Restaurant in Cork, Ireland
Book it. Cork's most inventive small room.
Miyazaki on Evergreen Street is Cork's most creatively unpredictable restaurant, and it's easier to book than its quality suggests. Head chef Mike McGrath runs a menu that rotates ideas — reworked ramen, foraged ingredients, Cork-inflected Japanese cooking — and rewards repeat visits. Small room, counter seating, no fixed price range in our data, but positioned at the accessible end of serious Cork dining.
Miyazaki is one of the most genuinely exciting places to eat in Cork, and getting a seat is less of an ordeal than the quality warrants. The room on Evergreen Street is tiny, the stool count is low, and the menu is a moving target — but booking is classified as easy, which makes this a rare situation where ambition and access align. If you eat in Cork with any regularity and haven't been, that's the gap to close.
The most useful frame for understanding Miyazaki is that it operates as a perpetual work-in-progress — and that's a deliberate creative posture, not a limitation. Head chef Mike McGrath has built a kitchen culture where the menu is treated as a live document. Classic formats like lemon ramen and tatsuta don appear, but they've been reworked with enough personal inflection that they don't read as faithful reproductions. The team's confidence in reinterpretation has grown noticeably over time: where earlier iterations of those dishes might have stayed closer to convention, the current approach layers in local and seasonal references that give each dish a Cork accent alongside its Japanese one.
That seasonal instinct shapes what ends up on the plate in ways that matter to a repeat visitor. McGrath has shown a clear appetite for produce and ingredients that most kitchens wouldn't consider , kombu-roasted bream heads, sweet pickled kumquat ice cream, a reinvention of Cork's traditional tripe and drisheen. A Beamish and chocolate ice cream sando has reportedly appeared on the menu, which tells you everything about the kitchen's willingness to follow an idea wherever it leads. None of this is arbitrary: it reflects a sensibility that treats seasonal and local ingredients as raw material for ideas rather than as constraints.
For the explorer-minded diner, this means the leading strategy is to visit more than once, and to let the kitchen lead. Arriving with a fixed idea of what you want to eat is the wrong approach here. The dishes that read strangest on the menu tend to be the ones worth ordering.
Miyazaki is at 1A Evergreen Street, Ballyphehane, Cork. The room is small with a limited number of stools, so group dining is restricted by the physical layout rather than policy. Parties of two are the natural fit; larger groups should check availability directly before assuming the space can accommodate them. Booking difficulty is rated easy relative to comparable Cork restaurants of this quality, but the seat count means availability can shift quickly on any given week.
No price range is listed in our data, but context from the Cork dining market and the venue's positioning suggest this sits at the more accessible end of the serious-restaurant spectrum. Dress code is relaxed; this is Ballyphehane, not the Grand Parade, and the room's informality is part of the point. For dietary restrictions, contact the venue directly , the menu's experimental nature means there's no fixed structure to reference, and any accommodation is leading confirmed in advance.
Cork's restaurant offering has strengthened considerably in recent years, and Miyazaki occupies a position that very few places in the city can match: high creative ambition, low booking friction, and a price point that doesn't require planning it as a special-occasion splurge. For broader context on what's worth your time across the city, see our full Cork restaurants guide, along with our guides to Cork bars, Cork hotels, Cork wineries, and Cork experiences.
Within Ireland, if you're tracing a path through restaurants operating at this level of creative independence, dede in Baltimore and Bastion in Kinsale are both worth the drive from Cork. For the full formal end of the Irish fine-dining spectrum, Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin and Liath in Blackrock sit in a different register. Closer to home, Terre in Castlemartyr is a strong option if you want a more destination-format experience. For something more casual in Cork itself, Good Day Deli and Gallaghers are reliable. Internationally, if the kitchen's philosophy of restless reinvention appeals, Lazy Bear in San Francisco operates a similar ethos at a much higher price point , useful context for what Miyazaki is doing at a fraction of the cost.
Go with an open mind and let the menu direct you. The dishes that sound most unusual , fermented or foraged ingredients, unexpected flavour combinations, reinventions of local Cork classics , are often the point of the visit. Don't arrive with a fixed order in mind. The room is small and informal, the experience is counter-style rather than tablecloth dining, and the format rewards curiosity over familiarity.
Yes, if your idea of a special occasion is a meal that's genuinely surprising rather than formally ceremonious. The room is intimate by necessity rather than design, and the atmosphere is energetic rather than hushed. For a milestone dinner with full-table service and wine pairings in a more conventional setting, The Glass Curtain (€€€) is the Cork alternative. But for a birthday dinner with someone who eats adventurously, Miyazaki is a strong call.
