Stephen’s Green

Glovers Alley is Dublin’s shiny new kid on the well-trod restaurant block, the kid in question being thirty-two-year-old chef Andy McFadden. McFadden has taken over the old Thornton’s and transformed it into a glamorous Art Deco salon that marries texture—marble, glass, wood, velvet—with function. This opening has created buzz among the Dublin culinary crowd, the kitchen filled with some of the city’s best talent, some of those who had moved across the pond to London and were lured back to an Irish kitchen. Glovers Alley is the kind of restaurant where you start with a crisp glass of champagne before delving into a menu that hints at French influence. The dishes celebrate Ireland’s fields and rivers with gamey, wintry plates like sika deer with bone marrow, suckling pig, or a lighter crab with ponzu and kohlrabi. The desserts are really clever. Pastry chef Aoife Noonan infuses classic items with sake, coriander, and cheese creating dishes that are still sweet but not too much so.

Beneath the Little Museum of Dublin is basement hideaway Hatch & Sons, a rustic farmhouse-style spot committed to good Irish home cooking—and a commitment it is, with every ingredient, right down to the rapeseed oil, produced domestically. However this reliance on Irish ingredients doesn’t mean the menu lacks any outside influence: The brisket-and-kimchi roll is a definite standout. The best meals are always the ones you share, and the smoked fish board, replete with incredible smoked salmon and mackerel, pickled cucumbers, traditional brown soda bread, and cream cheese, is one of the most satisfyingly delicious things you could eat, washed down with a crisp glass of white.