Review
McDonaghs have been serving fish and chips in Quay Street long before it became fashionable, indeed some would say McDonaghs is the reason Quay Street is now the centre of all things culinary in Galway City. This renowned business is almost all things to all people, take-away fish and chips, sit down restaurant and sidewalk café in the Summer.
When Paolo and Brenda Donoghue went in search of Ireland’s best bag of chips, they invariably ended up in McDonaghs, the overall winner. There not the only ones, one wall is given over to notes, letters and reviews from happy customers, from New York to Russia. The menu lists a vast array of seafood, all in several languages, a sure sign of McDonaghs global appeal and well traveled clientele. Indeed, don’t take our word for it, here’s what the New York Times had to say,
For seafood straight off the boats, served up in an authentic maritime atmosphere, this is Galway's best choice. The place is divided into three parts: a traditional "chipper" for fish and chips, a smart restaurant in the back, and a fish market where you can buy raw seafood. The McDonaghs, fishmongers for more than four generations, buy direct from local fishermen every day, and it shows; crowds line up every night to get in. The menu includes salmon, trout, lemon or black sole (or both), turbot, and silver hake, all cooked to order. In the back restaurant, you can crack your own prawns' tails and crab claws in the shell, or tackle a whole lobster.
Inside the décor is traditional maritime, with stone floors, wooden tables and chairs and pictures of fishermen and red sailed Galway hookers. If the smell of fish and chips covered in salt and vinegar aren’t enough to lead you through the door, then just think, when Ireland’s best food critic, possibly an Italian, went in search of the best chips in Ireland, he ended up here. High praise indeed.
