Eating and drinking in Slane

Slane is a village of a few streets around one crossroads, and its food is the same size. There is no point pretending otherwise, and no need: between the coaching inn on Main Street, a restaurant and a bakery on Chapel Street, a family pub and two places a short drive out, you can eat well here for a weekend. What helps is knowing who opens when, because in a village this size one closed door matters.

The Conyngham Arms: the one that is always open

The restored eighteenth-century coaching inn on Main Street, a few doors west of the Square, publishes service for every meal of every day, which nowhere else in the village does. Breakfast runs from 7:30 to 10:30 daily. The all-day menu starts at noon and runs to 8.30pm Monday to Saturday, and the Sunday menu runs from noon to 7.30pm. Afternoon tea is served in the hotel's library. The kitchen names its producers, and the Boyne Valley ones are on the menu, from Boyne Valley honey on the porridge to Slane whiskey in a barbecue sauce. Book dinner through the hotel's dining page at weekends; the hotel also hosts weddings, one a day at most, and on a Saturday you will notice.

Chapel Street: Inside Out and Gorgeous

Inside Out, on Chapel Street, was opened in December 2016 by the chef James Ausden and Edel Healy, front of house, with the idea of a Mediterranean courtyard dining room cooking local produce. Check its website or ring +353 41 988 4629 to ask about days and book a table.

Also on Chapel Street is Gorgeous Patisserie, listed in some guides as George's Patisserie, which bakes its bread, cakes and pastries on the premises every day and does breakfast and lunch. It has no website; ring 041 982 4493. It is the place to stock up for a picnic on the Hill.

The Village Inn and Silly Sid's

At No. 8 Main Street, the Village Inn is a family-run pub in its fourth decade, with live music and sport, and by day the same building runs Silly Sid's, a cafe doing breakfast, brunch and lunch from 9am to 4pm. If you are staying in the rooms above the pub, that is where breakfast is. For a fry before the Hill or a sandwich after the historic trail, it is the easiest door on Main Street.

Out of the village

Two places are worth the drive. Brabazon is the restaurant at Tankardstown, the eighteenth-century manor at Rathkenny a little under six kilometres north-west, set in a courtyard behind the house that Tankardstown calls the Garden Village. It serves lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, with produce from the estate's kitchen garden, and it is closed every Monday and Tuesday. Afternoon tea is on Saturdays and Sundays from 17 October. Tankardstown is a busy wedding venue, so ring before you set off and ask what is on.

Dolly's Bar and Pantry, at Balfeddock about five kilometres east on the Drogheda road, is a family pub with a coffee shop at the back serving brunch and lunch seven days a week. It is still in County Meath, despite the Drogheda road, and it posts its hours on Facebook and Instagram rather than a website.

Newgrange days

If you are at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre at Donore, Brambles runs the cafe inside, open from 10:00 to 16:00 seven days a week, whenever the visitor centre is open. Tours run on a timetable with a shuttle bus, so the sensible move is to eat before an afternoon slot, not after it.

Something to bring home

Slane Irish Whiskey is distilled in the castle's old stable block, and its batch strength bottling is a distillery exclusive, with a shop of gifts sold only at the distillery. Boyne Valley Wools, near the visitor centre at Donore, sells yarn and knitwear from its own Jacob sheep, spun by hand on the farm.

A few practical notes

Book ahead for dinner on Friday and Saturday, and on any weekend when the castle has an event. Several places here publish no hours at all, so ring before you drive out to them.