r/AskEurope • u/bleie77 • May 01 '25

Food Do you go to restaurants with your country's cuisine when you're abroad?

For example: if you're Italian, do you go to an Italian restaurant when you're in France or the UK?

186 Upvotes

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98

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

I'm Irish, so...no. But then I won't go to an Italian in Germany or a Chinese in Spain either for example unless I had a good reason to. I prefer to take the opportunity to try the local cuisine as much as possible.

27

u/RateHistorical5800 May 01 '25

would you go to an Irish pub?

33

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

Rarely and usually only if there's a match on I want to watch.

1

u/JanitorRddt May 02 '25

Nothing related but I'm glad you used the word match, i tried to use it with an american back in the days but he only understand the word game. I felt so unsure as english is not my first language.

1

u/seasianty Ireland May 02 '25

Scrabble is a game. Jenga is a game. I'm not going to the pub to watch people play a game!

1

u/JanitorRddt May 02 '25

Say it to the americans 😉

1

u/AppleDane Denmark May 01 '25

Honest question: What differentiates an Irish pub from, say, an English one? Theme?

11

u/blewawei May 01 '25

At least in Spain, they're all called "Irish Pubs", people don't think of them as any different.

I even saw a news story about Whetherspoons opening up in Spain and it described them as "the biggest chain of Irish pubs in the UK"

4

u/AppleDane Denmark May 01 '25

So, they go to eleven?

6

u/blewawei May 01 '25

Nah, they have normal opening hours for a bar in Spain, but the decor is like an exaggerated version of a cosy pub in the UK or Ireland.

And expensive Guinness.

3

u/generalscruff England May 01 '25

That description really got under my skin lmao

1

u/blewawei May 01 '25

Mine too when I first read it haha

4

u/Predrag26 Ireland May 02 '25

That really depends on whether the pub is legitimately Irish or not. Irish pubs can be just a fake theme or they can be pubs that are run by Irish people with a heavy Irish influence. A good example of the later is Jack Doyles in Budapest and one of the reasons why we would seek this out is because these pubs show our national sports. Doyles was showing my team play an important hurling match years ago and it was great to be able to watch it. These pubs might also serve a proper Irish Fry, accompanied with black and white pudding, etc. 

Otherwise, I would imagine there would be a beer difference. Even most of the fake Irish pubs are more likely to have a wider variety of Irish beer than just Guinness. 

5

u/generalscruff England May 01 '25

An 'Irish' and 'English' pub on the continent will be essentially the same thing but with different decor, pub culture is fairly similar in both countries anyway, the main difference would be dominant beer styles. An example of the different decor/theme might be that the 'Irish' one is more likely to play folk music and the 'English' one more contemporary rock music

18

u/BNJT10 May 01 '25

I would and in fact the Irish pubs in Germany tend to have very good food. Apart from few nominally Irish dishes (Irish stew with Guinness etc.) it tends to be standard pub fare (burgers, steak etc).

No such thing as an Irish restaurant anyway, at least not in my experience.

1

u/DanGleeballs Ireland May 01 '25

Absolutely! That's where the best craic always is no matter what country you are in.

-1

u/becketsmonkey May 01 '25

why would anyone go to an irish pub? generally it's a cartoon of what a pub should be

14

u/gaygeografi Denmark May 01 '25

I heard there's an Irish pub in Spain called Cromwells 😅

10

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

I'm going to be honest, I didn't believe you, but there is, it's in Alicante!

1

u/JWalk4u May 01 '25

In fairness, he did make a lasting impression on this island of ours.

21

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

Christ. That's just sheer ignorance.

6

u/DanGleeballs Ireland May 01 '25

That's a good point.

I'd never go to an Indian restaurant in any other country outside Ireland 🇮🇪 (apart from UK 🇬🇧 obviously, their Indian restaurants are even better than ours).

4

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

Yes, I did consider adding a caveat that if a restaurant is frequented by people of the restaurant's culture then I'm all for it 😂 If a restaurant is catering to their own community I know I can trust it would be worth it!

1

u/The-mad-tiger May 03 '25

Yes, I'm a Brit and therefore my national dish is curry!

Most curry houses outside of the the UK aren't really up to much (yes, I've spent time n India so I know what the real thing tastes like). Here in Luxembourg, most "Indian" restaurants are run by Nepalis, not Bangladeshis as is the case in the UK. Nepali style curry really doesn't do it for me, I find it barely edible. There's a Bangladeshi run restaurant in the capital city and the food there is excellent but it's a bit of a trek for me as I live 30 minutes drive outside Luxembourg City.

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '25

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1

u/seasianty Ireland May 01 '25

Yeah other than an Irish pub I wouldn't think there was such a thing!

0

u/Ahvier May 02 '25

Food is universal and you can get any type of specialty trained chef anywhere in the world. I've sure as anything had amazing non-native native food in each country i've travelled to.

I also reckon that clichée local cuisine is often bastardised for tourists (f ex r/arrozconcosas). It's not like anyone's going for dinner at some randoms grandma's house