Rotana Café

Dublin, Ireland

3.8

Closed now

25 reviews

Free Wi-Fi

Contacts

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Telephone:
+353 1 475 9969
Website:
www.rotanacafe.ie
Address:
31 South Richmond Street Portobello, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Dublin 2
Harcourt
Nearby public transportation stops & stations:
250 ftRichmond Street South
830 ftHarrington Street
0.2 miHarcourt
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Bussiness info

Takes Reservations
Yes
Delivery
Yes
Take-out
Yes
Accepted Cards
Credit, Debit
Good For
Lunch
Parking
Street
Bike Parking
Yes
Good for Kids
Yes
Good for Groups
Yes
Attire
Casual
Ambience
Casual
Noise Level
Average
Good For Dancing
No
Alcohol
Beer & Wine Only
Happy Hour
No
Coat Check
No
Smoking
Outdoor Area/ Patio Only
Outdoor Seating
Yes
Wi-Fi
Free
Has TV
No
Dogs Allowed
No
Waiter Service
Yes
Caters
Yes
Has Pool Table
No

Today

Today 11:30 am – 12:00 am
Closed now
Local time (Dublin) 08:39 Friday, 29 November 2024

Business hours

Monday 11:30 am – 11:30 pm
Tuesday 11:30 am – 11:30 pm
Wednesday 11:30 am – 11:30 pm
Thursday 11:30 am – 11:30 pm
Friday 11:30 am – 12:00 am
Saturday 11:30 am – 12:00 am
Sunday 11:30 am – 12:00 am

Description

Specialties

BYOB, Casual Dining, Lebanese Cuisine

Rotana Café serves one of the best authentic Lebanese foods in Dublin for very reasonable prices. Now well known in the City for its delicious falafel and homemade BaklawaSweets, Rotana Café is the right spot to try something different with the assurance that everything is fresh and made to surprise your taste bud. Rotana Café is casual; it is one of the places where you feel like at home. Indeed, you can bring your own wine, enjoy the Lebanese music and smoke a flavoured shisha in our outside terrace. We serve shisha with different flavours (Apple, Strawberry, Grapes, Melon) Rotana Café is also very pleased to have been nominated into the guide The Dubliner 100 best restaurants 2010 and 2011.

History

Established in 2008.

Rotana Café was opened in May 2008 by Mohammed Abuissa and has gone on to become one of Dublin’s most popular Lebanese restaurants. The restaurant has been voted as one of the best restaurants in Ireland in 2013 and 2014 by the McKennas’ Irish Food Guide as well as being named in The Dubliner 100 Best Restaurants 2010 and 2011. Rotana Café has also been awarded a Tripadvisor Certificate of Excellance and has been named in Dublin’s Best Restaurants in the Hot Press Best of Dublin Magazine 2014. Rotana Café has been serving some of the best authentic Lebanese food in Diblin since it’s opening and is now well known in the city for its delicious falafel and homemade baklava sweets. Everything served at Rotana Café is fresh, exciting and reasonably priced and is just the right spot to try something different. In this casual and friendly atmosphere you can relax and enjoy some traditional Lebanese food and music and smoke a flavoured Shisha in the outside terrace. Now you too can experience

