If we look straight up from where we’re standing, we see a giant needle made of polished steel that seems to extend all the way to the heavens. We’re on O’Connell Street in Dublin, standing at the base of The Spire. This is the meeting point for our Dublin Foodie Tour. We’re ready to go!
A group of ten of us materialized right on time. Our guide for the next few hours is Ketty – a French-born lass who adopted Ireland as her home about ten years ago. Delicious Dublin Tours, the provider of the foodie tour we signed up for, is her operation.
After brief introductions all around, we made the short walk to our first stop – a coffee shop named Vice Coffee Inc. The owners greeted us and told us their story. They roast their own beans, so maybe that’s why the place smelled so good inside.
Coffee lovers in California and beyond are familiar with the Irish Coffees deftly made at the Buena Vista, a restaurant-bar in San Francisco. People come from all over to try one. They’re pricey, but they sure are good. I’d always assumed someone at the Buena Vista invented it, but we got the straight story from the guys at Vice Coffee.
Irish I Had an Irish Coffee Right Now
In the 1940’s, transatlantic flights often stopped for refueling at Foynes Airport, near Limerick, Ireland. In those days, only the elite could afford to make transatlantic flights, so some smart guys opened up a high-end restaurant at Foynes to cater to their needs.
The story goes that one stormy night a flight took off from Foynes, but ultimately had to turn back due to bad weather. The wiped-out passengers had to spend the night. The chef at the restaurant, Joe Sheridan, concocted something special for them. The “something special” turned out to be the first Irish Coffee.
In the early 1950’s, Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, convinced then-owner of the Buena Vista, Jack Koeppler, to recreate the drink. (I used to read Stanton Delaplane’s and Herb Caen’s columns in the San Francisco Chronicle, back when I wasn’t old enough to have an Irish coffee).
Koeppler and Delaplane worked together to get it just right, but they couldn’t quite get there. Koeppler flew to Ireland to learn how to make it from its creator, Joe Sheridan. The price of that trip was money well-spent, because the Irish Coffee put the Buena Vista on the map.
After telling us the story, the owners at Vice Coffee made us each an Irish coffee. If you’ve ever had a good Irish coffee, then you know how good they can be. I think the one I had that day was the best I’d ever had. What a great stop.
The Next Stop is just a Scone’s Throw Away
We left Vice Coffee and walked to our next stop – a bakery. It was one of those places that, if you’re like me, when you walk by, it’s almost impossible not to stop and ogle the goodies in the window.
From the street, Camerino Bakery looks like a small, mom-and-pop shop, but it’s an outlet for a larger operation. They provide top-quality baked goods to Dublin restaurants and hotels. We nibbled on their scones topped with Irish butter and jam.
I’ve made quite a few scones myself, and tasted many more, but even a scone aficionado such as myself was thoroughly impressed. Ooooooh. It’s not possible to describe that scony goodness in mere words.
Our next stop would be at a cheese shop on the other side of town. Thank goodness, because after the bakery, we needed a walk. We crossed the River Liffy, passed through Temple Bar, and walked into the Georgian Quarter – a very nice part of town.
Along the way, we passed the Molly Malone statue, or as Dubliners have nick-named it, “The Tart with the Cart.” As evidenced by the noticeable sheen, the touristy thing to do is to rub her boobs for luck. We passed on the opportunity. We had an Irish cheese shop to find.
There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Cheese
Sheridans Cheesemongers was started by two brothers from Galway. They started sourcing and selling the best “farmhouse cheese” they could find. Farmhouse cheese is a “thing” in Ireland. A farmhouse cheese is one that’s produced from cows or goats from just one area. Maybe from just one farmer. Sheridans still specializes in farmhouse cheeses, but they’ve expanded to provide specialty food items, too – whatever they can find that’s produced locally and is top-notch.
While we were there, we got a brief cheese education and sampled a number of cheeses. They were all really good. REALLY good. After devouring so much cheese in Normandy, I thought I’d be cheesed-out forever, but apparently not! I guess there’s no such thing as “too much cheese.”
I wish I could say what I tasted, but Irish cheese isn’t regulated the way French cheese is. You’d have to move here and eat a ton of cheese to gain any kind of expertise. You’d probably have to wash it down with a bunch wine and pair it with cured meats and other goodies to really get the hang of it. Hey, that’s pretty much what our formerly French foodie tour guide, Ketty, must have done. Now I get it!
To be continued…
Notes:
Due to COVID-19, Delicious Dublin Tours is currently on hold, but you can find out what Ketty is up to by visiting her blog, frenchfoodieindublin.com.
The Irish Coffee image at the top of the post is from the vicecoffeeinc.com.
