Wild or organic Atlantic salmon cured in salt and then cold-smoked over oak or beech for 18 to 36 hours, served thin-sliced with brown soda bread, capers, lemon and butter.
Where to eat it: 4 restaurants across 1 city.
Ireland's smoked salmon tradition runs back to Atlantic wild fishing and oak-smoking practices in the seventeenth century, but the modern Dublin product is the postwar Burren Smokehouse (1989) and Frank Hederman of Belvelly Smokehouse Cobh (1980s). The dish became the breakfast and afternoon-tea signature in Dublin hotel rooms in the 1990s; today every restaurant from The Winding Stair to The Brazen Head serves a smoked salmon plate as a first course. Burren Smokehouse and Connemara Smokehouse are the two reference producers; the Bretzel bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese is Portobello's own variant.
Common allergens: Fish
Tip from the editors. Real Irish smoked salmon should be silky and slightly sweet, not salty. Burren Smokehouse oak-smoke is the city's reference.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
The Winding Stair on Ormond Quay in Dublin 1, Elaine Murphy's upstairs dining room above the bookshop overlooking the Ha'penny Bridge and the Liffey.
Signature: Smoked Burren salmon, Irish stew, Brown bread ice cream
Order: Smoked Burren salmon, then a bowl of Irish stew with brown bread.
Tip: Window seats face the Ha'penny Bridge; book three weeks ahead for the four river-view tables. Walk through the bookshop and up.
Gallagher's Boxty House on Temple Bar in Dublin, Pádraic Óg Gallagher's three-room canon of boxty, coddle and smoked salmon, the boxty reference in town.
Signature: Boxty pancake, Dublin coddle, Smoked Irish salmon
Order: The boxty pancake stuffed with beef and Guinness, with a half pint of stout.
Tip: The middle dining room is the calm one; the front bar fills with traffic from Temple Bar Square after 19:00.
The Bretzel on Lennox Street in Portobello, Dublin's only Jewish-tradition bagel and rye bakery since 1870, kosher-style classics and a working sourdough.
Order: A poppy-seed bagel toasted with cream cheese and smoked Irish salmon.
Tip: Six bagel varieties baked twice daily; the second bake at 14:00 is the quietest collection window.
Worth the queue: Bagel
Klaw on Crown Alley in Temple Bar, Niall Sabongi's seafood counter pulling Carlingford oysters and warm Lambay-crab and lobster rolls, the city's seafood street pick.
Try: Lobster roll and oysters
Tip: Counter sits fifteen; the lobster roll is EUR 18 at lunch. Walk-in only.
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