Quay West Restaurant Donegal Town — Restaurant in County Donegal

I had emailed the owner to book a table for 2 to celebrate a big birthday for my husband and mentioned to her of the occasion at the time of booking. She requested further information with a professional attention to detail. On arrival to the restaurant, I was very happy with our table by the window. The owner herself took our order and was very warm and friendly introducing herself and having the chat. We shared a Bottle of Spanish Tempranillo for €28 which was good. We both decided to forego a starter to focus on the main event. I chose the 10z Rib Eye Steak (€32.50) with mushroom and onions and silkie whiskey and maple sauce (recommended by the owner) and included side of my choice (fries). My husband picked the 9oz Sirloin steak (€30.95) with mushrooms and onions and peppercorn sauce and (upgraded) side of garlic herb roasted potatoes with a supplement of €1.50. We both added 4 craft beer battered king prawns for €6.95 each to our steaks. We were both impressed with the steak (& how they were cooked to our asking), battered prawns, respective sauces, mushrooms and herby potatoes. We thought there was excess onions on each of our plates. We shared the infamous caramel crunchie Sundae at €9.50 which was good. Overall, I did think the dessert options were an area to improve on the menu. I was delighted that staff marked my husband's birthday with a flare candle suitably embarrassing him. I loved the fuss made of him and the occasion so big thank you🙌🥳 I would recommend here for dinner and a special occasion where a deserved fuss is made on request. Hope to return in the future when we are up that neck...

The food was poor. Four of us had different dishes and all four of us were very disappointed.

Calamari looked like it had come straight from wholesalers, battered and frozen. No chef skills needed.

King prawn gratin were tiny KING prawns – not a pleasant dish at all, swimming in tasteless butter and boiling hot. Microwaved?

I do sea fishing from my boat, prepare and cook my catches and also smoke some of them. To have smoked haddock which is overcooked is sacrilege, the skin was more like chamois leather, it should be crispy. I picked out the dry and chewy flesh and left the rest of the dish; it was far too salty no need for bacon and cheese. I’m intrigued that there was no comment from your staff as to why so much was left.

Steaks were ordered Rare and another Medium Rare, both were well done. Very chewy being overcooked. How hard can that be?

Goats cheese salad swimming in dressing, very unpleasant. My wife didn’t eat it.

Choux pastry profiteroles shouldn’t be soft and doughy, they should be crispy, guess they were supplied from frozen too.

The ice cream was cheap and nasty.

I’m intrigued that there was no comment from your staff as to why so much food was left.

No chef skills were evident at all.

The problem was we were being taken out to dinner and my wife and I didn’t want to complain and embarrass our hosts. Likewise, it transpired, they didn’t want to complain either as it was meant to be a...

We just had an amazing night celebrating my brother-in-law‘s 60th birthday. The four of us were ignorantly playing it by ear for dinner reservations in what we thought was a slow time and Donegal, unfortunately we were sadly mistaken. Luckily our new friend Michael Gallagher called his friend Thomas and with a little bit of patience he and Jo were able to get the four of us an amazing table. We had so much fun with the staff and each other. This is an authentic restaurant not a tourist driven restaurant although the tourists are certainly welcome. The ambience is probably the best I’ve seen in Ireland over the last several weeks. I love that the staff works as a team. Thomas runs a tight ship and Jo keeps everything running so smoothly. Even though it’s incredibly busy, they both take time to share some craic with you. They make amazing cocktails, and have an impressive, fairly priced wine list. We enjoyed their salmon special as an appetizer as well as the bruschetta and chicken wings. For dinner two had the haddock and I had the chicken Kiev. The chicken kiev was done perfectly and was very special to me as that is something my mother always made for our family as a child. I had had not had it in probably 50 years. I give them the highest...