I don't know how objective my review is as Gilbert's is one of my favourite lunchtime haunts. The dining experience keeps me coming back and that is a real testament to the charm of the place. The decor is elegant, understated, cool colours, original artwork. the staff are calm, friendly and efficient- they know me by now and realize my time restraints. The menu is select but varied, the seafood chowder is particularly good and good value as I usually don't need a big lunch. The soup du jour is usually interesting and I'll often opt for a sandwich special @ euro 10.50 that includes small soup, ham, chicken or salmon sandwich on a choice of breads and a coffee - pretty good value. Speaking of coffee -it's always good ( a key ingredient of a good restaurant imo) the staff tell me it's sourced from Cork Coffee Roasters. As far as I can see, the place is always spotlessly clean and the bathroom is an example to other establishments - clean, piped Bossa Nova music, fragraced, with one of those snazzy Philippe Stark blade dryers that work quite well. Only negative point I can see is ..if the place is busy, we'll have to go deep into the interior where there are no windows and tables are close together, but that's the nature of the architecture and doesn't really diminish the overall excellent dining experience.

My girlfriend and I visited this restaurant during our trip to Cobh. The food was amazing. She had asparagus soup for starters and I opted for the salad with blue cheese and pear which was really nice. For mains I got the seafood tagliatelle. It had a cream sauce and came with mussels and FRESH prawns. Overall the service was good and the food very good. The only thing that i could fault this restaurant on was the fact that we were sat by a window that had two dead wasps on the ledge! It was slightly off putting but the food alone made us return the next night.

I ate at this restaurant for lunch recently and was disappointed with the menu. Firstly, there aren't any sandwiches listed at all which i found to be strange - either hot or cold. There are a few salads though. The menu consists of mainly hot food like Fish and Chips and traditional Irish food. People generally have a limited time to spend during lunch. I think the restaurant would benefit from looking at their menu and introducing dishes that are quick to prepare. I just wanted a tasty sandwich like a chicken cajun wrap. I didn't want to eat a heavy meal or eat chips. The service was very slow, it took about 10 mins before we received a menu, 10 mins before the order was taken and then another 5 mins before we received a bottle of water. We were waiting 40 minutes before our food arrived and we didn't order any starters. No bread basket was provided either. The fish was very fresh and the batter light and airy. Now, I prefer grilled or baked fish but they only had fish in batter. So if you fancy healthy eating, you are limited to a overpriced dry salad. However, the chips were delicious as was the coffee. Overall, I think the owners need to look at their market, perhaps cater for business people a little more and provide a less traditional menu.I think they are trying to do too much. I was disappointed with the choice offered and the service. And contrary to a recent review of this establishment where a well known sports star dined here, i disagree in calling it a trendy restaurant. I have lived in Australia for many years and dined in many restaurants, this does not make it into my top anything. It is yet another average dining experience in Ireland. I'm in my 30's so maybe this isn't the target market for Gilberts.