2025 has been the year when maths finally caught up with menus.
Push prices too far and diners don’t “trade down” – they stay at home. That’s price elasticity, the bit of economics the industry hoped to ignore. By autumn, it was very clear: rising costs met customers who had already done their sums, and the run-in to Christmas felt like restaurants working twice as hard for half a room.
And yet, it wasn’t a collapse.
The places that held their ground did it with focus – tighter menus, sharper sourcing, real value, midweek deals that worked. After a bruising year, there are still bright spots, and enough momentum to feel optimistic about the next one.
Restaurant of the yearLena 1 Windsor Terrace, Portobello, Dublin 8, D08 HT20; 01 416 3655, lena.ie 
Lena: the best fish dish I ate this year. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Liz Matthews, Simon Barrett and Paul McNamara – people with an unerring knack for opening winners – have taken the former Locks site in Portobello and turned it into the kind of Italian restaurant that you want to visit time and time again. The secret, if you can call it that, is research and rigour disguised as ease: premium ingredients, serious cooking, a great wine list, and service that keeps the room buoyant without ever intruding.
There’s sage and anchovy fritti, wild seabass crudo, a spot-on cacio e pepe – and then the standout: grilled wild halibut in a buttery vermouth sauce, the best fish dish I ate this year. Read our full review here.
The one to watchComet3 Joshua Lane, Dublin D02 C856; 01 444 3355, cometrestaurant.com
Comet with Kevin O’Donnell and Laura Chabal already cooks at Michelin level. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Comet has all the right foundations: Kevin O’Donnell cooking, Laura Chabal on the wine, and Barry and Claremarie FitzGerald of Bastible behind it. There’s a clear brief – ingredient-led dishes, a sharp wine list with grower Champagne and low-production bottles by the glass.
O’Donnell cooks with precision and independence. The pollock poached in beef fat sets the tone – no disguises, just depth from girolles, maitake, hazelnuts and a butter sauce drawn from mushroom juices.
The quail on toast is a defining dish: split, deboned, stuffed with leeks, lacquered with confit garlic and honey, set on milk bread that drinks up the roasting juices. A pour of vin jaune at the table keeps it sharp. One of the dishes of the year.
Comet already cooks at Michelin level. If it was in London, it would have a star. February, when the next Michelin Guide ceremony will be held in Dublin, will tell. Read our full review here.
Best Sunday lunchThyme Custume Place, Athlone, Co Westmeath, N37 F1W4; 090 647 8850, thymerestaurant.ie 
Thyme has the sourcing, the technique and the consistency. Photograph: Alan Betson
The Michelin inspectors posted recently that they’d been into Thyme, praising the wild Fallow deer. They went after my visit. Had it been a Sunday, they might have mentioned the beef too.
The roast ribeye is pure weekend joy: two thick rare slices, a seam of self-basting fat, a Yorkshire pudding the size of a small hat and crisp throughout, plus a jug of proper gravy. Generous, skilled, confident cooking.
The dishes around it back that up – bluefin tuna set in ajoblanco with grapes and toasted almonds; a warm partridge ballotine; John Dory burnished on top, pearlescent below, served with pommes dauphine and a seaweed beurre blanc that ties it all together.
Thyme has the sourcing, the technique and the consistency. Michelin calls it a Bib, but the cooking edges towards one-star territory. Labels aside, it’s the Sunday lunch I’d happily drive for – and keep telling people to book. Read our full review here.
Menu lucky dipBaba’deThe Mews, Baltimore, Co Cork, P81 TC64; 028 48112, babade.ie 
Baba’de: Just hierarchy-free cooking – Ahmet Dede’s full range in one place. Photograph: Andy Gibson
Baba’de is a genuine lucky dip: one dish lands straight from Ahmet Dede’s two-star playbook, the next is pure Turkish street food.
