Lucinda O'Sullivan's Ireland

About The Restaurant

Tucked away on Buttermilk Walk, just off the main drag in Galway, Kate and Barry Donovan’s Trieste Café & Wine Bar is a true labour of love having opened its doors back in February 2020, just weeks before a global pandemic.

Inspired by the port city of Trieste in North-East Italy, famed for its beautiful sunrise-coloured facades, latticed alleyways and hushed boulevards - James Joyce even lived there for a time in his younger days - this fab European style café and wine bar is the perfect place for a bite or a sip, right in the heart of Galway’s hustle and bustle. Bright and airy throughout the day, Trieste develops into an enchanting space after the sun sinks below the horizon. The warm ambience of the continental décor is beautifully contrasted by the imposing beauty of the overshadowing Augustinian Church.

When it comes to food, boards are the big thing here, with a wonderful assortment of antipasto options to choose from. Their Classic Trieste Board features cured meats like chorizo Iberico, peppered pastrami, saucisson sec and poultry pate, along with four artisan cheeses of your choice,  fresh seasonal fruit and berries, dried fruits, mixed nuts, olives, a selection of breads, crackers, relishes and chutneys. Your cup runneth over! And, while I’m on the subject, the carefully chosen wine list at Trieste, which combines a great selection of old world classics with some more adventurous new world varieties, is brimming with choice. 

For all the cheesy connoisseurs out there, Trieste is a must, offering a forty plus selection of fromage from goats and sheep’s cheeses to blue cheeses to smoked cheeses too. They have hard cheese, soft cheese and sweet cheese as well. You can have hot cheese, cold cheese, and smoked cheeses too but I recommend you go back to the boards and share in their ‘For the Love of Cheese’ option for four, which consists of six artisan cheeses served with the same fruit, nut and bread accompaniments as above. 

To finish, satisfy your sweet tooth with their Sweet Trieste Sharing Board, comprising a selection of delightful bite-sized desserts and macaroons mixed with fresh fruit, berries and some little surprises.

Be sure to check out their popular Trieste Sharing Boxes also, which they began to keep themselves busy during the Covid restrictions, but they've proved so popular that they've continued to be a bestseller long after we kissed the lockdowns goodbye.

Trieste Sharing Boxes are available to order seven days a week via their website.

Map

Enquire

Send to a friend

Member Comments

Please log in to add a comment. Click here to log in or sign up