![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CQC2E3TIMZB2LJRHB4XX24VALQ.jpg\")
A lobster shack in Maine \u2013 why can’t we have more of this sort of thing? Photograph: iStock <\/p>\nThis is the time of year when I\u2019m allowed to let off a little steam \u2013 the annual sweep of things I\u2019d like to see less of, and the few I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing a lot more often.<\/p>\n
Five things I\u2019d like to see more oftenLobster shacksA lobster shack in Maine \u2013 why can’t we have more of this sort of thing? Photograph: iStock <\/p>\n
Sit for an hour in Kilmore Quay in Wexford<\/a>, Baltimore in west Cork<\/a>, New Quay in Connemara<\/a> or Killybegs in Donegal<\/a> and you\u2019ll see the heartbreak in real time \u2013 glistening Irish lobster lifted from the boats and loaded straight on to trucks bound for Spain and France. Our best seafood leaves before we ever taste it.<\/p>\n The fix isn\u2019t complicated. Build the Irish version of the Maine lobster shack \u2013 covered timber sheds or co-op kiosks on the pier, nothing fancy. Lobsters kept live in the tank, clams purged in seawater, big steel pots rolling at the boil. You queue, place your order, and collect a cardboard tray when your number is called: steamed lobster, melted butter, a net of clams, a corn cob.<\/p>\n The co-operative model is the key. In Maine, the lobstermen own the shack together, set stable prices, split profits, and use the income to fund gear and fuel. It keeps value in the community.<\/p>\n Ireland exports the luxury and keeps none of the pleasure. A lobster shack would finally correct that. <\/p>\n Truly local fish<\/p>\n We talk endlessly about \u201ccatch of the day\u201d, yet half the time the fish in question has logged more air miles than the diners. Sea bass, for instance, is almost never local: it\u2019s imported, farmed and about as \u201cof the day\u201d as a supermarket avocado. <\/p>\n Ireland has world-class seafood and barely uses it. Hand-dived scallops? Because Irish scallop regulations favour dredging, not diving, there is no way for a diver to scale up to supply restaurants in any significant quantity, so we end up buying our hand-dived scallops from Scotland. Dublin Bay prawns? Often swapped for anonymous imported prawns because they\u2019re cheaper and easier. <\/p>\n And then there are razor clams \u2013 inexpensive, plentiful, sweet, and exceptional when cooked properly. Look at the Chinese playbook: chargrilled clams with chilli, scallions, garlic, smoke. If we\u2019re serious about local seafood, these should be on every menu.<\/p>\n Irish dishes A lot of Irish cooking has been flattened by convenience. Too many restaurants rely on boil-in-the-bag stews and proteins trucked in from central kitchens. It keeps costs predictable but it drains the life out of the food. <\/p>\n Oysters escaped that fate \u2013 they\u2019re now offered in sizes, styles and garnishes to coax in newcomers \u2013 and there\u2019s no reason Irish dishes shouldn\u2019t get the same treatment.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Destination dining: 14 Irish restaurants well worth a journeyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Take Irish stew. When it\u2019s done properly it should be our pot-au-feu: clear, savoury broth; tender meat; potatoes that hold their shape rather than dissolve into wallpaper paste. A little barley, not enough to turn it into a parody of risotto. Bacon and cabbage deserves a return too \u2013 good bacon properly cooked cabbage, and a line-up of artisan mustards.<\/p>\n There are other lost pleasures \u2013 colcannon, a proper apple crumble from a large shared dish; a celebration of new season floury potatoes; soda bread with real jam; Irish apples and fruit when they\u2019re at their best.<\/p>\n More vegetarian dishes and better non-alcoholic choices Ireland\u2019s menus still treat vegetarian dishes as an afterthought \u2013 a polite gesture rather than a real alternative meal. Too often it\u2019s the same rotation: a token risotto, a pasta that looks like a side dish promoted by accident. Yet when vegetables are cooked with intent \u2013 fire, smoke, acidity, proper seasoning \u2013 they can carry a menu as confidently as any meat dish. <\/p>\n We need more of that: beans cooked slowly enough to earn their place, mushrooms roasted until they taste like themselves, aubergines cooked with depth, showing their real potential. Vegetable cookery done well isn\u2019t a compromise \u2013 it\u2019s a draw.<\/p>\n And while we\u2019re at it, restaurants need a better offer for people who aren\u2019t drinking. Kombucha, shrubs, 0.0 beers, creative house sodas. <\/p>\n A good non-alcoholic list reads like hospitality acknowledging real life: work tomorrow, early starts, childcare or simply not wanting wine. <\/p>\n Support for small farmers<\/p>\n Ireland\u2019s food future would be stronger \u2013 and far more credible \u2013 if State policy backed small organic and regenerative farmers instead of high-volume export models. These are the people farming indigenous breeds \u2013 Kerry, Dexter and Droimeann<\/a> \u2013 rotating crops, managing grassland, and using mixed systems and biological digesters to keep nutrients in a closed loop. They protect soil, biodiversity and landscape, yet they operate on the thinnest margins.