Adele Miner visits Tenters Gastropub for some hearty food in the heart of Dublin.
One stroll around Dublin’s Liberties provides you with a feel for the area. Perfectly blending old-school Dublin history with a vibrant new culture, the area is renowned for vintage stores, independent-run cafe’s, quirky pubs and great spots to dine. It’s no surprise that the area made it to Time Out’s ‘coolest neighbourhoods in the world’ 2025 list.
If it’s good food you’re after at a price that doesn’t break the bank – but still feels like an occasion – Tenters Gastropub is the perfect Liberties spot.
Located inside The Aloft hotel on Mill Street, the pub appears unassuming from the outside, with the vibe – and your expectations, completely shifting once you step inside. Around since the 1920s, the venue was once a traditional local pub and the preservation of the original facade from Clanbrassil Street makes it feel like the kind of place you would have been placed in the corner of as a child with a bottle of TK Red Lemonade to keep you entertained.
With a revamp since then, inside, a lot has changed. For adults, two things are keeping you entertained in Tenters in 2026 – the great menu and luxe but homely decor – and I should mention the company you’re with, of course. Keeping its deep-rooted neighbourhood history alive, the restaurant slash pub features beautiful mosaic floors, blue velvet booths and brown leather armchairs which scream out for you to sit down and relax in. With a roaring fire on the go, it’s the ideal spot to replenish and spoil yourself on a cold, blustery day in the capital.
As for the menu, it’s made up of both Irish classics and signature dishes that would please almost every kind of diner. Encouraged to order drinks from the expansive wine and drinks menu, the friendly staff were on hand to offer wine recommendations if your own wine knowledge isn’t up to scratch. I land on a smooth Chateau La Menotte Lalande de Pomerol glass of red, while my friend, Sinead, has a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Both drinks wash down well as we place our orders, for myself – I get the Sautéed Gambas for starter, Chicken Supreme Chasseur for main, and Homemade Chocolate Brownie for dessert. Sinead, a pescetarian, goes with the Burrata Salad, Beer Battered Fish & Chips and the Irish Ice-Cream Selection for her pièce de résistance.
Our food arrives fresh and promptly to the table, despite the restaurant being fairly full for a Tuesday evening. I take a look around at the guests who appear to be a mix of hotel guests, colleagues attending a work event and locals, a balance I feel is testament to the quality of the food being served. Somewhat apprehensive when I order prawns after experiencing my fair share of rubber-likes ones in the past, my worries vanish once I sink my knife into the Gambas starter – it’s fresh, bursting in flavour and melts in the mouth. Sinead quickly makes short work of her Burrata Salad, commenting on perfect contrast between the creamy burrata and and sweet sun-dried tomatoes it’s garnished with.
Once our starters have been digested, our mains arrive. There’s one thing I look for in a chicken supreme, and it’s moistness, thankfully my Chicken Supreme Chasseur does not disappoint. Perfectly marinated, it sits on a bed of horseradish mashed potato and a rich mushroom Velouté to soak up. Sinead’s Beer Battered Fish & Chips is what you would expect a fish and chip to be, light and crispy with a side of tartare sauce. I steal a couple of the hand-cut fries from Sinead’s plate and regret not ordering my own extra side of them, as they’re cooked to perfection.
But, it’s just as well I didn’t order those extra chips, otherwise I wouldn’t have had room for desert, which for €9.50 was excellent value for money. My Homemade Chocolate Brownie lands in front of me with not one, but two brownies neatly stacked on top of each other accompanied by a scoop of Teeling Whiskey Ice Cream. I acknowledge that my eyes are likely bigger than my belly at this point in the evening and pass one brownie over to Sinead, which pairs perfectly with her Irish Ice-Cream Selection.
Each course felt faff-free, with a focus put on good-quality, fresh ingredients, all served in a relaxed but not entirely informal setting. It felt like an elevated Tuesday-night, but without the pressure to keep our top buttons closed – which, by the end of the meal, were very much opened with satisfaction.
Tenters Gastopub is open daily for lunch from 12pm to 2.30pm and for dinner from 5pm to 9.30pm. Bookings can be made online on https://www.tenterspub.ie/book.
