The Best Value Restaurants in Dublin

You could easily walk past the entrance to Amy Austin, situated near the ground floor of a multi-storey car park; just look for the brights lights and listen for the craic coming from within. There’s a sense of fun and a feeling of being at home from the moment you walk in the door. Mexican-born chef Victor Lara has created an all-day menu of globetrotting small plates ranging from tamales and tacos to crudos and yakitori. Everything coming at realistic prices allows you to do justice to the cocktail list and wine on tap.

Read more about how Amy Austin typifies the Bib Gourmand award.

There’s so much to love about BIGFAN. There’s the well-priced cooking of course, offering Dublin’s diners an affordable taste of Chinese and Taiwanese cooking (the bao are something of a signature, but don’t miss the array of lip-smackingly good xiao chi, like the terrific ‘Couples Beef’). But there’s also the atmosphere: loud, buzzy and bearing all the hallmarks of a great night out. Add to that the cocktails rapidly emerging from the bar and the friendly service, and you have a surefire winner on your hands.

Positioning itself as one of the city’s best Italian restaurants, BORGO is Dublin’s take on the classic osteria – which is to say it’s relaxed, well-priced and runs without a hint of fuss. There’s a comforting familiarity to the cooking here, which doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but draws big, honest flavours from top-quality ingredients. Start with some spuntini and antipasti to share, before digging into a pasta or something cooked over the wood fire, when the chefs really get to show off their skills.

The sister restaurant to MICHELIN-Starred Forest Avenue, Forêt is a sensibly priced and overtly French little bistro hidden above a traditional Irish pub. The cooking is exactly the kind of comforting, full-flavoured bistro fare you would expect, including the likes of saucisson sec and chicken with vin jaune sauce. The bedrock of the cooking is the top-quality ingredients, which the chefs know how to season and cook with care so that their natural flavours shine as brightly as possible.

There is a rustic and homely feel to this neighbourhood restaurant, which is tremendously busy between the hours of 5:30pm and 6:30pm. This is when the best value is to be had, thanks to a fixed-price early evening menu that shows off the kitchen’s skills. Those skills are largely concentrated on delivering tried-and-tested dishes that show off classic combinations executed with aplomb, resulting in robust, gutsily flavoured dishes. If you’re celebrating, there’s a tasting menu available too.

Spitalfields really has the feel of a ‘proper’ Irish pub, one where you’ll find the locals with a Guinness in hand at the bar and the warmest of welcomes from Declan Maxwell, winner of the MICHELIN Guide’s Service Award in 2023. He and his team run the place with both charm and efficiency, providing wonderful hospitality which is ideally matched by the simple, honest cooking that doesn’t skimp on flavour. There are subtle global influences to be found on the menu, yet it remains Irish at heart.

As its name suggests, Spain is the primary inspiration at Uno Mas, where the mix of small nibbles and larger plates will transport you back to those sun-soaked trips to southern Europe. The usual tapas suspects are available in the para picar section, from croquetas to Padrón peppers, while the main dishes incorporate other Mediterranean influences. Wine is not overlooked either, with bottles from various Spanish regions being the main draw of a passionately curated list.