specialist food drink around north down

Jim Quail's stylish shop in the main street of the prosperous and contented little town of Banbridge doubles as a butcher and delicatessen. But where the latter lacks some imagination - a clatter of bottles from English deli providers does not make a true delicatessen - the former is as proud and capable a butcher's shop as you will find. The meat is sourced principally from their farms at Tullyear and Lenaderry, with supplies from some other local farmers used in addition, and this care, an...

This fine big shop has a greater ambition than many of the domestically-inclined bakeries of the town and there are thoughtful extra elements here which would not be out of place in a French traiteur: good stuffed tomatoes and other standby dishes which are so helpful to the harassed cook. The baking - whether their celebrated fruit loaves or simple things like farls and sticky buns - is well executed, but the skill which is so obvious is nevertheless quietly focused around that comforting ho...

A lovable little sweetie shop straight from the pages of a kiddie's book, where you head to for vanilla ice cream....

This is one of the finest shops in the North, a trove of good things chosen with great care. It manages to sell wholefoods without feeling wholefoody, and to sell gourmet things without being in any way precious. This is the result of Ms Brave's excellent connections: we have found farmhouse cheeses for sale in here that we didn't even know existed, and the affiliations with the organic and, especially, the bio-dynamic associations means that fine foods beat a path to her door. The vegetab...

This shop has good Irish farmhouse and continental cheeses, the oils and pastas and other accoutrements from Carluccio, and lots of other vital deli items including the ubiquitous Cottage Pride preserves and freshly baked Continental frozen doughs....

This is a funny wee shop. Funny because you can ask Harry Blaney for some cut or other which you have in mind to prepare for dinner, and he is likely to tell you he won't actually sell you what you want, because he isn't terribly happy with it, or it hasn't been hung for as long as he would like, or some other reason which will have you scrabbling in desperation for some other recipe. Relax, then, and just ask the man himself what he reckons is right to eat. That way, you get the best out o...

McCartney's is the sort of shop that could accompany you from the cradle to the grave. You begin, perhaps, not much past weaning, with those smashing banana sausages which nippers find irresistible. Progress, then, on into the pure pork, and the great beef bangers, begin to acquire a taste for the pork and leek, and for the puddings, and for the pies, and on you go through spotty adolescence, your tastes refining, and on into the spiced beef and the corned beef, through the cutlets and the c...