So glad we stopped here for dinner tonight. The food was phenomenal. It's a small establishment so…read moremaking a reservation is recommended. I saw several people get turned away due to not having a reservation.

Heard great reviews about this place. Instead it was very disappointing. Male employee was very…read morerude and arguing with several customers because they just wanted a drink.

This was a lovely spot for dinner. Very high end modern interior with a covered outdoor patio. I…read morerecommend a reservation, we did not have one but were fortunate to have a few seats open up at the bar. The Hake dish was fresh and delicious. I didn't enjoy the ratatouille that accompanies the dish, but the fish was well worth it. The filet was also cooked perfectly and had great flavor! The chips were also yummy. Great texture outside and soft interior. Their own soup was also delicious. Great flavor and had a great onion to broth ratio. If in the area I recommend getting a reservation or arriving earlier to snag a table. Great overall

I had a reservation for dinner but somehow ended up in the area two hours early. Luckily, the staff…read morewas kind enough to seat me when I arrived! The fish and chips were good but pretty standard. The mushy peas, though, were some of the better ones I've had on my trip. The crispy chicken torn salad was a bit of a surprise--the chicken wasn't crispy at all and seemed more like cooked chicken that had been torn up and pan-fried. Definitely different, but not what I was expecting. The restaurant was pretty packed, with people constantly coming and going. They also had tons of awards displayed outside, so clearly it's a popular spot in the area. Maybe I should have tried more dishes to figure out what all those awards are about.

Really massive spot with good tasting beer. The bartender wasn't overly friendly. It's a weird…read morething to rave about but their beer garden was gorgeous!

A "proper" pub. Proper meaning that you'll excuse the slightly dingy surroundings because the…read moreatmosphere is so good. It's in a good location too, so if you're looking to sink a few inexpensive pints before a night out, you could do a lot worse than Costigans. There's nothing to recommend Costigans over a couple of other places in the town. It's in that strange twilight zone of pubs that everyone drinks in, but nobody is really a regular.

drinks- 7/10 ambiance - 10/10…read moreservice- 8/10 overall8.5/10 got the strawberry martini and it was mid. not impressed. great vibes in this bar. service is fast but nothing memorable

Had dinner here on our first day in Cork. We started at a table and after dinner made our way to…read morethe bar. For dinner my wife ordered the Irish lamb stew and I had the fish and chips. The stew was superb,it had plenty of lamb and nicely cut pieces of potato and root vegetables. This was the best stew by far after having stew twice while in Dublin. The fish was good but not the best I've had and the chips were a little lukewarm. Once at the bar we enjoyed some drinks and stayed for the live music until closing. Also, Michael gave us some great recommendations for places to go in Cork. Glad we found this pub and I'd recommend it to travelers.

The food market decor and ambiance is a great visual fit setting the expectation of fresh tasty…read morefood. The friendly service only adds to the ambiance, and the small but diverse menu delivers with great options food, drink, and wine options. Recommend parties of two sitting at "bar" area to people watch the lower meat market.

I saw this place recommended on a lot of blogs, so I decided to check it out. I came for lunch in…read morethe afternoon with a reservation, so getting seated was easy. Honestly, the food was just very ordinary to me. Nothing really stood out. Service was okay, and the dining room felt a little cramped with the tables fairly close together. If you're in the area or checking out the market, it's a perfectly fine place to stop for a meal. But if you can't get in, I don't think you're missing out on anything.

This was a great pub! We came for the Live Irish music and the music was fantastic. The musicians…read morewere very talented. The first floor is where they do the music and it's pretty small, so if you come for the music I would come early to snag a seat. The beer is also very good. I tried the Beamish which is a famous beer in Cork and it was not bad.

Great joint.. super busy dive bar with live Trad after 6pm daily! Walking in, if you can... great…read morecircular bar surrounded by many tables.. this place is very popular so if you get a seat guard it with your life. Got a spot at the bar and they have a bunch of bartenders so service was very good then the music started... great traditional Irish music! Good spot for one or two Guinness but I wouldn't plan on much more, it's just too busy. Must see joint in Cork City/ talk later?

I had popped in here as my companions were in the music store across the road. I had barely walked…read morein, requested a table for 4, and the gentleman/employee at the door just gave off an air of attitude (I'm thinking he was the manager). During our entire stay, as my friends had joined about 10 minutes after I was seated and had already ordered drinks, the employee just kept throwing glances and staring at us the entire time. We were all ordering, so it wasn't like we were holding a table hostage. We did get good service from the waiter, although he didn't come around as often, even when we were out of drinks. Kudos to the whisky sommelier for giving us great suggestions. It's a quirky bar/restaurant, but I'm not sure it would be worth a return trip. The employee with the attitude was really unnerving.

