GALWAY - Where To Eat - Dela Restaurant Review

Hello my pretties.

It has been quite a while, hasn't it? I apologise profusely. The reason for my absence was I went and wrote a book (fiction, about Zelda Fitzgerald) that's currently in the process of being proofed and edited. As I was working on that for the first few months of the year, I just didn't have the same time or energy to give to my little food baby.

But now that the bulk of the work is done on THAT project, I am back to eat my way around Ireland, cook up tasty dishes in my kitchen and bring you all the food news floating in the ether that you may enjoy. 

For my first post back, I have something *very* special for you all. 

Last weekend I got to hang out in Galway City while Himself did his thing at MojoCon 2017 as I socialised and ate my way around the town. Basically my two favourite things in the world to do (especially when you include gin). 

On the Saturday night, our last in Galway, I wanted to go somewhere special as a treat. Now to be honest, many places in Galway meet this criteria. 

Like Cork, Galway has become quite the foodie haven over the last few years and I struggled to choose just one place to have dinner at. I narrowed the choices to Cava Bodega, 56 Central or Raw - Sushi in the Sky at the Raddison Blu Hotel where we were staying. But in the end, Dela was the one that stole my heart and had my stomach longing the most. 

Dela is one of those places whose name I've heard traded in many food conversations, but it was the recommendation from the divine GastroGays that sealed my determination to give my money and hunger to this establishment. 

Conveniently located a stones throw from Monroe's where the MojoCon wrap party was, Dela enchanted me from the moment I walked in the door. A warm and unique restaurant, the large decorative tree in the middle of the bright room had us ooing and awing while imagining booking the place out for a meal with all our friends. 


Dela's menu is seasonally determined so it changes quite regularly (which I love). On the night we went there, this was what was on offer:

As you can see, we decided to order the seafood platter (small) and the Chicken main. Himself also ordered a glass of white wine while I stuck with water. 


When our seafood sharing starter arrived, we has to double check had we ordered the small or large because of the size of it. This was the small!

Everything on the platter was fresh, zingy and light. The mussels were cooked in a gorgeously rich butter sauce that was so good, we mopped up the remains of it with slices of bread on the table. There were calamari strings which for me, can be hit and miss as I'm not a fan of heavy batters and tons of grease. But these were light and perfectly cooked; nicely chewy without giving my jaw an ache. The smoked salmon and salmon mouse were perfectly seasoned and we both said on another occasion, you could happily order the large and spend an hour working your way through it all. 

Then came our chicken main. 

It was a chicken breast stuffed with white pudding and apple, wrapped in parma ham and sliced into artful rounds arranged across the plate. It was accompanied by a fennel puree (which I surprisingly enjoyed, not being a huge fan of fennel), crunchy heirloom carrots, pearl onion, bacon sauce and - the piece de resistance for me - a perfectly crisp piece of chicken skin arranged on top. I am convinced that if chippers ever sold crispy chicken skin as a separate item on the menu to order that it would be a runaway success, so this addition brought joy to my mouth and belly. So much so that I stole half of Himself's one. Our chicken dishes were also accompanied with salty, buttery, boiled new potatoes. 


The flavour pairings were impeccable; everything on the plate sung with no one element overwhelming the other. Instead, they played together in perfect harmony. It is a testament to how filling the starter was that neither one of us could quite clear our plate and felt genuine remorse at not being able to do so. To go along with his main, Himself got a draft beer. 

The whole bill came to just over 63 euro which I found particularly excellent given the quality of the food. I have paid more for certain brunches before that left me hungry a while later. But my dinner at Dela satisfied every hunger and craving. 

When you're next in Galway City, do yourself a favour and get thee to Dela. They do brunches on the weekend and run lunches/dinner during the week. I personally can't wait to go back and lazily mill into their brunch on a boozy weekend the next time we're over (definitely sometime this year). In a city full of high-quality food, Dela well holds its own.