Galway, IE

JP McMahon's tiny Michelin-starred dining room on Lower Dominick Street, built entirely around west-of-Ireland produce and a long tasting menu. It's the city's serious splurge and one of the most respected kitchens in the country.

A warm, blackboard-menu room on Sea Road cooking seasonal Irish produce with care, holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand for years. Brunch and lunch are the relaxed everyday options; dinner is the proper occasion.

JP McMahon's intimate Spanish tapas room on Middle Street, pouring sherry and Spanish wines alongside small plates that mix Iberian classics with Irish ingredients. The dim, candlelit room turns a quick bite into a proper night out.

An eighteenth-century stone customs house by the Spanish Arch serving creative Irish brunch, lunch, and dinner with a writerly, slightly bohemian feel. It's the Galway address visiting food writers always name first.

A bright daytime cafe on Lower Dominick that turns into a Michelin Bib Gourmand small-plates and natural-wine bar after six. Same room, two personalities, both worth a stop.

A meticulously rebuilt traditional pub on Upper Dominick with snugs, a fireplace, and serious gastropub cooking that has won national awards. Locals and visitors mix easily over Guinness and roast bone marrow.

A century-old Shop Street deli and wine merchant with a smart casual restaurant upstairs cooking with the produce sold below. It's the easy lunch in the centre when you want quality without ceremony.

A snug wine bar above the famous cheesemonger by St Nicholas' Church, pouring Irish and European wines with boards built from the shop downstairs. It's the city's most natural matchup of cheese, wine, and conversation.

A narrow three-floor specialty coffee shop on Quay Street serving rotating European roasters alongside design books and ceramics. It's Galway's flagship third-wave coffee stop and a calm break off the main drag.

An 1894 corner pub at Cross Street and Quay Street, painted distinctive blue and packed with snugs, fireplaces, and a long whiskey list. It's the unmissable Quay Street pub for atmosphere and a slow pint.

A bright West End restaurant on Lower Dominick growing much of its own produce on a farm in Moycullen and roasting its own coffee. Brunch is the headline; dinner leans into seasonal Irish small plates.

An award-winning cafe, bakery, and wine bar inside the Spiddal Craft Village, baking its own breads and pastries and serving Gaeltacht-coast lunches. It's the natural lunch stop on the drive west along the bay.

A wood-fired Neapolitan pizza shop on Middle Street rated among the best pizzerias in Europe by 50 Top Pizza. The short menu, soft-leopard crust, and craft beer keep the room buzzing.

A tiny, family-run Japanese kitchen tucked into Middle Street Mews, doing donburi, sushi, and noodle bowls that locals rate the most authentic Japanese in the city. The room is small and the dishes arrive quickly.

A family-run seafood restaurant on Henry Street sourcing daily from Ali's Fish Market a few doors away. Fish-and-chips, oysters, and changing daily specials make it a reliable West End dinner.

A long-running seafood bistro on Upper Dominick known nationally for treating west-coast fish with care and serving a deep wine list. Twenty-five years in, it's still the local pick for a proper fish dinner.

A small West End burger shop on Lower Dominick consistently voted Ireland's best burger, with homemade buns, dry-aged Irish beef, and a tight short menu. It's the city's go-to casual feast.

A tapas restaurant on Upper Salthill open since 2011, sourcing Irish produce for Spanish-leaning small plates a five-minute walk from the Prom. It's the Salthill dinner that locals book before the weekend.

A small Mexican kitchen on Abbeygate Street Upper turning out tacos, burritos, and tortas with house salsas and Irish meats. It's the centre's quick, friendly Mexican fix.

A long-running family cafe and bakery opposite the Salthill church, doing all-day breakfast, French-style pastries, and cinnamon buns from seven in the morning. It's the Prom-walker's anchor.

A landmark Shop Street pub with two daily live trad sessions and a packed front bar that spills into the lane. Pints and music are the entire programme.

A bright red pub at the top of Mainguard Street famed for twice-daily traditional music sessions that attract Galway's heavyweight players. It's the trad bar on most Latin Quarter lists for a reason.

A two-floor Victorian corner pub in the West End hosting traditional music every night, with the upstairs sessions drawing serious musicians. It's the city's trad-pub destination across the river.

A long-running Dominick Street pub dating to 1894 with nightly live music, set dancing on Tuesdays, and an attached pizzeria for the late-night slice. It's the West End standby for a casual pints-and-music night.

The classic seafront walk from the Spanish Arch out to the Blackrock diving tower and back, around six kilometres on flat paved promenade with Galway Bay on one side and the Clare hills across the water. It's the walk every visitor ends up doing at least once.

An 850-metre concrete causeway out into Galway Bay from South Park to the small Mutton Island lighthouse, a quiet detour off the main Prom route. The island itself is closed but the views back to the city skyline are the point.

