Remember as a child hearing the distant jingle of an ice cream van? The mere thought of it made me crave a dripping 99. As the music neared, my focus sharpened – by the time it reached my street, I had to have one. As an adult dining out, trolley service hits me the same way. Spot or hear a trolley approaching, or see something being fussed over in the corner of my eye, I want whatever is on offer. And I’m not alone. Chefs and restaurants know this. Garry Hughes, executive chef at the Shelbourne Hotel, runs two trolley services and calls them “attention grabbers”. “People eat with their eyes,” he says. “Once a trolley’s spotted, everyone wants to know what it is.” In the hotel’s Saddle Room restaurant, guests who order the Pan-seared Dover Sole “Meunière” will watch it filleted tableside, while the Beef Chateaubriand will be carved before you. Hughes explains it’s a chance for chefs to connect with guests and share more detail about the food, but really it’s about theatre. “It’s all about the show,” he says.
And it’s a show I fully welcome. Trolleys may have been born from a practical service need back in the day, but many modern trolleys are all about drama, and in a time when restaurants have been leaning into minimalist menus and a pared-back aesthetic, perhaps we need the pomp. It’s thrilling that top restaurants all over Ireland have chefs and waiters wheeling around stylish trolleys filled with desserts, drinks and dinners, ready to captivate diningrooms, deliver deliciousness and turn every meal into a show worth remembering. Phone cameras at the ready.
Smartly presented servers, then, are a must, and at China Tang in Monkstown, Co Dublin, they go one step further with chefs wearing traditional tall white toques for the tableside Peking Duck experience. Guests have to pre-order this classic Chinese dish, which dates back more than 1,000 years, so it deserves every bit of fanfare. On the night, a chef expertly carves the glistening, crispy duck tableside. “It’s to showcase the skill and tradition behind the dish,” says Jessie Gao from China Tang. “Guests love it! They take photos and videos, and sometimes even applaud after the carving.” Having ordered two ducks recently, I can vouch for the giddiness it brings; we had a rollicking good time.
Trolleys never fell out of fashion at Ashford Castle in Co Mayo, where staff understand convivial service well. It begins each morning at breakfast in the grand George V Restaurant, where diners can get slow-baked honey roast ham carved to order from a trolley. The hotel recently added a juice sommelier trolley that wheels directly to tables, equipped with a selection of freshly squeezed juices, smoothies and Champagnes. Dinner continues the luxury with a Champagne trolley roaming the room, followed by a cheese trolley featuring estate-grown and foraged delights, and an irresistible petit fours trolley where you choose your treats from jars, just like an old-school sweet shop.
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Drinks are a natural bedfellow for trolley service, but forget about tea and coffee, think spirits on wheels, gliding through high-end bars announced by clinking ice, popping champagne, or perhaps stirring a martini. At The Westbury’s Sidecar bar, the martini trolley steals the show with icy mixes such as the Signature “Vesper” or the luxurious Oyster Martini, “The Stand Off”.
At Floritz in Dublin, whiskey gets the trolley treatment; the restaurant has a charming circular, dark wood bar cart filled with premium Irish whiskeys that usually proves irresistible when it parks up at your table at the end of a meal.
Elaborate digestifs seem to be the trolley drink of the moment, and one of the best-known offerings has to be two-Michelin-starred Chapter One’s iconic Irish coffee trolley. General manager Juba Paridi rightly refers to it as a “show”, and he loves making the show-stopping version of this classic after-dinner drink by flambéing whiskey tableside with a copper burner, delighting onlookers. “It’s a spectacle,” he says. “What is always fun is how customers react when they don’t realise how we make it. Their jaw drops when the trolley arrives at their table, and the phones are out. Even our regulars still watch us making the Irish coffee like it was their first time”. Ed Sheeran is reportedly a fan.
Another splendid Irish diningroom with a lavish Irish coffee trolley is the restaurant at Ballyfin Demesne in Co Laois. Here, dinner is finished with great ceremony when the Irish coffee trolley appears. You’ll get a full spiel about the tradition of this famous drink, some impressive flambéing, of course and then a delicious drink to top things off.
In Cork, at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Terre, one of the highlights is ending your meal in its opulent salon for dessert. Once you catch a glimpse of the lavish digestif trolley, you’ll be craning your neck until it’s wheeled up beside you, and then it’s very hard to resist having a drop from the giant, bulbous 60-litre demijohn bottle of Mas Amiel sweet wine.
One of the best-known trolleys in Ireland is the Ballymaloe dessert offering, which has been wheeling around since 1964 when Myrtle Allen first opened the Co Cork restaurant and commissioned a local carpenter to build one. Now led by executive pastry chef JR Ryall, who learned his craft directly from Myrtle, the trolley continues to delight with a daily-changing selection of seasonal desserts. Ryall’s menu balances fruit, meringues, mousses, frozen treats, and pastries, always featuring local, home-grown produce and a signature home-made ice bowl with suspended florals from the estate. It’s a captivating, head-turning display that has won global acclaim, including winning Trolley of the Year at the 2019 World Restaurant Awards and praise from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop. When it arrives, it’s hard to resist Ryall’s recommended order: “a little bit of everything.” He believes the dessert trolley’s appeal lies in comforting, unpretentious desserts: “There is something for everyone, and I feel everyone can connect with this sort of food.”
With a constant stream of fabulous guests staying at Ballymaloe House, Ryall will not be drawn on his favourite ice cream patrons.“That’s one secret I’ll never tell,” he says. Fear not, however, I have my own celebrity spot – the last time I dined there I spotted none other than writers and podcasters Dolly Alderton and Elizabeth Day, stunned at the dessert selection on wheels and, as far as I could tell, opting for a little bit of everything.
Desserts are a perfect match for trolley service, but my personal favourite has to be the cheese trolley. I’ve been hooked since my first fine-dining experience at the two-Michelin-star Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud when I was 21 (I know I was spoiled). I still vividly remember the cheese trolley being rolled out – what a joy. I might not have known much about the foie gras and foams that came before, but cheese was my safe space. The smell, the grand ceremony of choosing from the vast line-up ... it was divine and still makes me giddy whenever I get to do it.
These days, the Oak Room in Adare Manor, Co Limerick, is probably my favourite. They just do it so well. Every detail is considered. The trolley itself was made by Tony O’Shea, a local artist from Tralee, Co Kerry, using fallen trees from the estate. He’s currently working on a second one. The cheese selection celebrates the best in the country, and Gabriella Molnar, restaurant director at the Oak Room, says the cheese trolley is often the highlight of the evening: “We love guiding guests through the selection and showcasing the stories behind the cheeses.” Many members of the team have visited the suppliers. “The cheese trolley is not just part of the meal – it’s a celebration of Irish craftsmanship, storytelling and hospitality. We’re incredibly proud to share it with our guests.”
I am lucky to have amassed such a strong roster of trolley experiences. Trolleys are fun, and in today’s dining scene, this is the kind of fanfare we need to keep dining out theatrical. It’s the thing you’ll tell friends about and snap and post photos of. It sparks conversations and it makes us smile. What’s not to love?
That said, I have a few requests for Irish restaurateurs: if anybody is thinking of adding a trolley to their line-up, my plea is for an Irish oyster trolley, or perhaps a dinky steak tartare trolley. Bon appétit, until the next trolley, or indeed, ice cream van.
