The Garden Café

Fáilte / Welcome to the Garden Café

Green Street, Dingle, Co Kerry

Sráid an Deorín, An Daingean, Co Chiarraí

087-781 5126

We are thrilled that the Garden Cafe has retained its Bridgestone Award for 2011, building on the success of our first listing in the 2010 Bridgestone Irish Food Guide. This is what the Guide had to say about the café:

They really enjoy cooking at the Garden Café, and you might find a spinach and Stilton tart as the choice of the day or maybe Jerry Kennedy’s Blasket Island lamb sausages with mash, or even a rabbit stew concocted by chef Ruggero. As well as the food they exhibit local art, sell local crafts and enthusiastically throw their support behind the local festivals. So it’s a café as community endeavour as well as for culinary delights.

Located in the heart of Dingle (opposite the church on Green Street), the The Garden Café offers hearty home cooking using local, fresh produce at a reasonable price.

We bake our own cakes including apple pie, orange & almond cake, baked cheesecakes, lemon/lemon & orange sponges, fairy cakes, brownies. We go out of our way to source quality local produce and use local producers as much as we can.

We source our coffee from the award winning Java Republic coffee which supplies high quality, fair trade coffee and (real leaf) teas which we serve in real tea pots and real china cups. We offer a choice of wines that have been specially selected for the café.

We have both a breakfast and a lunch menu in addition to afternoon platters of artisan cheeses and/or cold meats. Our daily lunch specials include beef lasagna, goat's cheese tart, aubergine bake, freshly baked pasta with a range of sauces, spinach & stilton tart, quiches, courgette & feta tart and smoked salmon and courgette tart. We also have a daily salad special.

PRICES REDUCED (JULY 2011)

From Friday 1 July 2011, the VAT rate on food and hot drinks was reduced from 13.5% to 9%. We are delighted to pass on the saving to our customers and have reduced our prices by the corresponding reduction in VAT.

KEEPING IT LOCAL – LAUNCH OF THE DINGLE DOG

To celebrate the quality and range of food produce on the Dingle peninsula, three local producers/suppliers and the Garden Café have come together to create a locally sourced signature ‘hot dog’ dish – THE DINGLE DOG.

The DINGLE DOG showcases Jerry Kennedy’s multiple award winning sausages inside specially created buns baked by Courtney’s Bakery, topped with onions and salad sourced locally by Kingdom Fresh. The Garden Café will offer a “Dog of the Day” using the variety of sausages available from Kennedy’s Butchers and the range of buns available from Courtney’s Bakery, alongside in season salads from Kingdom Fresh.

The DINGLE DOG was launched at the Cafe on 11th March and was saluted with

a specially penned poem by Gene Courtney seen below reading his 'Ode to the Dingle Dog along with others enjoying both the launch night. We now serve a "Dog of the Day" at the café.

Ode to the Dingle Dog

There’s many a famous madra from Lassie to Rin Tin Tin

Those madras were famous for the movies they were in

They put out fires, they rescued dames, they even tried to talk

But those dogs could not hold a candle light to the new dog on the walk

Here's this new hot dog in Dingle, he’s local through and through

It’s the Dingle Dog by crikey all wrapped in a Courtneys bun

Topped off, not just with local Duffy’s onion, let your imagination run

So keep your Cordon Bleu me boys, your French nouvelle cuisine

In the Garden Café, Sheila makes the Dingle Dog Supreme

Gene Courtney (AKA The Faker Baker)

SAMPLE LUNCH MENU

Home made soup served with our home made brown bread €3.85

Open Sandwiches (home baked ham/tuna/cheese/egg mayonnaise)

served with salad €5.70

Warm Pear, Brie and Walnut Bruschetta served with salad €7.65

Baked Potato (fillings: cheese, home baked ham, hummus,

sour cream & chives) served with salad €5.50

Omelette (fillings: cheese, home baked ham, tomato, onion)

served with salad €7.65

Smoked Salmon Salad €9.10

Situated in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht area, we are more than happy to speak Irish to customers. Tá roinnt Gaeilge againn agus táimid breá sásta iarracht an Ghaeilge a labhairt le daoine tuisceanacha!

The crew at the café - Sheila, Annette, Orlaith, Roisin, Bairbre & Aoife - will do their utmost to make sure your visit is enjoyable and relaxing.

The following is a letter we received from customers to the café who were visiting from Cork: "To all the ladies in the Garden Cafe - just a short note to thank you for a wonderful lunch on Sunday last. We thoroughly enjoyed the food, the setting and above all the service. Wishing you all the best for the year ahead."

Next time you're in Dingle, come and join us in the Garden Café and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere by the open fire in Winter or soak up the sun in the walledgarden in Summer. We look forward to serving you.

Vouchers for the Café are available in any denomination. The Garden Café can also be hired for private parties and we are more than happy to cater to your particular needs.