Some of our favourites from 2017...

Archive - all the best places to eat, shop and stay in Ireland. A local guide to local places.

Fearless Food, by Lynda Booth (DCS)
This is a classic cookery book, from one of Ireland’s great cookery teachers. Ms Booth’s understanding of the nuances of technique, her ability to pull and push flavours and textures, roars off of every page, in a most beautifully produced book. Everything we have cooked works perfectly, and we expect to cook every single recipe. Read our review ...

Grow Cook Nourish, by Darina Allen (Kyle)
The title alone is a significant new food koan, a life-long food philosophy summed up in just three words. Everyone debates just which of Mrs Allen’s books is the most essential – The Ballymaloe School Cookbook?, Forgotten Skills of Cooking? – but for us this is the one. Read our review...

Cook Well, Eat Well, by Rory O’Connell (Gill)
A modest and winning – and wise! – work of beautiful food recipes from one of Ireland’s finest cooks. Read our review...

Favourite Recipes from the Food Truck, by Diana Dodog (Food Depot)
Diana and Mike demonstrate a vital truth in their work, cooking and serving food out of a portable van: all you need is imagination, creativity, and wit. Put those together and, suddenly, you have a queue of hungry people who want the butter chicken and the beef, chorizo and chickpea stew. Read our review...

Finn’s World, by Finn Ni Fhaolain (Gill)
You might bracket this as something for the gluten-fearing teenager in your life, but Finn’s book works – and succeeds – on a much broader palette than that. It is, first and foremost, a book about health, and the wealth of health. Good food is as much about the appetite created by surfing and gardening and having fun as it is about actual time in the kitchen, and Finn knows that and shows that. Very smart, and Ms Ni Fhaolain is just the sort of social influencer our society needs.