An authentic Irish meal

A French tourist asked me where could they go for an authentic Irish meal and I struggled to come up with an answer.

To me an authentic Irish meal is an Irish stew or an Irish breakfast or a chipper.

But where does Irish stews these days? Also I doubted they wanted a fry or chips for their dinner. It’s not very classé!

When I think back to all the dishes I’ve dined out on recently none of them were authentically Irish.

Pizza, burgers, curries – none of them are Irish.

But then again if I ate them at an Irish owned and unique to Ireland restaurant does that make it an Irish pizza? Or will pizza always be considered Italian no matter what the ingredients and where it’s made?

Furthermore an authentic meal has to be popular enough to survive today’s highly competitive globalised hospitality industry.

The historically accurate Irish stew has to triumph over the best of Japanese, Chinese, Greek, and Lebanese cuisine to name just a few.

It has to go toe to toe with the latest innovations in food experimentations.

So, if you did grow up on Irish stew all your life, would you keep eating it or go for the places that offer kinder bueno éclairs, Iron Brew floats, and pizzas with honey and whiskey soaked ham on them?

(then again you could argue that our contribution to world cuisine is not food but alcohol and that these French tourists should simply go and eat whatever they like at the nearest ‘Old Man’ pub)