Fade Street Social Restaurant & Cocktail Bar

You'll find yourself on Fade Street in the thick of Dublin 2's creative quarter, surrounded by galleries and design studios—which tells you something about the crowd here. The space splits between a proper restaurant and a cocktail bar that takes itself seriously without being insufferable about it. The sort of place where you can grab a decent martini at the bar and overhear actual conversations instead of the usual tourist chat. Food-wise, they're doing contemporary European cooking that doesn't overthink itself, and the cocktail list reads like someone's actually been thinking about flavour rather than just throwing premium spirits at a problem.