as has been mentioned above.
I can't comment on the Brittany dairy but the rest is definitely an inferior product.

whiskeyman · 21-07-2015 1:47pm

Whenever I'm abroad, I just feel restaurants seem to do simple food better, and cheaper than places here.

With regards the food itself, the quality of irish meat in available in shops is some of the best in the world.

dub_skav · 21-07-2015 3:19pm

I would rate our beef and lamb highly, but our pork and chicken leave a lot to be desired compared to our continental cousins.
Our root veg is excellent and we produce some fine dairy and cheeses.

As others have said, the produce isn't the problem.
While I believe our better restaurants are very good, they can be expensive and I think we miss a tier of dining that you find in other countries. We don't really have many places where you can get quality affordable food. We go from cheap to expensive. The quality and affordable tier is probably filled by pub grub in Ireland, but it is often over-priced and can be of low quality.

All of these situations are improving greatly though.

Tom Dunne · 21-07-2015 3:35pm

As somebody who lives abroad, I relish the thought of coming home each summer and eating everything from fresh produce in the supermarkets, to pub grub and higher-end restaurants.

I think food is underrated by ourselves and it's only when you go abroad and see what's on offer elsewhere that you come to appreciate all that is available here.

Case in point: went for a meal for 6 on Friday evening last, mid-range restaurant, very high-quality food. After doing the maths, I realised that the quality food we got for six people in Dublin was literally half the cost of comparable meal where I live.

And don't get me started on the seafood. I've just wolfed down a load of prawns and brown bread for lunch and looking forward to more seafood later this evening.

al22 · 21-07-2015 3:53pm

Every location is overrating their own food everywhere. If I am hungry there is no much difference. If I am full or overfull, I hate any food.

I agree only one thing - raw food produced in Ireland is OK and good before cooking. / After the fussy cooking I would not say it alwys good, may be looks nice on the plate but not tasty.

katydid · 21-07-2015 6:35pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Case in point: went for a meal for 6 on Friday evening last, mid-range restaurant, very high-quality food. After doing the maths, I realised that the quality food we got for six people in Dublin was literally half the cost of comparable meal where I live.

And don't get me started on the seafood. I've just wolfed down a load of prawns and brown bread for lunch and looking forward to more seafood later this evening.

Maybe so. But it's probably double the price in many Mediterranean countries. I'm not talking about your Costas... We were in Crete in June, and ate fabulous food, superb quality - fish literally just off the boat, for half what we'd pay in Ireland.

And in the north of Germany, where I was a few weeks ago, the food was so cheap and fabulous quality. We were in the North East, where it's all game and red meat and sauces, and fish from the lakes, and the average main course was less than a tenner. I had a wonderful fillet of lamb with veg and potatoes for €9.50 - you'd pay twenty to twenty five for it here.

Tom Dunne · 21-07-2015 8:48pm

katydid wrote: »

Maybe so. But it's probably double the price in many Mediterranean countries. I'm not talking about your Costas... We were in Crete in June, and ate fabulous food, superb quality - fish literally just off the boat, for half what we'd pay in Ireland.

Yeah, but the cost of living and wages are also probably half of what they are in Ireland.

v638sg7k1a92bx · 21-07-2015 8:55pm

It's not just the food, it's the service in the restaurants and bars also. You can be left waiting 10 mins in a restaurant on the continent before someone brings you a menu, and then the wait for the order, wait for the food, wait for the bill... it just takes some of the enjoyment out of the evening when you're constantly trying to make eye contact with the one waiter who is serving the entire restaurant, and strolling along at their own pace. In my opinion, I think pubs and restaurants are better run in Ireland and have more staff.

Also, the way some of the food is handled in Spain with the tapas sitting on the counter underneath a piece of glass all day with no refrigeration and is just hand-balled out to you over the counter, things like anchovies and muscles that has been sitting there all day, no hands washed just out ya go.

katydid · 21-07-2015 9:12pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Yeah, but the cost of living and wages are also probably half of what they are in Ireland.

True

spuddy · 21-07-2015 11:15pm

The grass is always greener they say, it actually is in Ireland.

The Golden Vale is one of the productive dairy regions in the world, and for once we can thank our climate. It's mild, which means our cattle spend more of the year outside eating grass, than our European counterparts with their humid summers and bitter winters, we have fantastic grass growth rates to boot.

Look at the price of beef next time you're on holiday in France, ask at an American restaurant about the traceability of the steak they've just served, you'll soon start to appreciate what you get at home. It's one of the most consistent compliments I get from friends visiting from abroad.

