Sometimes you just need more than a spice bag or three in one to satisfy your Asian grub cravings. Well, luckily for you, we’ve rounded up the best of the best in Dublin, as listed below.  Warning: go with an empty stomach.  1. M&L Chinese, Cathedral St This Dublin 1 restaurant is slightly hidden out of the […]

9 years ago

You don’t have to be long in the rat race before you realise that your wage – you know, that lovely number you see at the top of your contract that makes you think, “I am gonna be so fucking rich” – actually has no bearing whatsoever on the amount of money you end up with.  […]

10 years ago

1. The Space, Drumcondra This northside salon is a hipster dream – complete with wooden crates, aluminium panelling and succulents a-plenty. They even host yoga workshops, offer clients a selection of herbal teas and their styling products are by the Peta-approved Kevin Murphy brand. Right on. View this post on Instagram A post shared by THE […]

10 years ago

We’ve all had one of those terrifying moments – walking down Grafton Street, on your way to God knows where, when you suddenly have an urge to go that just won’t abate. And whether you’re dying for a number 1 or a number 2, there’s always that moment when you just can’t hold it any […]

10 years ago

Jason Momoa’s in Dublin right now, enjoying a few good pints of the good stuff at the Dublin 8 Guinness brewery – and we have never been so jealous in our lives. The Game of Thrones and Aquaman star was in Belfast earlier this week during pre-production for season 7 of GOT, which has all tongues wagging about whether or […]

10 years ago

A Lovin Dublin reader sent us in this snap – of a rather unfortunate surprise she found in her Monday-night chipper chips (livin’ on the edge there, but no judgement). Yes, folks, that there is a crispy, deep-fried wasp – nestled in a bed of soft, fluffy, delicious chips. Yum. The worst news? The wasp was […]

10 years ago

If you mosey on down to the Bernard Shaw this Saturday, you’re in for a big surprise – the EU non-profit initiative, Art for Change, is hosting an art auction in aid of Inner City Helping Homeless. The 100% volunteer-run Dublin homeless charity operates a seven-day outreach service across the city, helping provide beds, sleeping […]

10 years ago

We had to laugh at this cheeky sign, propped up outside Urbanity – one of the newest additions to Smithfield’s burgeoning coffee scene. The coffee aficionados placed this sign outside, letting all fans of Colombia’s finest know exactly where they can get their fix.  That’s definitely got our curiosity piqued!  Thanks to Dylan Morrissey for sending […]

10 years ago

Whatever’s to blame for the extreme makeup trend – Instagram, YouTube, Kim Kardashian – there’s no denying that today’s “everyday makeup” (according to the internet) is one thing: totally fucking bonkers. There is no way that any reasonable, sane woman, with a job to go to and shit to do, is going to spend 90 minutes contouring her face […]

10 years ago

Look around: what do you see? On the one hand, there’s a whole load of really amazing architecture, from the Georgian facades up high on George’s St to the more Brutalist style of Dame St’s Central Bank.  On the other hand, there’s a shit tonne of ill-advised and barely thought out designs that appear, to the untrained […]

10 years ago

If your idea of gluten-free food is a couple of chewy wraps from Tesco’s free-from section, think again – a new bakery in Blackrock is set to revolutionise the scene for coeliacs (and, er, difficult #fitfammers who think gluten is the devil.) Gluttony is all about gluten-free food without the deprivation: salted caramel brownies, blueberry muffins and […]

10 years ago

How many Tinder success stories have you heard? And no, not just of the “Met on Tinder, got married” variety. How many stories have you heard of Tinder dates that went really well; how many people have regaled you with tales of hilarious chats they’ve had with “this guy I met on Tinder”? Now, take that figure […]

10 years ago

You can’t look anywhere online this week without seeing that photograph of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, sitting stunned in an ambulance in Syria. He was pulled from the rubble of his home in Aleppo after it was hit by an airstrike.  Aleppo has been one of the hardest hit in Syria’s civil war, where government forces are clashing with […]

10 years ago

The world is divided firmly into two camps: those who play golf, and those who do not play golf. Or, at least, that’s how it seems – but surely the players have to have started somewhere. But when? And where?  If you’re in your 20s, working in a good pensionable job and thinking about settling down – well, […]

10 years ago

Sure, there are loads of places you can shop when you need to find a dress for a graduation, debs or (someone else’s) wedding – but sometimes you just want to find something that little bit different and, y’know, that no one else is going to rock up wearing.  It’s tougher than it looks, especially […]

10 years ago

Meet your one Nikita – the brainchild of illustrator Aoife Dooley, she’s single-handedly responsible for the inner-city Dublin revival, and has a lot to do with our spice bag obsession, too.  Her super-smart illustrations, detailing the life of a North Dublin young one (Nikita), have won her national acclaim, an agony aunt column in STELLAR magazine and […]

