Here are some of our favourite places for a sandwich, salad or something more tempting.
If you’re planning a visit to Cork, be sure to stop off at these delicious spots. Plus, restaurants like Rachel’s, Perry Street Market Café and Tara’s Tea Room offer amazing interiors inspo.
The stylish café has a bit of everything, with flavourful salads and sandwiches, hearty soups and mains and a huge choice of sweet treats.
Everything looks so good at The Sandwich Stall in the English Market, it’s impossible to choose. Owned by the people behind Toonsbridge Dairy and The Real Olive Company, it won’t be a surprise to foodies in the know that this place does delicious options. The sandwiches and heaping bowls of salads each day are all reasonably priced lunch options to go, so you can wander around the market and pick up a few bits after.
Recently reviewed in Irish Country Magazine, this café prioritises quality ingredients and the varied menu offers classics as well as some unique choices for when you fancy something different, such as a spinach and mushroom pancake with cucumber pickle, or crab and coriander tagliatelle.
A stalwart on the lunch scene in Cork, Amicus will never disappoint. The burgers and pizzas are great, as are the salads (the roast vegetable one is divine), and also some traditional heartier mains. A great place to bring the family with options to suit all appetites and taste buds.
We love the atmosphere and the giant menu at Uncle Pete’s. Vegetarians and coeliacs are really well catered for and certainly aren’t an afterthought. The pizzas are terrific and the salads are really tasty with good portion sizes.
The cute decor is enough to draw people in but the menu is what will make you want to go back. Keep an eye on the Tara’s Tea Room Facebook Page for their daily specials. Examples include a steak baguette with sauteed spinach, blue cheese mayo and cheddar, quiches with goat’s cheese or bacon, and pulled roast chicken on farmhouse bread with salad. The cakes and treats are also not to be missed so leave room.
Asian street food makes is a tasty lunchtime treat and Ramen has noodles, curries and wok dishes including Japanese katsu curry, Indian tikka masala and pad thai to name a few. Their ethos is to make the healthiest possible dishes by reducing calories, sugar and salt wherever possible, and there are no additives or chemicals in any dishes.
This Middle Eastern-inspired menu is packed with healthy ingredients and flavoursome herbs and veggies. Opt for your falafel served Palestinian or Lebanese- style, or with one of the salads; Lebanese fatoush, Moroccan quinoa, Shamandar (bulgar wheat) or tabbouleh.
Make sure you go hungry for lunch at McGettigans. The menu includes gourmet sandwiches such as a reuben with Cork spiced beef, delicious steaks and beef, chicken fillet, seared tuna and falafel burgers served on Wateford blaas. Local suppliers include Twomey’s Butchers and O’Connell’s Fish.
