specialist food drink around south city centre

McConnell's was for decades one of the great stalwart shops of Grafton Street, but as that strip has been transformed, so the old stagers have dispersed elsewhere. Happily, for city centre shoppers, McConnell's fish shop has only moved a couple of hundred yards into Hibernian Way, where it sits incongruously amidst fashion shops. What they do here has nothing to do with fashion: fresh fish is sold until it is all gone, then the shop closes. The simple life....

The produce for Roy Fox's shop positively tumbles out on to the little side street, just off the main strip of Donnybrook, and the be-decked trays of fruits and vegetables will guide you to a shop full of good things. Inside, there are all the excellent comestibles of the choice deli....

Design fetishists adore the beautiful, 1960s style of Morton's shop front, whilst food lovers appreciate it as one of the most selective, personable, places to shop. Its gentle, almost distracted atmosphere, its human scale and helpful service, the obvious care which goes into selecting what they sell, all make it a refreshing, calming, quite inimitable shop....

The city centre shop has been revised recently, and now offers a smattering of deli goods alongside the familiar fruit and veg. Here Today is always a good source for the obscure and the essential, and they usually have a good range of organically grown foods....

Danny O'Toole sources his free-range pork from as far away as Cork, which tells you just what you need to know about the concern for quality which drive this fine butcher. He is the only specialist in organic meat in Dublin, usually sourcing directly from farmers in the counties surrounding Dublin. Everything he does is good: the puddings, the burgers, the bangers. He has the thoughtfulness of an artisan himself, always eager to move forward, always eager to learn and to experiment....

Terroirs is, of course, a wine shop, and it is a very fine one at that, amongst the very best in the country. They do sell a glorious selection of the great wines of the world - Duckhorn, D'Arenberg, Champagne Salon, Avignonesi, Mondavi, Gramp, the great port houses, the finest chateaux of Bordeaux - heavenly, heavenly wines, which the Gilleys understand and appreciate intimately. But what makes Terroirs special is not just the wines. No, the special ingredient lies with everything else they...

Fothergill's is one of the great Dublin delis, with a smashing range of handmade foods. The goodies range from the brilliant lunchtime sandwiches, the carefully composed salads, the excellent cooked meats and plump cheeses, right through to the knockout cakes and desserts which local matrons - shame on you, girls - often have the gall to pass off as their own. A terrific shop, where retaining self-control is almost impossible....

One of the city's most traditional wine merchants, housed for the last few years in the vaults of Harcourt Street railway station. There is a splendid wine museum tucked away in here, amidst a formidable range of wines from all over the world. They also operate a Cellar Plan, which allows you to select wines from their list and pay for them in monthly instalments....

Excellent oils, hard-to-find pulses and rices from obscure parts of the globe, and a wide range of their own breads and cakes make for a classy deli....