<\/p>\n The Central Statistics Office\u2019s latest data shows how skewed the system is. Only 3.6 per cent of Irish farmland is organic \u2013 the third lowest in the EU. Agriculture remains a big source of emissions, with 6.4 million cattle and 38 per cent of national greenhouse gases linked to agriculture. Those pressures fall hardest on small producers \u2013 the very people doing the work society claims to value.<\/p>\n If Ireland wants to move beyond rhetoric, subsidies and supports must follow practice, not scale. Supporting small organic farms isn\u2019t sentimental, it\u2019s strategic \u2013 the most direct way to improve land, water, emissions and the food we actually eat.<\/p>\n Five things I\u2019d like to see lessLarge restaurant chains clogging up the main streets<\/p>\n Ireland could use less of the slow creep of big chains colonising high-street units. It always starts the same way: a glossy opening for a London import, the promise of \u201cdestination dining\u201d, and within a year the street feels interchangeable with any mid-market strip in Britain. <\/p>\n The identikit contenders arrive with the same fancy fit-outs, PR noise and menus written by committee \u2013 squeezing oxygen from the local ecosystem.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Twelve of the buzziest restaurants in Ireland right nowOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Independent restaurants can\u2019t match head office rents, national advertising or centralised prep kitchens that keep chain costs low. Once enough chains cluster, landlords raise expectations and independents are priced out. The street looks prosperous but feels thin: plenty of covers, little character.<\/p>\n A city\u2019s food culture rests on its independents \u2013 the people who take risks, buy locally and cook with a point of view. The more space swallowed by chains, the less room there is for restaurants that make a place worth living in.<\/p>\n Less intensively raised chicken and pork We need far less intensively raised chicken and pork \u2013 the quiet backbone of our national diet, yet produced to some of the lowest welfare standards. <\/p>\n Free-range should be the baseline, not the luxury tier. Instead, higher-welfare meat sits in the \u201ctreat\u201d category while conventionally raised chicken and pork dominate every deli counter, carvery and midweek dinner.<\/p>\n Better standards cost more, but this is where the State should step in. If higher welfare pushes prices beyond reach for lower-income households, targeted subsidies \u2013 at production level, not retail gimmicks \u2013 are the logical fix. We already subsidise sectors with far less public health impact: see dairy expansion grants and grassland payments. Compared with these, supporting higher-welfare protein isn\u2019t radical. It\u2019s overdue.<\/p>\n Restaurants have a role too. The baseline shouldn\u2019t be the cheapest, fastest-grown bird on the market. It should be chicken with space and daylight, or pork from farms where animals actually move. Higher-welfare meat \u2013 properly raised and properly priced \u2013 should be normal. Intensively raised should be the exception.<\/p>\n Young chefs in a hurry We need fewer young chefs sprinting towards \u201chead chef\u201d before they\u2019ve spent real time learning beyond their own postcode. <\/p>\n If you want to run a restaurant, the best investment isn\u2019t a pop-up or a viral dish, it\u2019s years in other kitchens. You learn by watching how teams move, how service works, how a menu breathes through a week.<\/p>\n Too many CVs now hinge on a single unpaid stage in a famous kitchen, presented as a headline rather than a footnote. At Noma, for instance, stagiaires are often kept far from the stove \u2013 sorting foraged leaves, trimming herbs, doing meticulous mise en place. Chopping improves, tweezer work sharpens, but you never get near a pot. It\u2019s not training, it\u2019s proximity.<\/p>\n What shapes a great cook isn\u2019t the name on the CV \u2013 it\u2019s the years spent on real prep, real services, real graft. Chefs like Cu\u0301a\u0301n Greene<\/a>, Kevin O\u2019Donnell<\/a> and Sam Kindillon<\/a> have shown the right way to do it.<\/p>\n Faux-academia around food for chefs<\/p>\n We could use far less of the creeping academicisation of food. I\u2019ve sat through presentations so abstract they barely acknowledged cooking at all. <\/p>\n It mirrors a wider shift: culinary education drifting away from the stove and into projects that never touch real ingredients.<\/p>\n![\"Irish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/YMMPM6MNYNEZHFOR6ULIRWKOJE.jpg\")
Irish stew should be our pot-au-feu. Photograph: iStock <\/p>\n![\"Decent](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/25NFDTJI5FCIBMFKSXUV6WNSBQ.jpg\")
Decent vegetarian dishes should be more than an afterthought in Irish restaurants. Photograph: iStock <\/p>\n![\"Free](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/FQISSCLQ5VAXHJT3AW5E3TUDSI.jpg\")
Free range chicken should become more mainstream. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Cúán](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3XEJPT2W2FAGXCZQEZJGAOKHIM.jpg\")
C\u00fa\u00e1n Greene in Millbrook House at \u00d3m\u00f3s, his new venture in Abbeyleix, which is due to open this year <\/p>\n
![\"Truffle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SFCO6JVBFJBTFHZTDALHGCZHNA.jpg\")
Truffle oil \u2013 just say no. Photograph: iStock <\/p>\n