10 years ago

Sure, Michael Phelps swam in his first Olympics at the age of 15, and while it might be too late for most of us to get into competitive swimming, there’s still time to perfect that breaststroke.  But if your gym doesn’t have a pool (and you may not even have a gym membership), it can […]

10 years ago

Who knew that table tennis wasn’t for the faint-hearted? If there’s one thing we learn every time we watch competitive ping pong, it’s that there’s a lot of tension – and power – behind those little bats.  If watching the action from Rio has you in the mood to pick up your own bat, we’ve got […]

10 years ago

Sometimes you want to get in, order your coffee and get out – and for those days, the world is your oyster when it comes to cafés.  But then there are other days, when the pace of life is a little bit slower and you wanna sit down, sip your coffee in (relative) peace and read […]

10 years ago

You don’t need a gym membership to try out some of the best fitness classes the city has to offer – and, even if you do, you might want to venture outside your comfort zone to try something a little bit different.  From boxing to CrossFit, swimming lessons to cardio dance, there’s a wide array […]

10 years ago

Ah, Dublin – where the sounds of the city mingle with the roar of the traffic and the endless yammer of construction (when will those Luas works ever be over?!). There are certain sounds you’ll hear in Dublin city that you just won’t hear anywhere else, and we’re not being nostalgic.  Love them or loathe them – […]

10 years ago

It’s been seven years since the Bike to Work scheme launched, promising to revolutionise Ireland’s commuter traffic by incentivising cycling to work – offering tax breaks for employees and employers who purchased bikes, obviously with the intention of cycling to work on them.  For some savvy employees, they might be on bike number two – you […]

10 years ago

Ireland still has the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world, for a wide variety of reasons – and while there are some women for whom breast is not best, there are others who lack the confidence to breastfeed in public. Especially when reactions are… not always ideal. So we got to thinking: where are the best places […]

10 years ago

The Dublin housing situation has been pretty disastrous for the past few years – with landlords capitalising on the “end of recession” by jacking up rents, taking advantage of the sheer number of students and workers looking to live in the city centre. It doesn’t help that Dublin city has some fairly fucking ridiculous restrictions […]

10 years ago

More than 2,000 people have expressed interest in today’s Pokémon Go fan event – a meetup at the Obelisk in the Phoenix Park, where organisers Geek Ireland are hoping the power of the herd will result in some deadly Pokémon, and some epic battles. The Obelisk is the location of a Pokémon Gym; from there, […]

10 years ago

If we have one thing to thank the Olympics for, it’s reigniting our passion for those incredible feats of physical wonder performed by superhumans we like to call “gymnasts”. Like, seriously, how is this shit even possible?! We can barely lean down to tie our shoelaces after a particularly gruelling week, yet these folks are doing backflips […]

10 years ago

Dublin BBQ joint Pitt Bros has added another string to its fairly delicious bow with the addition of its Dirty Menu – which, because it’s so filthy it should be illegal, you have to ask the wait staff for in stage whispers. Okay, fine, you can ask without whispering, but it’s an insiders-only type of job, […]

10 years ago

We totally get that some people enjoy dogging – the act of, er, doing the act while being watched by other people – but other people enjoy it a lot less, and can sometimes find themselves engaging in it without meaning to. It’s like this: you hop into your car with someone you want to […]

10 years ago

At eight months pregnant, Sinead Beasley could be forgiven for putting her feet up – but the personal trainer and European kickboxing champ is having none of it.  Instead, she’s still sweating it out at Fit Studios, the gym she works at, and which is co-owned by Sinead’s partner, Brian Lee (who also co-owns Chopped, the clever […]

10 years ago

Comic-lovers, rejoice! Today marks the release of a brand new series from DC Comics, All Star Batman, illustrated by Irish artist Declan Shalvey, along with his super talented American missus, Jordie Bellaire. But how exactly did an Ennis lad end up illustrating comics for DC – and not only comics, in general, but All Star Batman, set to be one […]

10 years ago

Poor wee Cara; not only is her latest flick, Suicide Squad, being panned by critics worldwide, the supermodel turned actor is now being slated by animal rights groups for putting an anti-bark collar on her husky crossbreed, Leo. (Not to mention her atrocious Irish accent.) Animal rights groups slammed the Londoner for the “cruelty” of fitting […]

10 years ago

A few short years ago, eyebrow tattoos were what you wished on your enemies, and what you laughed at in various hilarious internet memes. Today, eyebrow tattooing is getting a whole new lease of life – and a new name: microblading.  As the name implies, it involves a teeny tiny blade, used to place pigment – […]

10 years ago

With its serious stationery boom, 2015 was definitely the year of the paper revival (and people said it was dead!) and one Dublin-based artist is capitalising on our love of all things printed by “combining all things paper with all things Ireland.” Jess Rooney Dean creates illustrated paper cut-outs of iconic Irish shop, pub and salon fronts […]