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25 reviews of Rotana Café

No registration required
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
The food is beautiful, sambousek cheese for starters especially! Would recommend for sure, BYOB is great too of corse
Place rating: 5
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
One of the best lebanese restaurants in town, and one of the bests I’ve tried anyway. Friendly and warming ambience, nice service, good food and reasonable prices. It has become one of our must-​go places in Dublin.
Place rating: 5
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
What an extensive menu! It took us about 10 – 15 minutes just to go through the menu and make up our minds about what we want and we eventually settled on getting Mezze Beirut. The Baba ghanoush here is lovely and probably the best I’ve had in Dublin. Their falafels and breads are pretty great too.
Great service, BYOB option, and shisha (it’s only outdoor mind you, not great when it gets cold) are just a few more reasons why you’d want to check this place out. Strong five stars.
Place rating: 4
Dalkey, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Extremely welcoming, friendly staff. Delicious Hummus and very reasonable. Restaurant was. Will be returning in the future
Place rating: 5
Achères, Yvelines
L’un des meilleurs restaurant libanais que j’ai jamais testé !!
Très bon choix, prix raisonnable, service rapide et super gérant très attentionné sans être envahissant. Possibilité de se faire livrer (jamais essayé).
Restant halal mais qui propose de ramener ses propres bouteilles si l’ont veut consommer de l’alcool.
Le restaurant vaut vraiment le détour.
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Lovely chicken kofta for lunch, nice crunchy vegetables, flat bread was feast and soft.
Very tasty mint tea, and service with a smile.
Great value lunch at 11Euro
Place rating: 2
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Can only rate this place on the food as I didn’t eat it and only got take away. The place looked warm and rustic on the inside but a little dark. The guy who served me was friendly.
I got a falafel sandwich for € 6.90 and paid an extra € 1 for houmous. Gonna be honest, it wasn’t great… All I could really taste was salty pickle and I normally love pickles but it was too much. Apart from the sharp taste of pickles everything else in the sandwich was pretty bland. I’ve gotten far nicer falafels for € 5 in Marley park market that come with baba ganouj, houmous and other bits as standard.
Definitely won’t be returning.
Place rating: 3
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
I would give it 3.5 stars. The food was good, but expensive for what it was. I got the chicken Shwarma and the hummus. The hummus was really good, and the Shwarma was just okay.
The restaurant itself was clean, well decorated, great ambiance!
I sat down to eat, and no one offered water or came up to me to ask if I wanted anything else/​needed anything. That was disappointing! It didn’t ruin my experience though.
They also have hookah and an extensive dinner menu!
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
It’s regrettable that this place — given that it has great food at reasonable prices — often gets overlooked. It’s one of Dublin’s forgotten gems. Tasty, authentic Lebanese food best enjoyed with a group. A tiny bit off the beaten track, but well-​worth making your way past the South Circular for, The mezze is with flavourful vegetarian plates, and the meat dishes have that just-​right combination of char and spices.
Cheap enough to be on rotation for impromptu nights out, and reliable enough to be on the list for casual work/​friends get togethers, I can’t understand why more people aren’t fans.
Place rating: 3
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Cheap, cheerful with friendly staff. Food is grand. Inside is standard. Just don’t forget to BYOB if you’re that way inclined.
Place rating: 5
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
I’m Lebanese and this is where I go for my Lebanese food fix. I was never disapointed! It’s BYOB which is nice as it’s usually cheaper to buy your drinks at the shop anyway. Friendly and helpful staff, service is prompt and efficient.
Make sure to make reservations, especially for larger groups.
Place rating: 2
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Despite being in full view of 4 staff members and a mostly empty restaurant, we weren’t acknowledged in any way until 10 minutes after we sat ourselves. The décor is cute and I like the different hookahs and tea cups displayed around the place. We were expecting much more from this Lebanese restaurant but there weren’t a lot on offer other than the standard kebab shop fare. Our starters (falafel and smoked aubergine dip) and desserts (assorted baklava) were delicious but the mains really let the meal down. The lamb in my lamb kafta was very dry and completely burnt black on one side. It took about 15 mins after we finished our starters for dishes to be cleared and another 20 minutes before we got our mains. For what the meal was, the waiting time was too long given it was an incredibly quiet Sunday evening.
Place rating: 4
Gerland, Lyon
nous avons essayé ce restaurant par hasard car il était proche de l’hotel où nous résidions. La nourriture est très bonne, très parfumée, la purée d’aubergines en entrée est très parfumée.
bien sûr la nourriture libanaise est un bon plan pour les égétariens et ce restaurant a plusieurs options végétariennes interessantes. à essayer
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Good place to grab a mezze plate to share. The food is tasty without being amazing. I am sure that there really amazing middle eastern food in Ireland. Let me know if you come across it! However I would always consider Rotana and do eat here every few months. BYOB is the policy, always good. Staff are friendly, service is good, food is good. Try it.
