Eating in Ireland

Where are you going in Ireland? Do you prefer budget eateries? Will you picnic? Eat pub meals? Dine at high priced restaurants. Little bit more information would help us answer you inquiry.

As Claudia said, better answers will come with more info from you. Prices vary depending on whether you are in a larger city, or a rural village, and if the restaurant is very close to a tourist attraction, or it caters more to locals. As a rough guideline, you could expect to pay at lunch anywhere from 5 Euro for street food or fast food to 10-18 Euro for a sit down restaurant or pub lunch and for dinner, if you go for street food or fast food, the prices remain pretty much the same and sit down restaurants will serve entrees starting around 12 Euro for a pub to 50 Euro entrees at fancy gourmet dining establishments. Drinking can run anywhere from a few Euro for a beer in a pub during Happy Hour up to 10-15 Euro for premium liquor cocktails at swanky restaurants or nightclubs in the city. Nearly all restaurants and many pubs post a menu near the door, if budget is a concern, check out the prices in advance. Having your main meal of the day at lunch in a restaurant or pub will always save you money as prices are less mid-day. But often the breakfast served up at an Irish B&B is so large and hearty that you may be able to skip lunch completely and just make do with a small snack until dinner.

We will be driving from Dublin-Cashel-Kenmare up the coast to Galway and around Connemara then back to Dublin. So I guess most of it will be around touristy areas. Picnicing is a good option since we'll be in the car a lot or out on boat trip since we plan to see Skellig Michael, Great Blasket Island and Inishmore.

Definitely ask at your B&B as to where they eat, we had some great recommendations for good food, great prices and very few tourists. We also never ate lunch as the breakfast was so filling that we would usually stop around 1-2pm for a snack and then had dinner at 7pm. We thought the food was great and reasonably priced but then we did not ever eat in 3-4 star places because that is not what we wanted to do. I don't think we ever spent more than $20 per day each and that was on the high side but we also did not drink.

Asking you B&B (or wherever you stay) isn't a bad idea, but take it with a grain of salt. Ireland is like a small town and the recommedation may guide you to somewhere owned by kin or friends which may or may not be a good value.