specialist food drink dublin

The staff here produce spiced beef, using an original recipe, as well as spiced veal and venison. These can be found in supermarkets and delicatessens in the city. In his shop in Terenure, the relentless imagination and energy is really let loose, and he does a terrific range of smoked foods - pheasant, chicken and lamb amongst others. His puddings and bangers are good, and whenever possible, meat is carefully sourced from organic farmers....

Long the best fruit and vegetable shop in town, Fitzpatric's continues to be an invaluable source for organic and bio-dyn foods, as well as essential wholefoods and whatnots....

A true cornucopia of good things, shoe-horned into the smallest space imaginable, the Ow Valley has made itself an indispensable place for exotica - smoked garlic, real Turkish delight, unusual nuts, wild mushrooms - sold alongside the staples and essentials of everyday cooking....

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....

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....

This splendidly altruistic organisation has been vital in introducing the concept of a farmers' market - or at least a Dublin version of it - to Saturday morning shoppers, and it has gone some way to filing the enormous gap which exists in the capital city for a true market where one can buy the produce from the people who actually grow it. Organic and bio-dynamic growers line up and sell alongside the cost-cut dried goods and the agit-prop leaflets. The organisers do like it if you are prep...