Irish Soda Bread appears as a signature dish in 2 Ireland cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Irish soda bread · Dublin
A yeast-free quick bread leavened with bicarbonate of soda reacting against buttermilk, baked in 45 minutes with a cross cut into the top. The Irish kitchen bread, every day for two hundred years.
Soda bread became the Irish household loaf in the 1840s when bicarbonate of soda arrived in Ireland, giving cooks a quick yeast-free leavener for the rough wheat available to small farms. The brown soda variant uses wholemeal and was the working everyday loaf; the white soda variant arrived later. The cross cut into the top was practical (helps the loaf bake evenly) and superstitious (lets the fairies out). Today every Dublin restaurant serves a brown soda variant with butter; the Brazen Head, the Bretzel Bakery and the Winding Stair bake the city's references.
Where to eat in Dublin:
- The Winding Stair
- Spitalfields
- The Brazen Head
- Bewley's Cafe Grafton Street
Brown Soda Bread · Galway
Brown soda bread is the bread of Galway and all of Ireland; bicarbonate-leavened, made with buttermilk and wholemeal flour, it arrives warm at every table in the city.
Soda bread became the staple bread of Ireland after baking soda reached Irish kitchens in the 1840s, coinciding with the Famine when yeast was scarce and ovens were rare. The western Irish version uses wholemeal flour from locally milled grains and buttermilk from local dairy, producing a dense, nutty loaf. The Saturday Market bakers and the farmhouse kitchen tradition across Connacht sustained the Galway soda bread tradition. O Connors Traditional Bakery and the Galway Saturday Market bakers are the best places to buy authentic Galway soda bread.
Where to eat in Galway:
- Galway Saturday Market
- McCambridge's
- Dela
- Ard Bia at Nimmos