Place rating: 1
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
The food is good but not the best at all. Their coffee is not good !! the staff are very weird. I did not have a good experience in the restaurant. And their are no prices on menu !
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
This place is great; tasty food, big portions & friendly service. Might not be the best Middle-​Eastern food in the city but it’s the best value. Their BYOB policy is the icing on the cake.
Place rating: 5
Golden, CO
Great fresh Lebanese cuisine. For people looking for fast middle eastern food, keep walking up the road. Good food, cooked to order, takes more than 5 minutes. Grilled meat platters and mezze platters are the best — why pick a dish when everyone can share? I would give it 4.5 stars but the BYO policy makes this a solid 5.
Only downside is that calling ahead for dinner is a good idea on weekends and holidays. Once you figure that out you won’t be disappointed!
Place rating: 5
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Really liked this place. Great Middle Eastern food for v reasonable prices. No alcohol is served probably on religious grounds as it is a Muslim owned establishment. However you can bring your own wine or beer which is great as u can have what u like at a reasonable price.
Nice atmosphere in the place which is helped by the restaurant not being too big.
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Great service, fab food, good prices and BYOB… what more can one ask for?
Place rating: 4
Madrid
Restaurante libanés muy agradable y con buena comida.
Los entrantes son espectaculares y suelen estar servidos en un cuenco, acompañados de pan de pita para comerlos rebañando. Las berenjenas ahumadas, la sopa de lentejas y el queso feta son una maravilla.
Los segundos en cambio no son tan buenos. No están mal pero suelen dejar las carnes un poco secas.
No sirven alcohol pero te puedes llevar tu propia botella de vino y ellos te ponen las copas y el abridor. El servicio es atento y cierran tarde.
Sirven cachimbas en la terraza.
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
One more fabulous Lebanese restaurant in Dublin. But, this one may just be my favorite… The ambiance is lovely and there’s outdoor dining as well! Enjoy the afternoon sun while devouring some very tasty bites!
I recommend the meze platters, as they’re great for sharing and they’re delicious. The hummus and falafel will not disappoint and neither will the cheese-​filled pastry bites (yum!)
Bring your own wine as the closest thing to alcohol is flavored non-​alc beer (hmmm!!!)
Get your Arab on via Lebanon and head on in here … you won’t be disappointed!
Place rating: 5
Seabrook, TX
The best Arab food I’ve had in Ireland, period.
My friend and I went to this place hoping that this would finally be a place where we can say «dang now that was some good Arab food!» Rotana accomplished that and more! We ordered a platter for two and it was so gooooooddd! It included a mixtures of different meats and kebabs, all flavorful!
Service was perfect, they came to our table often asking if we needed anything. After he learned my name, he always called me Mr. Imran which was really nice of him.
All in all, Rotana is the place to go! And they have hookah too, and allow you to bring your own alcohol.
One key note on a chilly day, which is almost everyday in Ireland, try to sit away from the path of the door. As people leave and enter, the door doesn’t always close fully and there is a draft that comes in.
Place rating: 4
Rathmines, Republic of Ireland
Rotana is a Lebanese restaurant which provides upper market kebabs and Lebanese food.
I went there for lunch one day and really enjoyed the meal. We had the lunch special which is two courses for 10.90 euro or something like that.
The lunch menu will give you a lot of food for your money and it was all very nice.
I had the chicken and doner kebab in lebanese bread for my main which was very nice. The sauces (chilli and garlic) are very tasty.
I cant remember the names of the starters we had but we both enjoyed them a lot.
The waiter was very quiet and polite and the interior is nice.
The place is also bring your own booze, which on one occasion led to a rowdy party being in there. So I would look through the window before walking in and make sure there are not any big partys drinking themselves stupid.
Nice food, nice environment. Give it a try.
Place rating: 4
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
I finally made it to Rotana. As I passed by after doing an errand on my lunch I thought «fup it, I’m not eating a sandwich at my desk today, I’m going in on my own as Billy Nomates».
The place is a lot more spacious inside than I expected. And the décor is great, with shelves and shelves of stuff, especially hookahs (water pipes).
Today I ordered the falafel sandwich with hummus. It was fine, if a bit bland. It did come well presented.
The waiter was nice and polite too. And you can see the open kitchen at the back, which I like to see is restaurants.
So the food didn’t blow me away today, but I look forward to trying out other dishes from there menu.
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Despite being in full view of 4 staff members and a mostly empty restaurant, we weren’t acknowledged in any way until 10 minutes after we sat ourselves. We were expecting much more from this Lebanese restaurant but there weren’t a lot on offer other than the standard kebab shop fare. Our starters (falafel and smoked aubergine dip) and desserts (assorted baklava) were delicious but the mains really let the meal down. The lamb kafta was very dry and completely burnt black on one side. It took about 15 mins after we finished our starters for dishes to be cleared and another 20 minutes before we got our mains. For what the meal was, the waiting time was too long given it was an incredibly quiet Sunday evening.