Restaurants in Dublin Offering BYO (Bring Your Own)
There is no getting around it – my cooking skills leave a lot to be desired. I love cooking and am always willing to put in the effort, but I tend to be a perfectionist and that leads to much turmoil in the kitchen. Wines are often consigned to insignificance on account of my overcooking or undercooking something.
The solution of course is to eat out in restaurants more often. But, and herein lies the rub, I can’t afford to drink top quality wine in most restaurants because of the considerable markup. And decent wine from older vintages? Forget it! The obvious solution is to bring your own.
The best BYO experience I’ve ever had was last autumn at Hawksmoor in London where there was little chance that I’d forget either the quality of food or the fantastic bottle of Sesti 2001 Brunello that I brought on their £5 corkage Mondays. Disappointingly, Dublin is still rather behind London in terms of restaurants offering BYO, but thankfully it looks like the times are a changin’, and raiding the Eurocave has never seemed so appealing.
Here is a list of BYO restaurants that I’m familiar with in Dublin. I’d like to expand the list to include restaurants the length and breadth of Ireland, so if you know of somewhere offering BYO, let me know and I’ll update this list periodically. BYO is frequently an unpublicised deal, so if you know of any ‘BYO friendly’ restaurants, let me know too.
As always, it’s worth phoning before you arrive to confirm the BYO option remains available. Bear in mind that these are corkage rates for wine – beer may have other charges / restrictions.
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Damascus Gate – 10 Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 475 2000
No corkage charged. Food Style: Lebanese / Syrian
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Dada – 45 South William St., Dublin 2. Phone: 01 617 0777
Corkage charged at €4 per bottle of wine. Food Style: Moroccan
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F.X. Buckley – Various locations
There is a BYO option on Mondays with corkage charged at €5 per bottle of wine and €10 per bottle of Champagne. (I’m told that this includes their early bird menu too.) Food Style: Steakhouse
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Gallaher & Co. Bistro & Coffee House – D’Olier Chambers, D’Olier St., Dublin 3. Phone 01 677 0499
BYO every day. Corkage charged at €4 per bottle of wine.
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Jamie’s Italian – Unit 1 Pembroke District, Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin Phone: 01 298 06 00
BYO on Mondays with €5 corkage charged. Deveney’s is just around the corner for all your wine needs. Food Style: Italian
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Keshk Cafe Restaurant – 71 Mespil Road, Dublin 4. Phone: 01 667 3002
No corkage charged. Baggott St. Wines is right around the corner. Food Style: Egyptian / Mediterranean.
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Leon 55 – 55 Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6.
€2 corkage charged or free if you buy from Redmond’s up the road. Open Friday and Saturday nights with differently monthly menus.
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Little Jerusalem – 3 Wynnefield Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
No corkage charged. Food Style: Middle Eastern.
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The Little Kitchen – 129 Leeson St. Upper, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 669 7844
No corkage charged.
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Michie Sushi – Various locations – Ranelagh, Dun Laoghaire, Sandyford, Rathcoole
Corkage charged at €3.50 per bottle of wine in the Ranelagh branch (check others for current status). Food Style: Japanese
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Musashi Sushi – 15 Capel Street, Dublin 1. Phone: 01 532 8068
Corkage charged at €6 per bottle of wine. Not available in IFSC branch though. Food Style: Japanese.
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Salt Lick – Sadly no longer in existence but I understand that future projects are in the works so will leave the link here.
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Seagrass – 30 South Richmond Street, Portobello, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 478 9595
No corkage charged, as long as you order minimum of two courses per person.
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The Vintage Kitchen – 07 Poolbeg Street, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 679 8705
No corkage charged once you once you order from the set menu or two courses from the dinner menu.
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Whitefriar Grill – 16 Aungier Street, Dublin 2. Phone: 01 475 9003
€5 corkage charged on Mondays. Free if you bring along a bottle (and your receipt) from the good folks at The Corkscrew though.
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Zakura – 13 Wexford St., Dublin 2 and 7 Baggot St. Upper Dublin 4. Phone: 01 555 8000 / 01 563 8000
€4 corkage charged per bottle of wine. Food Style: Japanese.
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In researching this, I was also pointed toward a Wine Pages listing of BYO restaurants in Ireland. I haven’t verified their listing, so I haven’t reproduced it here although there are some common entries.
Damascus Gate, Little Jerusalem and Dux & Co.
Just FYI, Musachi in IFSC isn’t BYOB 😦
Thanks Laura – I’ve updated the list now.
Great idea to publicise byob. A lot of restaurants mark up horribly. I wonder also if you go for cheaper meals ie early bird , is speed of service slowed so customer might have second bottle.
Keep up the good work!
Pat
Thanks Pat.
I think if you ask any serious winedrinker, the reality is that the majority of them drink far better wines at home than they do when out at restaurants because of the horrendous markups. My next mission is to find out a list of the unspoken BYO places – most of the top restaurants in London do it although usually corkage charges are so high that you would want to be bringing something really good to make it worth your while.
Dux & Co is unfortunately no more. So disappointed as I’d just discovered it for a lunch one Friday and was somewhere I was really looking forward to an evening out in as the management seemed really lovely and the menu was interesting.
What a pity! Many thanks for letting me know.
Allidins in Leeson St is no longer open, it has been replaced by a restaurant The Little Kitchen which is also a BYOB restaurant.
Thanks Stephen – had totally forgotten to update that one. And it’s my local BYO and all!