Dublin's Best Spots for Dessert

Artisan ice cream makers Murphy’s started out in 2000 with a single store in Dingle, County Kerry. Today, the flavourful Irish business has five outlets, including one on Dublin’s busy Wicklow Street. From here, you can pick up a scoop of Dingle sea salt, caramelised brown bread or blissful butterscotch ice cream – among other life-changing flavours – all made with fresh cream and milk, and without the use of flavourings or colourings. If you’re not a dairy person, try some Irish rainwater sorbet instead.

Mimicking American diners of the 1950s, Irish retro-restaurant chain Eddie Rocket’s does dessert better than any of its rivals. Their chocolate brownies and cookie sliders are widely celebrated, but their milkshakes and malts made with premium dairy ice cream could qualify as desserts in and of themselves – the imaginative menu blends heavenly flavours like Kinder Bueno, Oreo cookie and Reese’s® Peanut Butter Cup.

Named after the narrow city street that it’s on, stylish Mediterranean-inspired restaurant Coppinger Row is where Beyoncé and Jay-Z ate when they were in Dublin, and also features on Condé Nast Traveller’s list of the 12 best places to eat and drink in the city. Its Sunday brunch menu is beloved and its cocktails on point, but this award-winning city centre spot is also famous for dessert – in particular its crowd-pleasing vanilla panna cotta.

Community café The Fumbally is an idyllic place to go for a slice of cake – all baked in-house with the freshest of Irish ingredients. The menu varies from day to day, but past highlights have included a pitch-perfect gluten-free chocolate creation and a sticky toffee cake that was praised by the Irish Independent. Whatever you try, make sure you pair it with a speciality coffee by Dublin-based roasters 3fE.

The same people who run San Lorenzo’s – a hip New York-style Italian joint on George’s Street – opened Dublin’s newest Mexican restaurant as a pop-up in 2015. Two years on, Taco Taco has endured, thanks to a satisfying menu of contemporary delights. Their inspired dessert dishes include things like salted caramel popcorn with peanut butter ice-cream, American apple pie tacos and San Lorenzo’s signature sweet – a Nutella® chocolate cheesecake.

With two city centre cafés, the almost 20-year-old Queen of Tarts has become one of Dublin’s best-loved purveyors of sweet treats. Their time-tested cakes list features a chocolate pecan tart that has to be sampled to be believed, while newer additions are added all the time – for example, a raspberry brioche that locals have been going loco for in recent weeks. Expect a wait for a table at this popular haunt at weekends.

Póg – which means ‘kiss’ in Irish – aims to provide a healthy dining option for Dubliners, producing superfood-rich salads and detoxifying juices. But they also effectively satisfy sugar cravings, with their cashew cookie dough protein balls, pancake stacks covered in chocolate, and pots of frozen yoghurt topped with Oreos.

Housed inside Dublin’s Yoga Hub on Camden Place, Happy Food serves vegan food that is freshly made daily. Alongside savoury meals and snacks, this lively café offers inventive, mouth-watering puddings like a roasted almond and coconut cake with coconut cream and caramel, or carrot cake with piña colada cashew cream.

Last but not least, Ranelagh’s colourful dessert parlour Scoop is worth venturing outside the confines of the city centre. Since opening in 2016, Scoop has seen queues out the door for its fare. As well as sumptuous gelato, this much-Instagrammed venue serves feather-light gluten-free French crêpes, ice cream sandwiches and artisan coffee to its many loyal fans.