Irish food journey ideas

This is a re-write of a 2020 blog post

Small dishes selection at Bacchus Restaurant in Athlone. Picture credits: Paola Bassanese

I used to have a website called Athlone Diaries, which I launched in early 2019 and closed in 2021, because like many other projects in my life I was ahead of the curve and then lost momentum, moving on to something else.

The following is a re-write of a blog post from Athlone Diaries titled ‘Restaurants After Lockdown: A Collaborative Business Idea’. In this post I argued that Athlone could offer tailored food journeys, similarly to what you could find in Galway, for example.

I have updated some of the information and cut out what is no longer relevant. Here it is, enjoy.

Ireland may not have the luxury of Spain’s good weather, especially in the summer, but we can all take inspiration from the way Spaniards have their evening meals.

The concept of tapas is based on consuming small dishes of food with a drink in one place, then move on to another bar with a different selection of food accompanied by more drinks.

Tapas can be loosely translated as starters or appetisers, but they can also be miniature versions of a main meal.

Here’s a proposal: adopt the small plates business model in Ireland as a way for Irish businesses to increase profitability after lockdown.

According to Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, the food service industry in Ireland was worth €8.6 billion in 2019. €2 billion from the €9.3 billion Irish tourism industry was spent on food and drink.

Its mid-range estimates of losses to the food and drink industry post Covid-19 amount to €4.3 billion, with a worst case scenario of €5 billion.

​Dining experiences sampling different cusines

An evening out in Athlone is usually centred around drinks in one or more pubs, sometimes with a meal before that, bearing in mind most restaurant kitchens closed at about 9pm. However, we could adopt the Spanish tapas concept for dining out in Athlone where restaurants could offer a selection of small plates as part of their menu to speed up ordering. Small plates could be meat, fish, vegan and vegetarian.

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