Sick Of All The American Chains? These Irish Spots Are Much Better.
Words: Tobi Ilori
Photo: Conor Mccabe
At this stage, you can barely open your phone without another American chain opening up in Ireland.
One week it’s Popeyes announcing two Dublin openings. Then it’s Wendy’s, now already here in Cork and planning more. Taco Bell is now in Dunshaughlin, with a standalone Irish restaurant in Blanchardstown. Dave’s Hot Chicken is planning its first Irish site on Dame Street. If it feels like the U.S. fast food scene is having a proper go at the place, that’s because it is.
Now, to be fair, more choice is more choice. No one’s saying you need to stand outside a new opening with a placard. But if your first thought every time when one of these places is announced is, grand but where should I actually go? That’s a much better conversation. Because Dublin, Cork and Galway are not exactly waiting around for someone to explain burgers, tacos or fried chicken to them. And the bang of copy and paste mixed with taking advantage off these big corps is rotten.
Here are places already doing the job and, in a lot of cases, doing it better.
If Popeyes Has You Curious, Go Here Instead
The Popeyes Pitch is obvious enough: fried chicken, crunch, heat, a box that feels like a very good idea after a bad day.
But if that’s what you’re after, Mad Egg and Chimac are already doing the work here. Mad Egg has built a name on seriously good fried chicken burgers, and the chicken itself is tea brined for 48 hours, properly crisp on the outside, and juicy on the inside.
Chimac takes a different route, with Korean fried chicken that’s brined for 18 hours and twice fried, which is exactly the sort of detail you want somebody obsessing over on your behalf.
So yes, Popeyes will get a queue. Of course it will. But if what you want is fried chicken that already has people here mildly evangelical, you needn’t wait for the ribbon cutting ceremony.
If Dave’s Hot Chicken Sounds Like Your Thing
Dave’s Hot Chicken is planning a first Irish location in One Central Plaza on Dame Street, so the “Nashville hot chicken is coming” conversation is no longer hypothetical.
That’s grand. But if what you actually want is hot chicken with a bit of personality, Firebyrd and All Bar Chicken are already doing the work. Firebyrd is built entirely on hot chicken, with tenders, wings, burgers and a full “United States of hot” pitch that at least has the decency to be honest about itself. All Bar Chicken goes louder in a different way: wings, tenders, wraps, burgers and a buffalo spice bag, which tells you straight away they understand the assignment.
So if the appeal of Dave’s is spicy chicken that feels like a bit of craic and bit of punishment, Dublin is not exactly waiting around for it.
Before You Queue for Taco Bell
Taco Bell is here now, with its first Irish site through Applegreen on the M3 at Dunshaughlin and another in Blanchardstown, along with a ghost kitchen in Glasnevin. That tells you exactly what lane it’s aiming for: roadside, quick, no emotional commitment required.
But if what you want is actual tacos, Dublin has better answers. El Milagro is a family run operation by Julian Trejo Pascual and his mother Maribel, with tortillas sourced through another Mexican family business in Dublin working directly with corn growers in Tlaxcala. Then there’s Masa, where the tacos are built around fresh corn tortillas made in-house from masa flour from Mexico. That’s not branding. That’s someone caring about the dough quite a fucking lot.
There is a time and place for eating Taco Bell besides a forecourt coffee machine. Nobody is denying that. But if your question is where to get tacos that don’t feel assembled by a committee, the answer was never going to be an Applegreen.
If the In-N-Out Hype Has You Thinking Burgers
The recent In-N-Out pop-up in Dublin got exactly the reaction you’d expect: queues, videos, the people losing the run of themselves over a burger you still can’t actually get here full time. Or ever will. Read our deep dive here. Fair enough. These things are designed to feel like an event.
But if what that whole carry on really reminded you is that you want a proper no-fuss burger, Dublin has got your back already.
Bunsen has spent years proving you don’t need a menu the size of a school journal to make people queue. Burgers, cheeseburgers, fries, shakes and that’s largely your lot. The beef comes through FX Buckley, the burgers are minced in each restaurant, and the only thing that goes on before the grill is salt and pepper. They are not suffering from a lack of focus over there.
And if you want a local success story with a bit more heart to it, Bujo, who’s menu was designed by chef Grainne O’Keefe, is the only burger restaurant in Ireland and the UK to have achieved a three-star rating from the Sustainable Restaurants Association. They work with hand picked Irish suppliers, use premium grass fed Irish beef, and focus on quality local ingredients.
Dublin doesn’t need California to explain burger minimalism to it. It already knows.
If Wendy’s Is Meant to Be the Easy Option
Wendy’s is back, having opened its first post turn of the century Irish restaurant in Mahon Point, Cork, with a second Irish site confirmed for Tullamore. The last time we’d been graced with a Wendy’s was in the 1980s.
But if you’re talking Cork in particular, there are already local places doing what they do best. Son of a Bun has long held its own as one of the city’s better burger shouts, while Hillbilly’s has been doing fast-food chicken in Cork since 1997, long before anyone here was waiting on Wendy’s to return.
That’s really what these chains are competing with. Not some abstract Irish food identity. Just familiarity, loyalty and the very hard to shift habit of already having a place for regular munching.
Most people are not going to boycott a taco because it has a U.S. passport. Nor should they have to. This isn’t really about purity, and it’s definitely not about pretending local automatically means better.
It’s about the saturation of those big companies coming in with their processed ingredients, deep pockets, and copy-and-paste concepts that start to flatten everything that made the scene interesting in the first place.
The chains will get the opening week queues the “is it worth it?” videos and the usual carry on. Grand. Let them. But if your actual concern is where to spend your money when the novelty wears off, the answer is already sitting there in plain sight.
Go to the places that were feeding people properly before the big lads arrived.
