26 for '26
The 26 People and Places we are most excited about this year….
We are delighted to announce that in 2026 our Substack, The Irish Stew, will be Powered by Square. Square is especially suited to support the needs of the speciality food culture in Ireland which we have been documenting through four decades. Square makes transactions fast and efficient, and gives you the data that helps you to know just where you are at, day by day, week by week, on into the year.
26 for 26
These are the people and places that everyone’s going to be talking about in 2026…
The Mad Yolk Farm… Sauna!
Brian Dilleen has reinvented the concept of shopping for 2026 at Mad Yolk Farm, near Craughwell, east of Galway city. Turn up for your eggs and veggies at the farm shop, take a walk in the Sensory Garden, then dive into the sauna to sweat off those daily hardships. Sauna shopping! Of course! Mad Yolk: shopping, but better.
Ultimate Burger Championship strikes Dublin
It’s not the UFC, it’s the UBC. The Ultimate Burger Championship is set to strike in Dublin, as Jordan Bailey makes plans for a branch of his HEARD burger chain and brings two-star slickness to the burger sphere. Who amongst the locals burgermeisters will step up to the challenge, to match London’s Dove and New York’s Minetta Tavern. Tasty battles ahead.
Calendar Coffee, Galway
Zarah and Daniel roast exceptional coffees distinguished by their determination to make each roast seasonal, and sustainable. When they get a few moments to get away from the Probat, they also make tasty wee movies about the smart folk who use their coffees every day, and they look at their own processes, what they learn and need to learn, and how they develop what they do. It’s mighty stuff, and proves not all social media has to be brain-numbing slop. Get Calendar on your 2026 calendar.
Eating Ireland’s Restaurant Dynasties
By their numbers shall ye know them! Have you visited the four Bookshelf Cafés, or the siblings of Foret? What about the five Tangs, or Jp McMahon’s trio? Did you rush to Sean and Jamie’s fourth new-born baby restaurant, Borgo, and have you done the Lena-Etto-Uno Mas triptych yet? Who’da thunk Ireland would have its own hospitality moguls, but there they are. Collect the set.
The Fold, Derry
Things keep getting better and better in Derry and, with the arrival of The Fold, Mark and Shona Froydenlund’s cracking bakery and food space, the couple have their own space to show all they learnt running top-end glitzy food gaffs in London. What’s that you’re hearing? Yes, charcoal-charred char siu pork belly wrapped in pastry is, indeed, what you just heard.
All Together Now
It’s not just the tunes, it’s the bangin’ food from Irish artisan food trucks and other exciting foodscapes that have meant ATN has become firmly lodged in the hearts of Irish music and food lovers. Having food heroes like Kwanghi, Toonsbridge, Tango, Spice Genie and Bahay slingin’ the delicious things as you mellow in the meadow is the way to go.
Amai by Viktor and All Things Brazil
We are all going to be Lulistas in ’26 as Brazil’s beautiful dishes make further inroads into our appetites, thanks to Viktor Silva at Amai in Dublin. Eating Brazilian, cooking Brazilian – thanks to Ixta Belfrage’s brilliant book Fusão – and, of course, listening Brazilian: start with Milton Nascimento’s 1972 masterpiece, Clube da Esquina.
Native Cabins, West Cork
Ballydehob is Boho Central, West Cork, and Didi and Simon’s Native Cabins, on the edge of the village, is Boho Chic for Boho Central. Beautiful, timeless, foundational.
Filipino Food in Dublin and Belfast
Just think how lucky we are to be able to walk into welcoming rooms in Dublin and Belfast, and enjoy top-notch Filipino food. Like, the real, echt, 100% thing. How bad! Thanks to Richie and Alex’s Kaldero, in Dublin city centre, and Kevin and Eunike’s Platito by Mangan, on Belfast’s Castlereagh Road, the world of Tagalog food is our oyster.
Native Irish Beef
Like you, we don’t eat just beef. Instead, for 2026, we are planning on cooking with ex-dairy Jersey meat. Our burgers will be made with Irish Wagyu. And our perfect tartare will be courtesy of Dexter or Droimeann cows. These are what luminary chef Danni Barry calls “wee cows with big flavour” and you can expect to see a lot more of the wee cows on good menus around the country as we wake up to the fact that our native breeds have a unique kind of magic.
VADA Dublin sustainability
Sarah and Hannah are tearing it up in Vada in the ‘Batter, firing out great plates whilst also achieving wonders with sustainability and zero food waste. Many talk the talk, but the girls walk the walk, sourcing direct from the growers, finding the good bottles, creating the perfect place for eating well. And, yeah, Marmite nuts to start.
Year Round Ireland
Do you know that we have a new National Tourism Policy? And that the policy wants to develop “the off-peak season from October to May.” And do you know that the really smart hospitality practitioners in Ireland, like Roundstone’s Within the Village and lots of other glampers and getaways, have been doing this already, pushing out the shoulder season, making Ireland a 12-month destination? You do know, of course. Pity the Government doesn’t.
Year Round Tomatoes
We always make a point of buying Grantstown Nurseries Irish tomatoes when we see them, and Grantstown not only grow super tomatoes, they are pioneers in getting those toms to market earlier in the year, and supplying them later in the year. Result? Eating good Irish tomatoes late in November.
