This place is gorgeous, perfect for whiling away a couple of hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon. You can stroll around the shops and bakery and have lunch in the Garden Cafe or splash out and pay the fairly steep entry fee into the gardens. The food in the Cafe is standard Avoca fare but I think this place pips the others to the post purely because it's that much further away from Dublin that it always seems to be less crowded and more relaxed. The soup is always a safe bet, tasty and plenty of it, served with lovely homemade brown bread. The asparagus and parma ham brushetta is also delicious.

A friend suggested we go here for lunch, she'd been a couple of times before and really recommended it. So off we went together, 4 adults, 3 kids. She had booked a table which I definitely think is a good idea as the garden cafe was jammed (even at 2.30pm when we arrived). There's a kids menu-2 options+juice €7.95 - portions are generous so if your kids are small order 1 between them (we learnt!). Our food was tasty, only slight negative comment is for those of you who aren't into onions - the burgers are laced with them! general concensus was we would all go back. entrance into garden isn't cheap I agree, enjoyable for a stroll though. There's lots of rivers/mini waterfalls and bridges for little kids to explore so keep your wits about you!!

With the recent improvements to the N11, it's hard to justify a pit stop between Dublin and Gorey. That said, The Garden Café puts a strong case forward!

I stopped off here on the way back from a weekend in Wexford and wasn't disappointed. It's not as easy as jumping off the dual-carriageway at it's sister store in Kilmacanogue (with all the roundabouts between it and the main road) but the reward is greater. The Garden Café is more in line with The Fern House Café (at the Kilmacanogue branch) than the more familiar Avoca Café - i.e. it's not self-service and there's a proper coffee machine (not a Bewleys electronic push-button effort!). The menu is extensive and you can order anything from something light like anti-pasti and soup to something heavier like a burger and chips cooked in duck fat. While I didn't have a dessert, they did look particularly good and are a definite reason to return... I'm a strong believer in always leaving a reason to go back to a place!

Parts of the café overlook the beautiful Mount Usher gardens but you'd probably have to book one of those tables in advance (or get extremely lucky!).