That's Jacobs on the mall?
That's where my company's Christmas party will be. The food is of decent quality, if not particularly exciting for me.
Lovely space though. It used to be a Turkish spa/baths I think?
EDIT: I was thinking of Jacob's on the mall, duh! Thanks @Be right back
Care to tell us what you had and what was so good about it?
I love Jacques…my second fave in cork after pigalle
I had a gorgeous main in Jacques last week.
I met a few people for lunch in Sano yesterday, pizza was ok but nothing that would make me rush back there. Good value for sure. Novecento is still by far my favourite in Cork.
Aroi in Carrigaline closing, food was really nice in there but it was always very quiet and the place was huge. Even with take away, I guess it wasn't getting enough business
I would say da Mirco is the closest food to what I've had in Italy, but the vibe in Sicilian Delights is like a bar in Italy, no frills, Italian radio in the background, busy with people coming and going. Definitely worth a visit for at least a coffee and a pastry.
Im not bringing anyone on a tour of all the italian restaurants.
You all make it sound like im going to drag someone there against their will.
I asked specificallly about the ONE restaurant in this whole city that looks like it might be authentic. Thats it. Because I was asked how is it so bad after they were brought to scoozies. So I said da mirco is probably the most authentic, you might try there! And asked here to see if i was right.
I also wouldnt be bringing indians to all the restaurants here. The only one ive seen anyone who looks like they might be from that region eat in is Thali, so why wouldnt i suggest they try that if they were looking for something similar to home?
If I'm asked for what I think I will tell them.🤷♀️ lets just leave it there
Miles better than Saturdays. Tesco is €5.79 for the Saturdays, Dunnes do a good flash frozen pizza too but Sona definitely better.
Thanks for reporting back to the thread on this - was very curious. I know Bradely's stock Saturday Pizzas, but they're creeping up in price and the last time we got them I wasn't overly thrilled with the end product.
Picked up a few of the par baked pizzas from sano at the weekend. 5 euro is insane value for the quality. Before and after. It'll never be as good as the in house cooked one but still very good.
Not suggesting you bring your Italian visitor to any of these but the only decent Italian restaurants I've found in Cork are da Mirco, Sicilian Delights (cheap and cheerful bowls of pasta), Gallo & Galletti in Wilton (location and menu don't look promising but it's surprisingly good). Also Sonflour is quite good.
I certainly wouldn't be bringing an Indian person on a tour of Cork's Indian restaurants, so I'm not sure why you'd do it to an Italian person.
Also, I wouldn't assume that just because someone is Italian, it makes them an expert in Italian food. Some people from anywhere just have poor taste and little genuine knowledge about food. They can't all be experts.
Maybe it's just the italian people I know then... or maybe it's the standard of utterly utterly crap irish bars I've been brought to by well meaning locals. :D
I've yet to meet a single italian person who enjoys being brought to an italian restaurant outside their own country, anywhere. It's far most expensive in Ireland than in italy which just sets any place up for disappointment. It's also jarring for them to see dishes from various regions of Italy all on the same menu. The menu structure is nothing like how it works there.. we generally have the 3 course thing, but their menu structure is different and pasta dishes as main courses are downright weird for native italians. The pasta is usually a small portion, a primi (like a starter)...
In Ireland, the italian places, tend to be slightly hammed-up themed places, like scoozis, sadly catering to the crowd who clamour for "value", meaning huge troughs of pasta, you're right, bloody drowned in the sauce.
I agree RE Italian food never being outstanding, that's my assessment too.
The best Italian I've been to was in Budapest and I've had better Italian pizza in Spain & France than I've ever had in Italy.
Da Mirco seems to really divide opinions! I haven't been.
Like others here, I just don't see the attraction with most Italian restaurant food.
I disagree.
You cannot compare irish pubs abroad who are not even owned/run by irish people by ((what is meant to be) an authentic italian restaurant owned by italians.
If an italian goes to da mirco and says its fantastic then you know people who say they find it bland/boring just dont get what italians appreciate as food.
If he finds it **** its probably cause its been adapted to what majority of irish people think italian is.. Drenched in sauce and cheese. (What he gotnin scoozies)
Went to ferrit and lee in midleton a few weeks back , they'd just done up the restaurant - a few days later it was underwater, so expect it to be a bit different again when re-opened,
I really like ferit and lee - the menu is alway a bit similar, which my girlfriend isnt thrilled about , but its consistently good -
Getting a little pricey ,but everywhere is now ,
This is like dragging an Irish person through the Irish pubs in Florence.
