Eating and drinking on Castle Street

For a small village, Dalkey eats well, and almost all of it happens on one short stretch of Castle Street and the corners just off it. You can do coffee, a pub lunch and a proper dinner without walking more than a couple of hundred metres. Here is how a local would work the street.

Coffee and a quick bite

Select Stores is the spot for a coffee on the move, along with fresh juices and decent wholesome snacks. It is the natural stop before you head up the hill or down to the harbour for the boat, when you want fuel rather than a sit-down meal.

The pub everyone knows

Finnegan's of Dalkey has been part of village life on Castle Street since 1970. It is a proper neighbourhood pub first, but the kitchen takes the food seriously, with a seafood lean: breaded haddock and chips, a well-regarded fish pie, crayfish linguine. There is a long list of rare whiskeys and Irish gins behind the bar. It also carries Dalkey's celebrity-spotting reputation, Bono among the regulars, though the appeal is really that it is a good pub that has not tried to become anything else.

Sitting down to dinner

1909 Restaurant & Wine Bar sits at the southern end of Castle Street, a cosy brick-walled room open seven days. The set menu, a starter and main for around 25 euro from Sunday to Thursday, is the value pick of the village.

DeVille's has been doing traditional French bistro food on Castle Street since 2012: French onion soup, locally landed oysters, beef bourguignon, dry-aged steaks. It is the place for a long, classic dinner.

The Dalkey Duck is the gastropub of the group, with a generous outdoor terrace for the rare fine evening and a fire inside for the more common one. The Sunday roast is the draw, and there is local seafood through the lobster season from March to October.

Jaipur has held its own in the village for two decades, pairing Irish produce with classic Indian cooking, and it is the reliable choice when the table cannot agree on anything else.

A few local tips

Book at weekends. The rooms are small and Dalkey is a destination for Dubliners on a Saturday, so the good tables go early.

The Book Festival weekend is the exception. In mid-June, when the literary festival is on, the whole village fills up. Book well ahead or come on a quieter day.

Look for the set and early menus. Several of the dinner spots offer better value before the main evening rush, which suits a day-trip schedule nicely.