The shortlist

The coolest neighborhoods in Dublin.

This site exists to give one answer per city, and for Dublin that answer is The Liberties. But the shortlist deserves daylight. Four neighborhoods made the final cut, and the gaps between them are smaller than the ranking suggests. Here is where they landed and why.

01

The Liberties The pick

The Liberties won because it still has friction. Portobello has the Michelin star, Stoneybatter has the wine bars, but neither has a working antiques row next to working distilleries next to a Saturday market that locals actually shop at. Francis Street alone carries more range than most full neighborhoods: Rumi for coffee, Lucky's for pints, Jam Art Factory for work you can afford. The deciding detail: the new arrivals here, Variety Jones, Spitalfields, Two Pups, opened into an existing culture rather than replacing one. The scene grew out of the street. That is rarer than it sounds.

Read the full case for The Liberties →
02

Portobello

A wedge between the Grand Canal and Camden Street, and pound for pound the best eating in Dublin. Bastible holds a Michelin star at Leonard's Corner. Picado on Richmond Street runs cooking classes out of Ireland's best Mexican pantry. When Locks closed after fifteen years, the Etto and Uno Más team took the canalside room for Lena. The neighborhood even exports chefs now. What kept it at second is comfort. Portobello is finished, in the good sense and the ranking sense. There is nothing left to argue about here except a table at Delahunt.

03

Stoneybatter

Northside, artisan cottages off Manor Street, and the fastest transformation in the city. L. Mulligan Grocer set the template years ago, and now Hynes' has a beer garden and Kinnegar on tap, Beo pours natural wine, and a city councillor is on record calling the whole thing hipster hell. That fight is real and it counts against the ranking, because the change here reads more like replacement than growth. But if the new crowd puts down roots the way the old one did, Stoneybatter takes the top spot within five years. Watch this one.

04

Rathmines

The Stella is the most beautiful room to watch a film in Ireland, restored Art Deco, armchairs, cocktails brought to your seat. Around it sits a proper high street: Blackbird for pints, Farmer Brown's for dinner, The Hopsack for everything your doctor suggested. The catch is that Rathmines serves its own residents and nobody else. It is a place to live well cheaply, not a place a scene comes from. Young renters keep it honest. A few more reasons to cross the canal on purpose and it climbs.

No juries, no sponsors. How we pick explains the rules; The Liberties is where they landed.

Last updated