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Avoca Café

City sister to the famous craftshop and café with its flagship store in Kilmacanogue, County Wicklow (see entry), this large centrally located shop is a favourite daytime dining venue for discerning Dubliners.

The restaurant (which is up rather a lot of stairs, where queues of devotees wait patiently at lunchtime) has low-key style and an emphasis on creative, healthy cooking that is common to all the Avoca establishments. Chic little menus speak volumes - together with careful cooking, meticulously sourced ingredients like Hederman mussels, Gubbeen bacon and Hicks sausages lift dishes such as smoked fish platter, organic bacon panini and bangers & mash out of the ordinary.

All this sits happily alongside the home baking for which they are famous - much of which can be bought downstairs in their extensive delicatessen.

Avoca Cafe : Licensed. Meals daily, in shop hours. Seats 100; toilets wheelchair accessible; opening hours: 10am-5.30pm Mon-Sat (hot food served until 4.30pm Mon-Fri), 11am-5pm Sun; á la carte. Bookings accepted but not required. SC 10%. Closed 25/26 December, 1 Jan. Amex, Diners, MasterCard, Visa.

Directions:

Turn left into Suffolk St. from the bottom of Grafton St.