Irish Sea Salt
Down in Wexford these days, when you overhear someone talking about “Wexford Black” they are not, in fact, referring to a pint of stout. Instead, they are talking about the latest black salt – Sel Dubh – from Jack and Kevin of Wexford Sea Salt. This infusion of natural activated charcoal and solar-evaporated sea salt is a dramatic newcomer, and it is steadily being joined by other sea salt collectors, including West Cork Sea Salt. We’ll be getting the wellies on to write about this in more detail…
Functional Beverages
The term functional beverages might make them sound like prune juice, but there is nothing pruney about masterly modern Irish drinks, such as the dazzling Fierce Mild from Fergal and Cathal, or Kerry Kefir, the veritable elixir of life from Mary-Thea Brosnan down there in the Kingdom. Fierce Mild is what you drink when you aren’t drinking, and KK keeps the mitochondria happy all day long.
Solo Dining
Solo dining is on the increase, thanks to modern life, remote-based work and more single-person households. There’s a shift in the perception that a person eating alone, (or with a phone), is someone who might be working from home, travelling solo, or just a person happy in their own company. Restaurants that create an atmosphere for solo diners, perhaps a communal table, or counter seating, will find that solo diners are easy to look after, spend more per person than someone in a group, and are often quick to return, and recommend the experience.
Belfast’s Seoul Food & Studio
The sexiest eating room in the country is going to be the subject of so many colour pictorials that by the end of the year you will be an authority on Korean design, and fully fluent in Obangsaek, the traditional Korean philosophy of five colours. Food lovers will be out in force to eat Jae Young’s food, whilst dreaming of how to make their gaff more Korean. You know, more like Seoul Food & Studio.
Tallaght, Food Town
When John Kearns won the gong for Innovator of the Year at the Food & Wine Awards back in November, it was proper order for Tallaght’s Priory Market project, a visionary, radical and sheer fun collab between talented artisans and chefs and the sort of co-sharing space which is going to be all the fashion in food in the coming years. Tallaght: Food Town! Bring it on.
Lir’s Squid Lasagne
So Stevie McCarry of Lir Seafood is tasked with cooking the seafood course for the annual Eurotoques Young Chef of the Year event, and Stevie decides that he will make squid lasagne. Because, you know, Stevie, Rebekah, Lir: out of the box, what are they on up there in Coleraine? “Familiar dishes with not so familiar ingredients,” Stevie says. It’s far from it we were reared.
Aras an Uachtarain Dexter Cows
There are Kerry cows in Farmleigh House, in the Phoenix Park and, just across the way, there are Dexter cows grazing in the grounds of Aras an Uachtarain. Former President Miggledey introduced them several years back as part of a grazing and environmental programme, and we are hoping President Connolly will add in a few other rare Irish breeds. Man, Landscape, Animal, Environmentalism, and the President, all in one go. Not bad for ‘26.
Recovering our Culinary Critical Judgment
A tsunami of effusive drool will envelope the country during January, ahead of the announcement of the new Michelin awards in Dublin on February 9th. After that, perhaps we might hope that Irish food lovers and commentators cease to outsource their judgements on our restaurant culture to a bunch of anonymous cultural colonialists. But don’t bet on it.
Third Spaces & Fifth Quarters
More and more of our eating is happening in third space places, destinations like McNally’s Farm in north County Dublin, the new Urban Pantry in Cork’s Fifth Quarter, and Dublin’s exciting new Wilton Park, between Baggot Street and Leeson Street. Wilton will have a new Scéal Bakery and café as well as a Mark Moriarty destination as just two elements of its planned food offering. Join the 2026 queue of the year.
Sprout, Everywhere
It’s double digits now for the Brothers Sprout, as Sprout 10 gets readied for opening in Dundrum in February 2026. If you are saying to yourself, “But sure they only just opened in Cork”, then that’s because they only just opened in Cork. The mighty Sprout machine rolls ever on.
Bespoke Butchery
The new Eolas Room at James Whelan Butchers in the basement of Dunnes Stores on Patrick Street in the centre of Cork is just the latest iteration of the bespoke butchery which we can now enjoy. Having a master butcher prepare your meat exactly the way you want it makes this appointment shopping at its pinnacle.
Beans
Chef Ali Honour understands the secret of beans: “Beans give more than they take, and that’s rare” she says, in her assured new book, published this month. And this is precisely why we should be eating a whole lot more of these little bullets of brilliance: they are good for us, they are good for the planet, and they are bleedin’ delicious. So, start soaking the pintos, cook those butter bean babies till they are tender as a pillow, make your own hummus with your own chick peas, and feel good about everything in ‘26.
Tell us why We Do Like Mondays
Thank heavens there are places to eat on Mondays. Not so long ago, to be in an Irish city on a Monday evening meant eating rubbish, because everywhere decent was shut and the only choice was fourth-rate Chinese food. But when the storied Library Street decided to open on Mondays it put the spotlight on a growing trend: great places to eat on the traditional chef’s night off. Dublin’s Monday destinations also have a very cool wine slant, in places like Bar Pez, Hawksmoor, Piglet, Monty’s, Fish Shop and downstairs at Fallon & Byrne.
Another fabulous update, thanks folks.