Restaurant in Castlebar, Ireland
Seasonal Irish cooking driven by a restless chef.
House of Plates is Castlebar's most serious kitchen: chef Barry Ralph's seasonal, forage-driven menu produces dishes like Andarl Farm pork plate and Connemara air-dried lamb that reflect genuine technical ambition. The menu rotates, so specific preparations are never guaranteed. Book for the room rather than takeout — this food is built for the plate, not the container.
House of Plates on Upper Chapel Street is the kind of restaurant that fills up because locals tell each other about it, not because it has a national profile. For food-focused visitors making their way through Co. Mayo, this is the most compelling reason to stop in Castlebar rather than push on. The seasonal menu is the catch: dishes rotate with what's available and what chef Barry Ralph has foraged or sourced, which means the window for specific preparations is genuinely limited. If the Andarl Farm pork plate or the Connemara air-dried lamb are on the menu when you arrive, order them without deliberation.
The address — Upper Chapel Street in Garryduff — puts you in a quiet pocket of Castlebar rather than the main drag. The room is not a loud, high-energy space; the atmosphere is closer to focused and unhurried, the kind of place where the cooking is the event rather than the backdrop. For an explorer-type diner who finds noise a distraction from the food, that's a point in its favour over busier town-centre rooms.
Ralph's approach is rooted in constant self-improvement. His decision to spend downtime at live-fire events , including sessions with Smokin' Soul in Wexford , tells you something useful about the food: it is technically curious, not resting on a fixed repertoire. The Andarl Farm pork plate, which has featured as a signature, layers sugar pit belly, fillet schnitzel, ham hock, and sausage roll into a single study in how far one animal can go across a plate. The Connemara air-dried lamb with colcannon boxty anchors the menu in west of Ireland produce. Both dishes reflect a forager's instinct as much as a chef's training. For context on the kind of ambition driving smaller Irish regional restaurants right now, it's worth comparing House of Plates to what's happening at Aniar in Galway or Homestead Cottage in Doolin , places that share the seasonal, produce-led philosophy without operating in a major city. House of Plates belongs in that conversation. For broader Irish regional benchmarks, see also dede in Baltimore, Chestnut in Ballydehob, and Liath in Blackrock.
The editorial angle worth addressing directly: does food like this travel? Preparations as considered as a pork plate built from four distinct cuts, or lamb with colcannon boxty, are designed for the plate and the room. The textural contrasts , schnitzel crumb, soft belly, hock , that make the dish work in situ don't survive a journey in a container. If you're weighing a delivery or takeout option, the honest answer is that this category of cooking loses most of what makes it worth the price when it leaves the kitchen. House of Plates is worth eating at the source. This is not a takeout recommendation; it is a sit-down one. For regional Irish restaurants of this type, the same advice applies at Campagne in Kilkenny or The Oak Room in Adare.
Reservations: Booking is relatively direct given Castlebar's size, but a seasonal menu with rotating dishes means you have no guarantee of specific plates , book early in the week if you're planning around a particular visit. Booking difficulty: Easy by national standards, though weekends will fill faster. Dress: No information available; smart-casual is a safe assumption for a kitchen operating at this level. Budget: Price range not listed in available data , contact the restaurant directly or check current menus before visiting. Getting there: Upper Chapel Street, Garryduff, Castlebar, Co. Mayo. Group size: No confirmed capacity data available; contact in advance for parties larger than four.
For more on eating and staying in the area, see our full Castlebar restaurants guide, our full Castlebar hotels guide, our full Castlebar bars guide, our full Castlebar wineries guide, and our full Castlebar experiences guide. For a broader view of where House of Plates sits within Irish fine-dining ambition, the reference points are Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin, Terre in Castlemartyr, The Morrison Room in Maynooth, and Bastion in Kinsale. For international comparisons on what a chef-driven, produce-obsessed tasting format looks like at scale, see Le Bernardin in New York City or Lazy Bear in San Francisco.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| House of Plates | Easy | ||
| Patrick Guilbaud | Irish - French, Modern French | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Bastible | Modern Irish, Modern Cuisine | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Bastion | Progressive American, Modern Cuisine | €€€€ | Unknown |
| LIGИUM | Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Host | Nordic , Modern Cuisine | €€ | Unknown |
How House of Plates stacks up against the competition.
House of Plates is a small restaurant in a quiet pocket of Castlebar rather than a large event venue, so large groups should call ahead to confirm capacity. For parties of four to six, this is a good fit; larger groups may find the room limiting. Given the seasonal, rotating menu format, groups with varied tastes will fare better here than those with strict dietary constraints across the board.
The Andarl Farm pork plate — built from sugar pit belly, fillet schnitzel, ham hock, and sausage roll — is the dish that defines what Barry Ralph does here: multi-cut, considered, and worth ordering if it's on the menu. The Connemara air-dried lamb with colcannon boxty is the other anchor dish documented from his repertoire. Both reflect his foraging background and seasonal sourcing, so what's available depends entirely on when you visit.
Go in knowing the menu rotates with the seasons and Ralph's current influences, so you cannot pre-plan your order. The restaurant is on Upper Chapel Street in Garryduff, a quieter part of Castlebar rather than the main commercial centre. Ralph has trained with live-fire specialists and continues to develop his cooking, which means the menu is not static and return visits tend to differ meaningfully from previous ones.
Yes, if the occasion calls for serious cooking rather than a formal fine-dining setting. The food here is ambitious — multi-component meat plates, foraged seasonal ingredients — and Ralph's track record as an active learner rather than a coasting operator means the kitchen is engaged. It works well for a birthday or anniversary dinner where the food is the point; it is not the choice if you need a large private room or a grand dining-room setting.
Within County Mayo the local dining options are limited at this level of seasonal ambition, which is part of why House of Plates has the following it does. For comparable cooking in Ireland with more national profile, Bastible in Dublin operates in a similar seasonal, ingredient-led register. If you are already in the west of Ireland, House of Plates is the most compelling case in Castlebar specifically.
The menu is built around meat-centred, multi-component plates — pork in four cuts, lamb, and dishes shaped by what is foraged or sourced seasonally — so this is not a natural fit for vegetarians or those avoiding red meat. Guests with specific dietary restrictions should check the venue's official channels before booking, since a seasonal menu cannot easily be confirmed in advance from public information.
Castlebar is not a high-traffic dining city, but House of Plates fills on local word-of-mouth rather than tourist footfall, which means weekend tables go faster than the location might suggest. Booking one to two weeks out for a weekend is a reasonable minimum; for Friday or Saturday evenings, lean toward two weeks. The rotating seasonal menu is another reason to book rather than walk in — confirming current dishes in advance is worth the call.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