There are a lot of things Ireland doesn't excel at, but our food is world beating. We should rightly be proud of it.

whiskeyman · 22-07-2015 9:59am

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

It's not just the food, it's the service in the restaurants and bars also. You can be left waiting 10 mins in a restaurant on the continent before someone brings you a menu, and then the wait for the order, wait for the food, wait for the bill... it just takes some of the enjoyment out of the evening when you're constantly trying to make eye contact with the one waiter who is serving the entire restaurant, and strolling along at their own pace. In my opinion, I think pubs and restaurants are better run in Ireland and have more staff.

I look at this another way.
Abroad (Italy especially!) most people go out to eat are in no rush, and are there to chat and enjoy the experience, hence why the staff appear so laid back to us.
We see that as poor service here, but they are very used to it abroad and don't even bat an eyelid towards it.

Remember many restaurants having 2 or 3 'sittings' per evening here, especially back in the tiger days?
I can't image that happened abroad. If you go out for dinner there, the restaurant welcomes you to stay all evening and enjoy the experience, chat and food.
I'll never forgot one evening going out for a dinner in Rome around 7pm, and we were still there at 12:30am at a table outside, and only found out when I went to the bathroom that the chef and owner were playing cards inside waiting for us to finish up (we were the only customers left!) - they wouldn't dare rush us and were happy to see us enjoy ourselves! If that were here, we would have been booted out ages ago!

Any 'tourist' areas I've been to tend to have more staff and quicker turnaround times.

I've seen places in Ireland with lots of staff (sometimes too much!) but still woeful service.

al22 · 22-07-2015 10:35am

In Poland, Russia and ex-USSR people go to eat in rush in restaurants mostly during the lunch to eat fast and go back to work.

After 4-5 pm it is not a rush time and not for for only but to relax and spend a good time, alone or with a company, meet friends or dates, dance.... Drinks not in rush and always with food, need to wait... till it coocked according to your order, wait and have a good time.... can be till 3-5 a.m. and staff will be waiting if there are customers.

Ladies usually well dressed for restaurants (men too) and they should not spend hours and time/money for make-up and hair stylists just to jump for a quick drink. Restaurants is a hunting places for a dates and may be for a future husband or wife - everybody need a time to look around.... and show herself or himself to others. Food is a good addition but not the main purpose. :-) Usually cheap during the lunch but more expensive after 5 p.m.

deadybai · 22-07-2015 10:43am

I think that all round for fresh produce, no country comes close. I completely agree that the food here is underrated. Its actually amazing. Also I find that when you go abroad you dont have much of a section of restaurants. In Ireland your not too far away from any type of food.

Also I must say because Im from here, but Waterford is a hidden gem for fantastic restaurants. Really everyone ive been to has been top class. Really should be marketed as the restaurant capital of Ireland

gaiscioch · 22-07-2015 11:06am

Interesting thread. The only restaurant I can think of that does "Irish cuisine" is Gallagher's Boxty House in Temple Bar.

Do Nevin Maguire or any of those guys not create any distinctively Irish dishes? It's been years since I had colcannon with spring onions - it was at a trad seisiún and we all got a ticket for the meal - and it was the tastiest dish ever (I actually went around picking up spare tickets and going back loads of times :-))

Colcannon would make, at least, a great starter or snack. But it definitely could form the base of many dinners. And, as potato cake is still a standard meal for teatime (with the leftover spuds from dinner) when I go home I'm sure we could have a colcannon potatocake! Also, brown bread! This country makes the nicest brown bread in the world. And it's getting better. The lack of brown bread in France or Spain is always a turn-off.

Likewise, growing up stew was the norm and it had a bad reputation as "uncool". Rename it casserole and it sounds sophisticated!

Time for An Bord Bia to start developing and promoting Irish dishes, as well as Irish food (where they're doing a decent job).

munchkin_utd · 22-07-2015 11:21am

sorry but the general irish food you get out is poor to be honest.
its no good having decent ingredients if you make a hames of cooking it. I've had nicer food at motorway service stations in Germany than most of what I ever have in Ireland. And even then you can get fatty chewey putrid mutton served as lamb in even good restaurants.

