101 Great Irish Restaurants: Local treasures, national stars

These restaurants serve everything from a superb shepherd’s pie to steamed bao, and from healthy salads to desserts that will tempt even the most abstemious

Is 2018 likely to be a watershed year for the Irish restaurant scene? The omens certainly suggest so.

The imminent arrival of The Ivy in Dublin, the huge amount of money put into refurbishing the old Thornton’s restaurant on St Stephen’s Green, and the increasingly common requirement for tenants to pay key money to secure certain premises might suggest that everything is rosy in the restaurant garden.

But talk to small, independent operators ...