For Japanese-adjacent cooking in Cork, Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine (€€) is the closest peer in terms of cuisine origin, with a natural wine focus that suits exploratory drinkers. For seafood-forward cooking at a similar price tier, Goldie (€€) is Cork's strongest dedicated seafood room. da Mirco (€€) is the pick if you want Italian and a more conventional structure. 51 Cornmarket is worth checking if you want something in the city centre with a different format entirely.
Groups are limited by the physical size of the room. The stool count is low, and the counter-style layout is designed for smaller parties. Two to three people is the comfortable range. If you're organising for four or more, contact the venue directly to check what's possible on a given night , don't assume it's direct.
The room itself is built around counter-style seating, so the distinction between bar and table doesn't apply in the conventional sense. Most of the seating is stool-based at or near the counter. This is part of the character of the place, not a concession to space constraints.
Contact the venue directly before booking. The menu changes frequently and its experimental nature means there's no fixed structure to cross-reference against a dietary requirement. Early communication gives the kitchen the leading chance of accommodating you; showing up without notice and expecting flexibility on a full-rotation menu is a risk.
Booking difficulty is rated easy, which is unusual for a restaurant of this quality in Cork. That said, the seat count is low enough that specific dates can fill without much warning. A week out is a reasonable buffer for most visits; if you have a fixed date in mind, book as soon as you know it. Walk-in availability is harder to predict given the room size.
No dress code applies. The address is Ballyphehane, the room is informal, and the cooking , however technically considered , is delivered without ceremony. Smart casual is fine; there is no version of overdressing that would be wrong, but it's not expected or necessary.
| Venue | Awards | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miyazaki | Mike McGrath likes the weird stuff. The kombu-roasted heads of bream. The sweet pickled kumquat ice cream. And the head chef of Miyazaki also likes a challenge, so he might reinvent Cork’s traditional tripe and drisheen dish for the hell of it, or just as quickly fire up a Beamish and chocolate ice cream sando. In fact, the entire Miyazaki team are a crack squad of ideas merchants, which makes eating in this tiny room on Evergreen Street an always thrilling experience. What is truly exciting is how the team have developed the confidence to put their own accents on the classic dishes like lemon ramen or tatsuta don, so every time you visit and sit down on one of the few stools in the room you feel you are eating something newly imagined, freshly conceived. Miyazaki is pure thrillsville. | — | |
| Goldie | €€ | — | |
| Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine | €€ | — | |
| da Mirco | €€ | — | |
| The Glass Curtain | €€€ | — | |
| 51 Cornmarket | — |
How Miyazaki stacks up against the competition.
The menu shifts constantly — that's the point. Head chef Mike McGrath reworks classics like lemon ramen or tatsuta don and introduces combinations (Beamish and chocolate ice cream sando, kombu-roasted fish heads) that you won't find elsewhere in Cork. Come with an open mind and no fixed expectations about what Japanese food should be.
Yes, if your idea of a special occasion is eating something genuinely surprising rather than something formally impressive. The room on Evergreen Street is small and casual, not a white-tablecloth setting. If you need ceremony and a long wine list, Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine is the better fit. If you want food that actually gives you something to talk about, Miyazaki delivers.
Ichigo Ichie Bistro & Natural Wine is the closer comparison if you want Japanese-influenced technique in Cork, but with a more structured format. Goldie is worth knowing if you want creative cooking with a strong local-sourcing angle. da Mirco covers a completely different register if you want Italian rather than Japanese. For a broader Cork city dining option with more space, The Glass Curtain or 51 Cornmarket both offer more conventional group-friendly setups.
Not comfortably. The room at 1A Evergreen Street is small with a limited number of stools, so large groups are ruled out by the physical space. Parties of two or three are the practical limit. If you're planning a group dinner, this is not the venue.
The seating at Miyazaki is stool-based, so counter-style eating is essentially the format of the entire room rather than a separate option. There is no conventional bar. Turning up and taking a stool is the experience.
The menu changes frequently and includes combinations across Japanese technique and Irish ingredients, so dietary needs are best raised directly with the venue before visiting. Given the creative, shifting nature of the menu, assumptions about what's available on any given day are risky. Contact ahead rather than hoping for the best on the night.
The room is small and fills quickly given the reputation. Booking as early as possible is sensible — at minimum a week or two out, and more lead time during busy periods. Walk-ins may occasionally work, but the limited stool count means availability disappears fast.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