The fine-dining end is unmistakable. The içli köfte comes in layers – whipped yoghurt–garlic sauce, bulgur dumplings, isot and a slow-cooked lamb ragout, a direct echo of a two-star signature. The squid erişte works the same way, with baby squid, short-cut pasta and a whipped roast-pepper velouté. Plates such as cod with confit leeks and langoustine spring rolls sit firmly in that bracket too.
And then the menu drops you into street food. Ali’s hummus with crispy chickpeas. The Adana kebab on flatbread with chilli mayonnaise, yoghurt and pickled beetroot. Chicken shawarma with garlic yoghurt and crunchy chicken skin. Simple, direct, and extremely satisfying.
That’s the pleasure here: two-star dishes beside kebabs, no warning, just hierarchy-free cooking – Dede’s full range in one place. Read our full review here.
The best pizzaReggie’s Pizzeria221/223 Rathmines Road Lower, Rathmines, Dublin 6, D06 A582; reggies.ie
Reggie White at Reggie’s Pizzeria: a rare pizzeria where the dough and the toppings meet at the same level of detail. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Reggie White has shaped Ireland’s pizza standards for years; in Rathmines he finally shows what happens when the whole operation is his. It’s the dough: a 48-hour sourdough on Wildfarmed flour, giving a crust that’s crisp at the edges, nutty, well-fermented and light enough for serious toppings.
The sourcing lifts everything. Whey-braised leeks with Cashel Blue and honey; Andarl Farm pork on the sausage, stracciatella and chilli; a Margherita built on bright crushed tomatoes and clean-melting fior di latte. Even the small plates show intent – cacio e pepe arancini with Parmesan custard, ricotta meatballs in a thyme-sharpened tomato sauce.
Reggie’s is that rare pizzeria where the dough and the toppings meet at the same level of detail. It’s the most confident, precise pizza in the city right now. Read our full review here.
The biggest heart Lucy Cafe6 Clanbrassil Street Upper, Dublin 8, D08 RK03; instagram.com/lucy.dublin.ie
Lucy: It’s food brought from Ukraine and re-rooted in Dublin – held together by family, cooked with honesty, and a load of love
Lucy Cafe runs on memory as much as cooking. The recipes come from Lyudmyla – the grandmother who raised co-owner Mykola Kuleshov – and are kept alive by three Ukrainian grandmothers folding dumplings on Clanbrassil Street. Mykola cooks; his wife, Viktoriia Horbonos, is the general manager.
The food carries their home with it. Odesa-style borscht that’s almost clear, sweet without weight; pyrizhky brushed with garlic butter and served with sour cream and salo; bright green varenyky filled with tvaroh and spinach, glossed with butter and mushrooms. Deruny are crisp-edged and soft inside; holubtsi come wrapped in pale cabbage leaves with rice and minced chicken under tomato and cream; the Kyiv is golden, light and loaded with dill butter.
Nothing is showy. It’s food brought from Ukraine and re-rooted in Dublin – held together by family, cooked with honesty, and a load of love. Read our full review here.
A quick biteHong Kong Wonton15 Fade Street, Dublin 2, D02 XA58; 01-6718484, hongkongwonton.ie
Hong Kong Wonton: the wontons alone justify the queue
Hong Kong Wonton is Eva Pau’s take on fast, everyday Hong Kong cooking: hand-folded dumplings, steaming bowls and no embellishment.
The congee is excellent – rice cooked down to a smooth warmth with chicken and a youtiao to dip. The pork and prawn wonton lo mein comes slicked in soy, vinegar and chilli crisp, the wontons packed with whole prawn and just enough pork. The vegetable wontons in broth are lighter but just as precise.
The five-spice beef brisket noodle soup is the one to order: tender brisket, springy noodles and a clear, aromatic broth that gets the balance right.
Quick, inexpensive and properly made – the wontons alone justify the queue. Read our full review here.