Please don't do it, just bring them to good local restaurants.
Marcellos in Douglas was decent enough.. It's been a while since I've been so it may have changed.
We had a great meal in Sonflour recently
I gotta ask...and not to be critical here, but why is a Sicilian expecting (or even looking) to get good Italian food in Cork??? Surely nothing outside of Sicily is going to meet expectations so they should look for good local food and cook their own Italian at home, no??? I've been to Sicily, the food was outstanding. Nothing in Cork even comes close. To be honest, the only really good Italian food I've eaten in restaurants has been in Italy. Everything else is a pale imitation.
This doesnt bode well for the judgey Italian 😆
If I take them I'll let ye know if it gets the seal of approval
I find Italian restaurants in Cork City quite bland and very overpriced. Especially Rossini.
I've been to DaMirco and Bocelli too, but nah. I haven't visited Gallo & Galetti yet.
I've never been to an Italian restaurant, and thought: that was amazing. Maybe I just don't like Italian food?
And I know what you mean about the "al dente" thing @Iguarantee. It's just undercooked pasta. Not for me.
I went there last night with two friends. It's OK. Some nice stuff, some very average, bland stuff. Nothing struck me as being excellent.
I liked that it wasn't a 10 page menu of all the usual stuff you'd get (arrabbiata, carbonara, etc.). Instead it's 3 starters, 3 pasta dishes and 3 meat based dishes along with some specials. I'd never tried either of the main courses I had, which was interesting.
The antipasti board was pretty boring, especially the cheese. The focaccia was good. The pasta special was a lamb ragu w/ macaroni which was great. The vegetarian secondi piatti (meat dish) was bigoli pasta with a pumpkin cream sauce, gorgonzola & walnuts was pretty bland and seemed like it didn't have enough cream (I love pumpkin, which is why I ordered it). Tiramisu was good.
Oddly, I really felt their pasta was undercooked. I know the whole schtick about "al dente" but this was taking it to another level, both the macaroni and bigoli I had were actually pretty hard. I've been to Italy a bunch of times and never got pasta like this, anywhere.
The service was good, they were friendly and attentive and were a bit of craic too.
I'd go back, but unfortunately there still isn't really a standout Italian restaurant in Cork as far as my opinion goes.
I went to Ichigo Ichie in October as a group of four people. Two of us had been there once before (early this year), the others were first timers.
Collectively we had mixed reactions to the entire experience.
To put this visit in context, I'll give a brief summary of our first visit:
*Myself and my OH
*We both like sushi
*We both really enjoyed the experience as a whole.
*We both agreed the dessert was crap and fell well below the quality of the other items on the menu.
*There were only a couple of things we didn't like, but gladly accepted that a 13 course tasting menu carried that risk.
*We had the earlier booking (6pm). The service was good but we were really rushed out at the end, so much so that they printed the bill for us 30 minutes before our 2.5hour booking slot had ended. All but f*cked out the door is a more apt way to describe it.
This visit:
*Myself, my OH and two friends
*Three of us like sushi, one was 50/50 (but had been briefed on what to expect).
*Booked, and weeks later they sent us an email telling us that the prices would be increased slightly by e5. Strangely, the notification said that the prices would increase starting a week or two before the notification email. I emailed them to politely point out that they should be a bit more on the ball about that kind of stuff, they replied and thanked me for the feedback.
*We paid for the best seats in the house i.e. food prepped and served by the main chef; this was true for approx 50% of the meal, the rest was served as normal, which I'd hoped would not be the case.
*We took the later booking this time (8pm). Once again, we were rushed out at the end of the meal,
*The same dessert as the first time, it was still crap the 2nd time around!
*Three or four of the dishes were the exact same as the first visit, not really acceptable given that they state the menu changes throughout the year.
I believe the proprietor(s) are decent and we had a good chat with the main man on the night. They have done a lot for food in Cork in a relatively short time. We didn't mind the cost of the meal at all, but at that price point I'd expect a 5-star experience in every aspect; in my opinion they do not offer that.
I see that they are closing next month to reopen next year as a different style of restaurant. I wish them luck and I'm confident they'll do a great job, however, as fine dining goes, I just don't think it's right to charge e150/head and rush people at the end of the meal, specifically for the later booking which effectively should be as open ended as any other restaurant in town.
portions wer fab.... none of us finished our dishes... and lunch was so reasonable
Never been,menu looks good. Are the portions decent? I've found some Italian restaurants give very small portions. It's a pity they don't have a gluten free menu online,
The menus there look really nice, thanks.
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