Came here with a party of 11. We dined upstairs where there is a stage with live musicians. The…read moremusic started off with one gentlemen playing the accordion and the other playing the guitar. Next the musicians played the bodhrán, an Irish drum. Finally, the musicians invited about six members of the audience to learn how to play the bodhrán. Overall the music quality was excellent. The food was also satisfying. I had the chicken and chorizo pie which came with a small side salad dressed in honey mustard and a small portion of roasted potatoes. My friends really enjoyed the pork ribs. The waitress was awesome she split the bill for our entire group!

Amazing breakfast the scrambled eggs are so graceful with outstanding toasted bread underneath and…read moresausage bacon and salad on the side. The waffles are stunning and mine had fresh banana slices a buttery caramel sauce slivered almonds ice cream and whipped cream!

Stopped by for a drink and whiskey and the following happened. We sat in the back bar and ordered…read moretwo beers and wanted two Irish Whiskeys (Red Breast and Goldspot)there was none at the back bar so we went to the front bar and asked the female bartender for Red Breast or Gold Spot and in a snarky response stated, " we don't serve American whiskey. I guess she was not aware both whiskeys are Irish. This by far has been the least favorite pub we have visited in Ireland and I would not recommend it.

My niece did her due diligence when selecting this place. It gets busy so we made sure that we…read moremade reservations. It's a beautiful restaurant and everything we tried was amazing. It began to fill up rather quickly for dinner. In the States we are used to being rushed out the door. Here starters and entrees are spaced out to allow you to sit and socialize.

There is a particular kind of disappointment reserved for a restaurant you expected to enjoy…read more The SpitJack was one of those. On paper, the proposition is difficult to quarrel with: Irish ingredients, rotisserie cooking, an attractive room, and a menu written with sufficient enthusiasm to make a hungry man begin making irresponsible decisions before the waiter has even arrived. Unfortunately, menus are promises. Dinner is where the promises are collected. And ours came due rather poorly. The food was disappointing, not catastrophically bad, which would at least have made for a more interesting story, but simply nowhere near what we expected from a restaurant built so confidently around its cooking. There is a great difference between a meal being technically edible and a meal making you pleased that you ordered it. Ours spent considerably more time in the first category. The greater disappointment, however, was the service. A restaurant can survive an imperfect plate remarkably well when the people looking after you are attentive, engaged, and interested in making the evening work. Human beings are wonderfully forgiving creatures when somebody appears to care. The reverse is also true. When the food disappoints and the service seems equally uninterested in rescuing the occasion, dinner begins to acquire the atmosphere of a contractual obligation. You eat because you have ordered. You wait because apparently that is now your occupation. And eventually you pay because international law still frowns upon simply wandering away. That was roughly the trajectory of our evening. What makes it particularly unfortunate is that The SpitJack has all the ingredients of a restaurant I should have liked. The concept is appealing. The setting works. The menu creates expectations. There is clearly an idea behind the place. But an idea does not cook dinner, and a concept cannot look after a table. Execution must eventually enter the proceedings. Ours apparently had the evening off. This was not an angry experience so much as a disappointing one. I have eaten terrible meals that became wonderful stories. This was not terrible enough to become folklore. It was merely expensive in the currency that matters most when travelling: an evening. Perhaps we caught them on the wrong night. Every restaurant is entitled to one, and the overwhelmingly positive reputation of the place suggests plenty of diners have had a very different experience. We can only review the evening we were actually served. And ours was two stars. One for the promising concept. The other for reminding me that expectations, like soufflés and political careers, are surprisingly easy things to collapse. Would I return? Possibly, but only because Mark Twain understood an important principle of life: "sometimes a man deserves a second chance." Dinner, however, should not require a third.

You can tell they are tired of tourists here. Came in and checked out the taps, all they have is…read moremass-produced swill for the common man. Builder's beers: Coors, Heineken, Bulmers. I asked if they had any local beers because County Cork is full of microbrews. The barman who thought himself quite a character in his loud Hawaiian shirt said, "All our beers are local." I said "Oh really? Coors is local?" Come to Kelly's if you want crappy beer in a crappy room with crappy tables and crappy bartenders. Kelly's is great crap.

A beautiful visit! A Guinness & an Irish Coffee! We…read moredecided a visit was in order upon our cruise ships stop! It was suitably wonderful! Highly recommended! Give them a shot!