A taste of the mangal Sofra Café and Grill18 Liffey Street Upper, Dublin 1, D01 C640; 01 558 6902, instagram.com/sofra.dublin 
Sofra Cafe and Grill Restaurant: It’s real charcoal, real heat and careful Turkish cooking from an accomplished team. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Sofra is built around the mangal – real charcoal, real heat, and skewers cooked with precision. The mezes set the tone: shepherd’s salad with proper isot heat; smoky babaganush; hummus made from soaked chickpeas; lemony dolmas; and thick cacık.
Then the grill takes over. The acılı Adana comes as two ridged lengths of minced lamb, hand-shaped, blackened where the fat has caught, sitting on flatbread with bulgur, tomato and a long collapsed chilli. Smoke, spice and control in every bite.
The Beyti is even better – lavash-wrapped lamb, sliced, toasted crisp, topped with tomato–butter sauce and served with thick yoghurt. A plate built on texture and restraint.
It’s real charcoal, real heat and careful Turkish cooking from an accomplished team. Read our full review here.
The best sizzleKing Skewer 8 Cathedral Street, Dublin 1, D01 V0C6; 01 445 8207, kingskewer.ie
King Skewer is meat and fire – and once you walk out, you want to go back in. Photograph: Tom Honan
King Skewer is all fire and cumin: a packed room, a blur of skewers and the quiet concentration of people eating very well.
Chicken feet are scorched, spiced cartilage you work loose with intent. Cumin dusted duck tongues snap with fat and salt. The tofu rolls are the sleeper hit: thin sheets wrapped around herbs, brushed with chilli oil, grilled to a crisp.
Then the quail: spatchcocked, blistered, pinned wide on skewers, juicy everywhere. The spicy lamb has that deep Dongbei crust – smoke, heat, a cap of fat doing its job.
Fast, inexpensive, direct. King Skewer is meat and fire – and once you walk out, you want to go back in. Read our full review here.
The great survivorMonty’s of Kathmandu28 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 WP30; 01 670 4911, montys.ie 
Monty’s of Kathmandu: If any restaurant deserves a return visit, it’s this one. Photograph: Alan Betson
Monty’s has been in Temple Bar since 1997 – loved by everyone. One meal tells you exactly why it’s still here.
The momo are the anchor. No 24-hour warning is required anymore; the kitchen folds them on instinct. Chicken is light and finely minced, goat is deeper and seasonal, and the tomato–coriander chutney ties both together.
The Mungling dhal bhat shows the depth: brass thalis stacked with rice, earthy dhal, tomato–onion lamb curry, smoky chicken sekuwa, vegetable tarkari, crisp tareko sabji and a roti to drag through everything. It’s a meal built on mixing, matching and letting the combinations find their own rhythm.
And the wine list remains one of the strongest in the country – French-leaning, serious, generous by the glass.
Monty’s has kept cooking with clarity for almost 30 years. If any restaurant deserves a return visit, it’s this one. Read our full review here.
The restaurant I wish was closer to me Capparelli at the Mill231 Belfast Road, Belfast, BT16 1UE; 0044-2890133395, capparelli.co.uk 
Carlos and Lucie Capparelli in Capparelli at the Mill, Dundonald on the outskirts of Belfast. Photograph: Stephen Davison
Capparelli at the Mill is the restaurant that makes you instantly wish geography were negotiable. Carlos and Lucie Capparelli have taken a 300-year-old mill outside Belfast and built a kitchen with real intent – supported by Yotam Ottolenghi, who knows exactly what Carlos is capable of.
The food is vivid and precise: aubergine roasted to a smoky sweetness with feta yoghurt and pomegranate; casarecce alla Norma with tomato and smoked aubergine cooked down to the right point; a beef-shin ragù that tastes of time rather than effort. And the rotisserie chicken shawarma – crisp skin, soft meat, a proper spice mix and a jus designed for triple-cooked frites – is reason enough to go.
If this were in Dublin, it would be permanently booked. For now, it’s in Dundonald – just out of my reach, and exactly the sort of place you want at the end of your street. Read our full review here.