Eight Places We Love to Eat In and Around County Down

There are restaurant lists (the run-don't-walk lists), and then there are the places you actually go back to time and time again.

We’re lucky enough to have some of Ireland's best restaurants in County Down, but this isn’t meant to be another generic list of the “best places to eat”. These are the restaurants and cafés we love to support for their incredible grub, hospitality and banter.

A few are polished, some are proper country pubs, one technically isn’t even in County Down at all. But every one of them has that difficult-to-define thing that makes a place special: good food, warmth, craic and people you remember.

And yes, we’ve sneaked across the border into Louth for one of them. We had to.

The Bucks Head, Dundrum

The Bucks Head has become one of those places that makes us feel really lucky to have on our doorstep.

Sitting on Main Street in Dundrum, it has a great mix of proper village pub and seriously good restaurant in a stylish and thoughtful setting. You can go in for a pint, chill beside the fire, or make a full evening of dinner, and none of it ever feels overly formal or forced.

That balance is probably what we love most about it. Some of the stand out food has been the deep fried crab claws and the swanky fish and chips - meaty monk fish with perfect, super crispy, flavoursome batter . 

It feels special without ever trying too hard to be special.

Scopers, Dundrum

We’ve gotten to know Paul over the years and we’re continually impressed by just how much thought goes into everything he does. His attention to detail is almost ridiculous — from heading out to forage for the tastiest seaweed to using incredible local sea buckthorn, every ingredient feels properly considered. He’s fiercely committed to using farmers and producers from the locality too, which makes Scopers feel completely rooted in this little corner of County Down and a real food hero for the county.

And beyond all that, Paul is just an absolute gent.

Our only real issue is that the food is so good it almost feels wrong eating it from a biodegradable takeaway box. Part of us thinks it should arrive on fine china with a linen napkin. But then, we also completely appreciate why it doesn’t — that commitment to sustainability and accessibility is part of the whole ethos. Either way, what comes out of that little box is consistently exceptional. The stand outs for us are the pop corn muscles, the cauliflower and the Belfast pies. Oh, and his chips are without equal. 

No.14 at The Georgian House, Comber

No.14 is probably one of the most personal places on this list for us.

We only ever seem to go with two very good friends, and somehow that has made it all the more special. It’s become one of those places where the restaurant and the company are completely tangled up together in our heads.

The building itself is beautiful — an old Georgian house right on The Square in Comber — but what makes it memorable is the warmth of the place.

We’ve met Jim, the owner and chef, a few times now and he is as much a gent as he is a total powerhouse of talent. His food is thoughtful and rooted in local produce. In particular the venison stands out as well as the scallops - always prepared expertly, Jim sets a very high bar. Now I'm starving!

For us, No.14 has become less about simply “going out for dinner” and more about a particular kind of evening with people we love.

And that makes it all the better.

Square, Dundalk

Yes, we know.

Dundalk is in County Louth.

But it’s close enough, we adore it, and this is our list.

Square is our special place.

It’s one of those restaurants that has somehow ended up meaning more to us than just the food, brilliant though the food is. We’ve had some genuinely lovely evenings there, and the last time we went probably summed it up best. Their Korean fried chicken really annoys me because I can't have it every day ;) Its ones of the best dishes in memory. The homemade crisps are a real highlight AND the last cheese board we had was such a thoughtful and balanced selection, and so pretty too! 

We ordered champagne — possibly the best champagne we’ve ever had (Laurent Lequart) — and when we were asked what we were celebrating, we realised there wasn’t actually an occasion.

So we said:

Nothing and everything.

And really, that’s Square for us.

It’s the sort of place you go when you want dinner to become the evening. Small plates arrive, drinks are poured, one thing leads to another, and suddenly a normal night has turned into something you’ll remember.

Sometimes you don’t need a birthday, an anniversary or a reason.

Sometimes the dinner is the reason.

Feast, Rostrevor

Rostrevor is already almost unfairly pretty.

Then tucked into Bridge Street you’ve got Feast.

This is exactly the kind of café we love: relaxed, unpretentious and very good at what it does. Roisin and Melissa always give us a big hello, and we really appreciate what they're doing.

Their fry is the best we've ever had and we have had a lot of fries. Pork belly, sausage, in-house chipotle tomato sauce, a perfectly fried egg, tomato and mushrooms. It looks like it could be served a Michelin star restaurant. Another thing I really appreciate is the buzz. Lots of people having the chats and not pouring themselves into their phones... that is perhaps a topic for another day.  

A very easy place to like.

Birch, Newcastle

Birch is slightly dangerous territory for us because we’re good friends with Chris, the owner, which means we're morally obliged to sleg him at every available opportunity. We also hand delivered him killer Margheritas at Electric Picnic in exchange for flat whites.

Luckily, the place is good enough that we can do that without having to lie about the food.

We genuinely believe his coffee is the best in Ireland and always compare all coffee to his.

And then there’s the veggie toast, which frankly has absolutely no reason to be as tasty as it is. On paper, it sounds like the kind of thing you order while pretending to be sensible. Then it arrives and suddenly you’re wondering what sorcery has taken place in that kitchen.

That’s part of why we love Birch.

It's relaxed, warm and completely itself. It doesn’t shout about what it’s doing. It just quietly does things very, very well.

And because it’s in Newcastle, it has become part of that familiar rhythm of Mournes, sea, dogs, coffee and food that makes the town feel so much like home to us.

Chris, obviously, remains insufferable. :D

The coffee remains exceptional.

The Maghera Inn, Maghera

The Maghera Inn is a place woven into our lives.

The guys there are absolute legends.

They always make a fuss over the dogs, which means the dogs probably rate it even higher than we do. The treats that arrive for them go a long way to making it one of our all time favourite pubs.

It’s a proper country pub in the best possible sense — fires, Guinness, big plates of food, low ceilings, warmth and absolutely no interest in pretending to be something it isn’t.

And then there is Christmas Day (the decorations are a wonder in themselves).

Every year, after our Christmas morning swim, we head to the Maghera Inn for an early pint.

They open and close by 1p, and the place is absolutely buzzing.

Not busy.

Buzzing.

There is something kind of magical about it — everyone crammed in, cheeks still red from the cold, people laughing, pints in hand, Christmas properly underway.

It has become one of our favourite little traditions.

If someone asked us to explain what a great County Down pub should feel like, we could probably save ourselves a lot of words and just take them here.

The Barn, Saul

The Barn sits out in the countryside around Saul, just outside Downpatrick, in a part of County Down absolutely saturated with history.

There has been a tavern on the site for more than a century, and the place still has that cosy, old-school country-pub feel that makes you want to stay longer than planned.

Inside, there are fires, a proper bar and the kind of atmosphere that immediately works on a grey day.

The food is hearty and generous, with plenty of local produce, and it’s exactly the sort of place that works after a long drive, a walk or an afternoon spent poking around St Patrick’s country.

The chicken wings are always on our list - every time. The roast chicken is sublime too. All helped down with a perfect pint of Guinness.

The places we actually return to

There are plenty of brilliant restaurants across County Down that aren’t on this list.

That’s sort of the point.

This isn’t supposed to be definitive.

These are simply ours.

They’re attached to Christmas swims and champagne for no reason. To dinners with good friends. To slagging restaurant owners. To dogs waiting hopefully for treats. To drives through the Mournes, afternoons by the sea and evenings that started as dinner and somehow became memories.

Food is rarely just about the food anyway.

The places we really love become part of the geography of our lives.

Little landmarks scattered around the places we call home.

And these are some of ours.