Aside from what my mother cooks, and even then I have issues with its blandness at times, food is the last thing I look forward to when visiting Ireland. It barely registers to be honest as how can you look forward to something when you are never sure it'll be edible let alone enjoyable.

katydid · 22-07-2015 11:43am

deadybai wrote: »

Also I must say because Im from here, but Waterford is a hidden gem for fantastic restaurants. Really everyone ive been to has been top class. Really should be marketed as the restaurant capital of Ireland

I have to agree with you there. For a place of its size, it has an amazing selection of restaurants. I often wonder how they all keep going - and still they are opening more. You could stay for a couple of weeks in Waterford, and eat out in a good quality different restaurant every night. It's something they should be marketing.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 12:27pm

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

That times a thousand!
It is getting better,but how many restaurants are glorified chippers, charging €15-20 for a burger and chips because it is served on a plate with some lettuce and a tiny dollop of mayo from a jar?
You cannot get a decent salad with proper dressing, in Seafod restaurants I have been told "We are a seafod restaurant, no we don't do fish", a lot of restaurants would have to shut down if you took their freezer, microwave and deep fat fryer, every single restaurant gets exactly the same vacuum packed carrots packed in the same factory, cooking veg, the recipe should NOT be "throw in water boil, serve", the Irish have ZERO concept of sauce other than what comes in sachets, there ARE other seasonings besides salt and pepper, even fast food outlets should cotton on to the fact that they don't HAVE to use the exact same industrial burgers and buns as every single other burger joint, for a country made famous by potatoes you sure don't know what to do with them, dishes are created by logic of "what the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat", which is why you could take the menu from any restaurant and replace it with another, starters are ALL miserable, tiny and monstrously overpriced, bread is another concept alien to the Irish, garlic mushrooms are a good idea, but they don't have to be from the freezer and they should never cost €6 for 4 miserable little mushrooms, in short you don't know what to do meat, sauce, spuds or veg.
Local, organic, seasonal produce prepared to a recipe unique to that restaurant is forbidden by law, i think.
This is before we get to vegetarians.
Restauranteurs of Ireland, vegetarians do eat more than just penne arrabiata, the standard vegetarian dish of EVERY Irish restaurant.
And for some reason, event food is much, MUCH worse than ANY of the above. Chicken, beef, pork (maybe salmon), steamed industrial veg and "sauce" made from oxo cubes. If you're veggie, penne.

If anyone wants to see what I'm on about, go to a restaurant called A-Z in a town called Heppenheim near Frankfurt.
In Ireland a veggie dish is made to punish the person for daring to be a vegetarian. In the A-Z I eat the veggie option, because it is out of this world and there's half a dozen veggie dishes available. There is local produce and this changes with the season. Try Pfifferling (local mushrooms, oh yes, the Irish only know one type) or Spargel (asparagus).

This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I could write a whole book about it.

H3llR4iser · 22-07-2015 1:27pm

Let's start by saying that food can and often is something that has enormous regional variations - especially in bigger countries. What you can find in Southern Italy will differ from Northern Italy and so on.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, a lot of foods are an acquired taste. Most people will invariably prefer food they grew up with, regardless of its objective taste and/or quality. Point in case, sausages - Irish people consider Irish sausages the best thing in the world, while most foreigners, especially from continental Europe, find them...well, nearly inedible - descriptions as "tasteless lumps of fat" will be the most common.

Conversely, most Irish people trying, say, Italian sausage will say it's too aromatic and "garlicky" and it doesn't taste like sausage at all (the closest thing you can find here are the Polish biela kielbasa, if you want to have a taste).

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

...especially our produce like Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Milk, butter, cream which don't even come close

I hail from Italy, been here for nearly a decade, so I guess I am in a good position...and yes, especially the stuff in bold are definitely top-notch: Beef is juicy and tender, chicken maybe not super remarkable, but still less dry than in most other places. I would add Turkey in the mix, which I find to be much better and edible than in the Mediterranean, where it essentially tastes like cardboard.

The real king is lamb, however...suffice to say that before trying lamb here, I hated it. In Italy, it tastes like...well, mud, and has the consistency of concrete. First time I tried some lamb here, I didn't even believe the meat came from the same species of animal!

I am not so sure about the dairy products, they seem to be more or less the same than in other places - with the differences that you don't find fridges stacked with 10,000 different types of butter in the rest of the EU

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

Is it time we started calling people out and saying that this is BS, your food is not that great. In France, they smother everything in sauce and stuff themselves on bread and in Spain everything is fried in olive oil and garlic! What's the big deal, I don't see what is so special about European food and why is it supposed to be so much better than here?

Olive oil has the lowest smoke point, and it's one of the least "dangerous" for the health to fry in; That said, it's also expensive, so I'd be surprised if restaurants and the likes use it extensively to fry; It's more common so use either sunflower oil or peanut oil.

