Primrose Café
Here’s why you should order the braised beef cheeks in the pretty Primrose Café, on Carlisle Road. Melanie Breslin’s husband, Ciaran, owns two butcher’s shops in the city, so Primrose is getting the best meat imaginable, which is why the brisket burger and the braised beef cheeks should be on your to-do list. It’s a sweet and charming room, the staff are fleet and polite, and they bake whizzo cakes, which explains why the room is chokkers. Primrose on Facebook
The Sooty Olive
The Sooty Olive is a busy, busy restaurant on the Waterside area of Derry. Sean Harrigan and his team are enthusiastic and credible, and they are still learning, grappling with the ropes and learning the ins-and-outs of the business, something they are happy to acknowledge. There is real honesty in the cooking – Thai red curry; Greencastle chowder; salt and chilli squid with peanut sauce; hake with tomatoes and peas – and it is easy to see why the restaurant is so popular, and it really is popular. Again, value for money is exceptional. thesootyolive.com
Guild
When we scribbled down a note about Guild, Claire McGowan’s café in the Guildhall, we simply wrote: “A beautiful space in a beautiful place”. The Guildhall is gorgeous, and so is Guild, the glamour of the room matched by Ms McGowan’s expert food. All of the virtues Ms McGowan exhibits in her Buncrana restaurant, The Beach House, are here in spades; colourful, delicious cooking, beautiful baking, a svelteness and glamour that make the room irresistible, above all a sense of sheer, simple good taste. www.guildcafe.co.uk
The Merchant’s House
Joan and Peter Pyne have two gorgeously left-field houses in the centre of the city, The Merchant’s House and The Saddler’s House. The Merchant is a grand and beautiful Georgian House, whilst the Saddler’s is simpler, but no less charming. Don’t miss Joan’s famous marmalade!
www.thesaddlershouse.com
Beech Hill Country House Hotel
Patsy O’Kane’s Beech Hill Country House Hotel is probably Derry’s best-known hospitality destination, and Ms O’Kane’s position as one of the great hospitality figures of Northern Ireland was recognised at the end of 2013 when she was awarded an M.B.E. The hotel and the grounds are quite lovely and the staff members from the Philippines are charming. Make sure to have both the fadge and the soda farl with your breakfast. www.beech-hill.com
Saffron Restaurant, Bistro and Take-Away
Saffron is the place where good restaurants in Derry take their staff for their annual Christmas party. Do we need say more? The food is a curious mix of IndoEuropean, but the cooking is so poised and delicate that a dish like risotto of chick pea - essentially a chickpea dahl, with Asian mushrooms, Indian spicing, Fivemiletown Creamery Soft Cheese and Pesto! - works so well. Gougons of monkfish with spicy dahl is a more obvious dish, and equally successful. Their chips are ace. saffronderry.co.uk
Custom House Restaurant
Chris Moran has been fashioning a great reputation for serious modern cooking in one of the city’s most beautiful buildings. It’s not just the room that is gorgeous: so are the views of the River Foyle, and so is the food on the plate. The day-time offer is smart and simple, before the main evening menus allow Mr Moran to show what he can do with impeccable local produce – Greencastle fish plate; Kettyle duck breast with hazelnut crackling; daube of beef with shallot and parsley mash; chef’s lamb plate. customhouserestaurant.com
Queens Quay Social
Darren Iddon has a glass-fronted room on Queens Quay in which to showcase his genre-busting cooking. Dishes such as “miso halibut, oxtail spring roll, smoked aubergines with courgette and sake sea vegetables“ show the many influences at play here and whilst this sort of involved food often carries a hefty price tag in major cities, the prices in Queens quay Social are super-keen. www.queensquaysocial.com
Moran’s
This great big filling station on Strand Road is permanently jammed with folk who are here not for the fuel, but for the food. The Moran family offer an incredible array of prepared food to go, as well as a hugely busy service counter. Join the queue! www.moransretail.com
