Go right now!

If you like to eat good food (and who doesn't?), stop what you're doing!  Hold everything!  Grab the nearest airplane/bus/train/boat/car/horse and go to The Old Barracks in Athenry, County Galway, Ireland right this minute!

The Old Barracks Restaurant

The Old Barracks is a charming, homey restaurant which is firstly a bakery.  So when you walk in through the yellow doorframe, you at once inhale the most wonderful aromas of baking cakes and breads, fragrant arabica coffee, tea, and melting chocolate.  You involuntarily linger here as you stroll toward the dining room, past the fresh artisan breads and rolls on wood shelfs to your left, and the colorful display of decadent desserts behind glass on your right.

The Dominican Priory

The restaurant is cozy and down-homey, complete with a fireplace, paned windows at the front overlooking the street, and large framed photographs of hens, pigs, cows and roosters along the walls, interspersed between shelves adorned with hand-painted teapots and other homey sundries.

The ancient priory and cemetery

The place is busy, and the service is good.  When we first walked in, a few minutes before lunchtime, half the tables were already occupied.  Before our lunch was served, there was a queue of knowing people, mostly school-uniformed teenagers, patiently waiting for a table.

Model of the original walled city of Athenry

After but a short wait, I was served the hands-down best vegetable soup I've ever tasted.  I tried to identify all of the flavors of this pureed delight, but picked out only the perfectly roasted medley of green beans, carrots, butternut squash and red peppers, before I didn't really care anymore what was in it, I just wanted more!  A variety of thickly sliced, dense, soft, brownbreads and a salad of small, bright green and flavorful wild leafs that might have just been plucked out of a field completed my lunch.

Todd cleaned his plate of the traditional Ploughman's lunch: meats, cheeses, eggs, salad, fruit and brown bread served on a traditional wood plate.

And, oh! the Banoffi!  Todd ordered our dessert: a thick graham crust drizzled with caramel, topped with sliced banana, thick whipped cream, and shaved dark chocolate.  I normally have one or two spoons full of dessert, but I kept up with Todd to the last bite of this one!

With our hunger completely satiated, we wandered around the darling village of Athenry, which claims to be the oldest still-standing medieval town in Ireland.  80% of the town's original wall built in the early 1200's still stands, as well as parts of five of its six original towers, a castle dating back to 1240, and the glorious ruins of an ancient Dominican priory founded in 1241.  A friendly volunteer at the Athenry Heritage Center happily recanted the town's history, and told us it is possible to follow the perimeter of the entire wall on foot, although parts of it are in people's backyards (!?!).  We started at the priory and walked one length of the ancient wall, where three large cows were sunning in what once would have been a water-filled moat.

Athenry and the best vegetable soup you'll ever have at The Old Barracks (and a castle.  A CASTLE!) are well worth the six-hour flight from the U.S., three hour trip from Dublin, and 20 minute bus ride from Galway.  Believe me.

Athenry Castle

Walls and tower near the Castle

Cows lounging near the ancient wall