10 years ago

Not that long ago, in a galaxy very, very nearby, an Instagram account appeared under the name @thegymwhisperer. It claimed to be a space where pretenders to the title of #Irishfitfam would be called out, under the guise of exposing their false claims. Y’know, they’d post pics of guys who “clearly didn’t lift” alongside a weighed-down squat […]

10 years ago

Suffer from depression? You’re not alone – no, really, you’re not alone. Figures from Aware suggest that up to 400,000 of us are suffering from depression at any one time, which makes it one of the most common mental illness going. And we all know – because it’s been drummed into us left, right and […]

10 years ago

As an industry, hairdressing seems to be totally immune to the effects of either boom or bust, with prices rising steadily since the heady days of the €10 dry cut. So we’ve come up with a new tactic: if you’re going to drop €50 on getting your shoulder-length hair blow-dried, you may as well get […]

10 years ago

This Electric Picnic has been an emotional rollercoaster for those of us who aren’t there. Waking up to torrential rain on Saturday morning, we were fairly happy to be warm and dry in our beds. But now that An Garda Síochána, of all people, have shared this gorgeous aerial photograph of the scene at […]

10 years ago

Living in Dublin is deadly – you’ve got a shit tonne of great restaurants right on your doorstep, the sea is a 10-minute drive away no matter where you are in the city, and when the sun is shining, there’s nowhere like it. But there are some Dublin experiences that just don’t happen anywhere else […]

10 years ago

Dublin’s most controversial café owner is at it again, telling diners that they’ll only be getting the gluten-free option if they can produce hard evidence that they are, in fact, coeliac. The White Moose Café on North Circular Road has had enough of people “who don’t even know what gluten is” following a “fad”, […]

10 years ago

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that finding a place to live in Dublin right now is about as hard as bringing the one true ring into the fires of Mordor, but this really takes the cake.  One Lovin Dublin reader – whose name we’ll omit because we really hope she finds a nice house some day […]

10 years ago

It looks like one Tesco branch has had it up to here with people stealing its honey, and has opted to put all of the jars into security boxes. This pic, posted by Reddit user @Connolly91, shows an array of Rowse manuka honey jars, all lined up in rows in their little theft-proof cases. The Manuka […]

10 years ago

Meet Pauline, the vintage bus that will be your home for the duration of a Dublin city tour – during which you’ll be served freshly baked goods like vanilla panna cotta and Guinness brownies. Vintage Tea Tours, the brainchild of Irishwoman Karen Nixon, is kicking off next week, on Wednesday September 7th, with trips running three times […]

10 years ago

This is Dublin’s latest yoga studio, Sweaty Soul, above Foodie Cafe in Dublin’s IFSC. It’s run by yoga instructor and blogger Molly McKeever aka Molly Pocket, whose sellout yoga retreats (with BFF Chloe Harris who just so happens to run Foodie) have been a roaring success. Classes, taught by the Sweaty Soul crew (L-R), Pilates instructor Katie […]

10 years ago

Stoneybatter’s Slice café has become known for the reliability of its weekly specials – Friday is French toast Friday (Hallelujah!) and Thursday is #durtydoughnutthursday, when the bods at Slice whip up a delicious, deep-fried, sugary doughnut, with a different flavour each week. This week? It’s the turn of the beloved Bounty bar, all super-sweet crumbly […]

10 years ago

Bad parking is hardly a rarity ’round these parts, but this shot – of a 2014 Aston Martin, parked crossways through two spaces at Q-Park by the Four Courts, comes pretty close to being the worst we’ve ever seen.  Not only is it bad enough to go into a parking space at an angle, making it difficult […]

10 years ago

There’s chaos on Gardiner St right now because of a car that’s flipped totally on to the driver’s side, holding up cars going in both directions.  Gardaí are on site trying to get things moving, but cars are crawling – thanks in no small part to the rubbernecking going on as they pass by the scene […]

10 years ago

Say hello to our new one true love, the as yet unnamed male southern white rhinoceros calf born in Dublin Zoo on Thursday afternoon, to proud mother Ashanti and father Chaka and a “delighted” Dublin Zoo staff. He’s Ashanti’s fifth calf, and marks a serious success story for the zoo, which is involved in the European Endangered Species Programme […]

10 years ago

Dublin traffic has ground to a halt as an overturned car at the Red Cow exit – the busiest junction on the city’s ring road – has caused serious tailbacks. To add insult to injury, in the last hour a truck broke down, too, on the Navan Rd outbound to the M50, causing further delays […]

10 years ago

It’s the kind of thing that would definitely happen at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair – a farm animal gets serenaded by a group of singers.  Except, in this case, it’s a teeny, tiny, adorable goat – and the singers are actually good, singing in harmony, and no one’s (obviously) drunk. In fact, the leetle goat […]

10 years ago

We thought the days of spending over the odds on a pint of beer were over – but it seems like they’re back with a bang.  This receipt was sent in by Lovin Dublin reader Nigel, who said, “We had a great night in the Chelsea Drugstore, but wow, it’s not cheap!” Are you ready […]

10 years ago