Again, as I said it's an acquired taste: in the opposite view to yours, which is the one of most Europeans, the Irish senselessly ruin everything by plastering butter all over, stuff themselves with chips and deep fry everything in batter, so...

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

This a million times. All you seem to see around are chippers, with an infinite queue outside no less. Every time I have friends or relatives visiting, and they ask to try something local, I really struggle to find places that make "things an Irish homemaker would put on the table". Telling them "the homemaker would go to the chipper and get takeaway!" is not an acceptable answer

What's the point of having some of the nicest ingredients around only to cook them within an inch of their lives, possibly in fat/batter that has been boiling over for hours?

Shenshen · 22-07-2015 4:12pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

That times a thousand!
It is getting better,but how many restaurants are glorified chippers, charging €15-20 for a burger and chips because it is served on a plate with some lettuce and a tiny dollop of mayo from a jar?
You cannot get a decent salad with proper dressing, in Seafod restaurants I have been told "We are a seafod restaurant, no we don't do fish", a lot of restaurants would have to shut down if you took their freezer, microwave and deep fat fryer, every single restaurant gets exactly the same vacuum packed carrots packed in the same factory, cooking veg, the recipe should NOT be "throw in water boil, serve", the Irish have ZERO concept of sauce other than what comes in sachets, there ARE other seasonings besides salt and pepper, even fast food outlets should cotton on to the fact that they don't HAVE to use the exact same industrial burgers and buns as every single other burger joint, for a country made famous by potatoes you sure don't know what to do with them, dishes are created by logic of "what the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat", which is why you could take the menu from any restaurant and replace it with another, starters are ALL miserable, tiny and monstrously overpriced, bread is another concept alien to the Irish, garlic mushrooms are a good idea, but they don't have to be from the freezer and they should never cost €6 for 4 miserable little mushrooms, in short you don't know what to do meat, sauce, spuds or veg.
Local, organic, seasonal produce prepared to a recipe unique to that restaurant is forbidden by law, i think.
This is before we get to vegetarians.
Restauranteurs of Ireland, vegetarians do eat more than just penne arrabiata, the standard vegetarian dish of EVERY Irish restaurant.
And for some reason, event food is much, MUCH worse than ANY of the above. Chicken, beef, pork (maybe salmon), steamed industrial veg and "sauce" made from oxo cubes. If you're veggie, penne.

If anyone wants to see what I'm on about, go to a restaurant called A-Z in a town called Heppenheim near Frankfurt.
In Ireland a veggie dish is made to punish the person for daring to be a vegetarian. In the A-Z I eat the veggie option, because it is out of this world and there's half a dozen veggie dishes available. There is local produce and this changes with the season. Try Pfifferling (local mushrooms, oh yes, the Irish only know one type) or Spargel (asparagus).

This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I could write a whole book about it.

As a vegetarian, I would have to agree with this rant

It is definitely improving, but I also miss the seasonality of the food, or local produce being used in restaurants.
Please, please, PLEASE don't remind me of Pfifferlinge, nice German salads or white Spargel or I might start crying.

What I do find here, though, is that you get much more international cusines. So if picking a restaurant, more often than not I'll opt for a non-Irish cusine, just because I'll have a little bit of choice on the menu. I'm usually happy if there's more than 1 dish to choose from

Edit: Btw, I googled A-Z in Heppenheim, google says they're closed now. Sorry to break the bad news...

Alun · 22-07-2015 4:37pm

Ah, Heppenheim, that takes me back! I used to live in Darmstadt and loved the small restaurants and Gaststätte down in the Odenwald ... Ebbelwoi anyone?. Germany is seriously underrated by most people for it's cooking.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 4:47pm

If they are closed it would be a terrible thing indeed, they have been there since the 80's.
OK, go to Filou instead:
http://www.filou-heppenheim.de/

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 4:51pm

Alun wrote: »

Ah, Heppenheim, that takes me back! I used to live in Darmstadt and loved the small restaurants and Gaststätte down in the Odenwald ... Ebbelwoi anyone?. Germany is seriously underrated by most people for it's cooking.

No. Fceking. Way. Amazeballs. of course you have to have Handkäs mit Musik with your Ebbelwoi.
Anyway, yes people love to say how crap Germany is for food, it's all Sauerkraut (delicious if made right) and Bratwurst (nothing wrong with tyhat either).
Also, if not Heppenheim, anyone could try Allgäu, The Bären in Nesselwang has a Bavarian buffet that you are guaranteed to never forget as long as you live. I know I won't.

Are Irish food and restaurants underrated

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