The street food scene in Ireland

In Northern Ireland, Chef Kevin Pyke uses great local products to create delicious local-inspired dishes, and incorporates techniques learned during his Michelin-kitchen stints. Enjoy the “Legenderry Burger”, made with Armagh pasture-reared Wagyu beef in Pyke ‘n’ Pommes’s converted double decker bus parked on the prettiest bend of the Foyle River. Or hit up their licensed premises, 53-55, for treats such as tacos, burgers, beer battered fish and chips, and charcoal oven-cooked meats. A true taste of the independent spirit of this wonderful walled city.

Award-winning Broughgammon specialises in billy kid goat meat and rose veal, transforming what were once dairy industry waste-products into ethical, sustainable and healthy sources of meat – and their inventive street food is their attempt to put that story on a plate. Sample their farm cafe’s weekend fare (think sumac-spiced rose veal koftas, pickled turnips and pumpkin hummus) en route to the Causeway Coast or catch them at Ballycastle’s bank holiday markets or Dublin’s Temple Bar Food Market Saturdays only.

Globe-trotting Connemara native Kim Young and her Chilean husband Reinaldo Seco match ultra-local ingredients with travel-inspired flavours. The Misunderstood Heron along the west coast is a busy wee spot, with Killary fjord mussels, Killary mountain lamb samosas, freshly baked salted caramel brownies and superb Cloud Picker coffee drawing a crowd. But Kim always has time to share insider tips on “the best piers to fish off or beaches to swim in or mountains to hike up” around this glorious stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way.

Mairéad Anderson always reckoned that her chef husband Gary made chowder “as it should be”: with plenty of white fish and organic smoked salmon in a fragrant creamy base. Named Ireland’s Best Seafood Chowder 2019, his recipe is now a permanent fixture on the “wee menu” served quayside in Ireland’s busiest fishing port at Mairead’s solar-powered, flower-bedecked Killybegs Seafood Shack.

Grab a bowl – or a Shines Wild Irish Tuna salad, or a Seafood Box of all-local scampi, calamari, battered haddock and breaded cod – to enjoy on a sunny wall or in the shelter of the nearby Harbour Bar. An unmissable pitstop en route to Donegal’s spectacular Sliabh League cliffs.