The 2 Best Breakfasts In Dublin By A Country Mile

niallharbison

Breakfast is a very particular thing. You always wake up hungry and you usually have a craving for something very particular. Breakfast at the weekends is like the holy grail for me. It’s the only time that the phone stops ringing, the emails dry up and I can finally sit down and take a deep breath. It’s the best time of the week. I wanted to share the one definitive place to have breakfast in Dublin but it turns out I couldn’t split the winners. A dead heat. So in a week when a bunch of people like Des and Stu rightly gave me shite for the posts drying up here I decided to come back out and give you 2 reviews for the price of one. You’ll never be stuck for Brekkie again because these are easily the 2 best weekend morning spots in Dublin in my humble opinion…

Odessa

If you don’t know this place by now and you live in Dublin then you clearly don’t get out much. I don’t even really need to be writing this review. The place is awesome. It opens at 11.30 on the dot and when I get down there at about 11.25 most weekends there is a queue of about 15 people. If you are later than 12 and don’t have a reservation forget it. Cop yourself on. What they have nailed is perfection. They don’t do anything wild just the simple brunch classics like….Full Irish, Eggs Benedict, Steak Sandwich and my on personal favorite Chicken Quesadillas which you can see in the pic. The have great juices, lovely cocktails and the place is always buzzing. The word brunch must only have been invented when somebody saw what Odessa were doing. It feels like a little bit of New York in central Dublin and I can’t suggest strongly enough that you go and eat there and make it your “go to” brunch place. I’ve never ever had a bad meal in here and I’ve been at least 50 times. It nails it every single time. No brainer. Check it out. I actually had two meals there in two weeks and as you can see from the salmon eggs Benedict it is savagely tasty stuff.Small tiny complaint is they have the salt and pepper in those little bowls where you grab it with your hand. Looks nice and all that but who wants to be getting a fist full of some guys ass that he was scratching 5 minutes earlier or a big snotty bugger. These sort of shared condiments suck but apart from that all good.

Some other opinions on the place

Gerry’s

Restaurants come and go in a blink of an eyelid these days but this place has been around for 20+ years. This is the perfect working man’s Caf (women obviously frequent the place as well but you know what I mean). It’s a greasy spoon. No frills. So no frills it doesn’t even have a website never mind a Twitter or Facebook page. I only discovered it when I moved in to where I live now as it is literally downstairs. I wake up, pull on a pair of joggers and I’m sitting down ordering 20 seconds later. It’s only about 90 seconds from St Stephens Green as well. The reason I love it is because I work in marketing. People (including myself of course) talk a lot of shit in our business. I couldn’t be more removed from reality given my day job. Gerry’s is always full of construction workers, bouncers, criminals (i’m only guessing that) and people who are on the dole. Everybody in here read’s The Sun as is proud of that fact. I go in here for a reality check. When you hear people shiting on all week about billion dollar valuations and ROI it can be refreshing to switch off all technology and get a finger back on the pulse of real life. The food is pretty decent too. Gerry is an Aul lad of about 50 who cooks it all himself. The fry up is €6.50 with a load of scalding hot tea and a big basket of toast. 6 fucking 50!! Put that in your Celtic Tiger and smoke it! They also happen to do amazingly simple lunches and dinners with old staples like Irish Stew, Chicken Kiev and Brown mince and spuds always on the menu. In a world gone mad with poncy shit this is the perfect tonic for anybody looking a decent bit of simple food.