A sheltered horseshoe-shaped Blue Flag beach about ten kilometres west of the city near Barna, with a short cliff-top loop above the sand. It's the swim-and-stroll option when the Prom feels too busy.

A short two-and-a-half-kilometre woodland loop on the western edge of the city through one of the oldest oak woods in Connacht, passing the holy well of St Enda. It's the rainy-day forest walk close to town.

A flat riverside path north from the city along the Corrib towards the ivy-covered ruins of Menlo Castle, following the line of the old Galway-to-Clifden railway. The castle itself is fenced for conservation but the riverside loop is the reason to come.

A hundred-hectare estate park east of the city near Oranmore with woodland trails, an outdoor gym, and Slí na Sláinte loops that finish on Rinville Point with views to the Burren. It's the local Sunday park for east-of-city households.

The 90-seat home of Druid, the internationally touring Galway company that put modern Irish theatre on the world map. Catching a show in the intimate Mick Lally room off Quay Street is the city's signature cultural night.

A 400-seat city theatre at Courthouse Square hosting theatre, classical, comedy, and dance year-round and a flagship venue of the Galway International Arts Festival. It's the centre's general-purpose cultural house.

Galway's best-known indie music and comedy venue on Upper Dominick, with a downstairs bar, an upstairs gig room, and a rooftop smoking terrace. It's where most of the city's touring bands and stand-up nights land.

The West End's most respected trad-music pub, with a small downstairs front bar and a serious upstairs session room where the heavyweight players gravitate seven nights a week. For trad listening rather than singalongs, this is the room.

The bright red Mainguard Street pub running twice-daily traditional sessions that often pull in Frankie Gavin, Sharon Shannon and other Galway legends. It's the Latin Quarter's trad-music workhorse.

An 1894 Dominick Street pub with nightly trad and rock sessions and a Tuesday set-dancing night that has run for decades. It's the closest thing the city has to a community dance hall in a pub.

A Shop Street landmark for trad sessions, with two daily lineups in a small, low-ceilinged front bar that fills early. It's the most central trad-music option in the Latin Quarter.

Ireland's largest aquarium on the Salthill Prom, with more than 170 species from the Atlantic and inshore waters in a compact two-floor building. It's the rainy-day stop for families midway through a Prom walk.

A multiplex with a dedicated Art House screen running first-run independent and foreign films alongside the mainstream programme, in the Wellpark Retail Centre east of the centre. With the city-centre Pálás cinema closed, it's the best arthouse option in town.

A 1584 stone arch on the riverside, the surviving fragment of the medieval town walls that once protected the docks where Spanish merchants unloaded wine. It anchors the museum quarter and the walk down to the Long Walk and the Claddagh.

A vast cut-stone cathedral with a green copper dome, finished in 1965 on the site of the old city jail and one of the last great stone cathedrals built in Europe. The Romanesque and Renaissance interior is a striking change of pace from the medieval centre.

The city's main public square, formally John F. Kennedy Memorial Park after his 1963 visit, ringed by shops, hotels, and the Browne Doorway from a vanished merchant house. It's the obvious meeting point on arrival from the train or bus.

A four-storey medieval merchant townhouse on the corner of Shop and Abbeygate Streets, built by the powerful Lynch family in the sixteenth century and now home to an AIB bank. The carved limestone facade and gargoyles are easy to miss in the busy shopping street.

A three-floor museum behind the Spanish Arch covering the medieval town, the Claddagh fishing village, and modern Galway, all with free entry. It's the easiest single stop to make sense of the city's layout and history.

An 1818 limestone bridge over the River Corrib linking the Cathedral with the old courthouse, famous for the schools of salmon and sea trout you can spot below from late spring through early summer. A salmon-shaped pedestrian bridge stands alongside it.

An eighteenth-century quayside lined with the row of colourful waterfront houses that have featured in countless postcards and music videos including Ed Sheeran's Galway Girl. The walk starts behind the Spanish Arch and ends at the Claddagh quay.

The largest medieval parish church in Ireland still in regular use, founded in 1320 and dedicated to the patron of seafarers in honour of the city's port. Local lore says Christopher Columbus prayed here in 1477 before sailing west.

The pedestrianised heart of the medieval city, a curling run of pubs, buskers, and shopfronts between Eyre Square and the Spanish Arch. It's the strip you'll walk a dozen times across a long weekend.

A two-kilometre seafront promenade along Galway Bay, the city's daily walk for locals and the classic visitor stroll out to the Blackrock diving tower. Tradition demands kicking the wall at the Blackrock end before turning back.

A 1953 concrete diving tower at the western end of the Salthill Prom with one-, three-, and ten-metre boards into Galway Bay. Year-round sea swimmers and summer divers turn it into a small piece of theatre.