Retail Heaven
Retail Heaven
Six unlikely places of excellence in retail outlets.
The outskirts are the liminal places of our lives.
Neither the back of beyond nor the centre of the action, neither the countryside nor the centre of the city, they are the inbetweeners, the commercial beyond the commerce, the centre that cannot be held.
But, once in a while, the outskirts get lucky, and an unlikely eating destination arises in an unlikely place. Here are six outskirters where you will find the good stuff.
Cafe Asia Supermarket, Asia Supermarket Wholesale & Retail Centre, Belfast
When Belfast’s Asia Supermaarket moved from its ramshackle Victorian warehouse HQ, just off the Ormeau Road, to a luxe retail outlet on The Embankment, some of us worried that the character of a defining food institution might have been lost. We needn’t have worried. The Asia Supermarket today is as characterful as ever, and a major part of its charm is the upstairs café run by Alison Pau.
Cafe Asia Supermarket is an outlier. It’s not an Asian noodle store, or a dim sum house – instead it’s an Irish style deli-cafe, with a strong hint of fusion, and the key to this is Alison, with her Pau family retail heritage and her experience of growing up in the shop, whilst also learning from the style of Irish cafes, including Avoca Belfast, where she met her head chef, Julie Savage.
Together Alison and Julie have created one of the most enjoyable places to eat in Belfast. The foods reflect Alison’s upbringing, where her father’s Chinese cuisine met coddle or corn beef from her mother and grandmother. So there are great sausage rolls, or you might choose a yellow split pea stew with aubergine, green bean and sultana. Soups and stews are often served with wheaten bread, though we also love the cheesey naans. Over the time we’ve been visiting we’ve had dumplings for breakfast, natas, bang bang chicken, mango lassi, chips with gochugang ketchup. They’re famous for their bulgogi, and the salads are always dauntingly fresh and crunchy. Make sure to leave space in your basket for their home-made noodle sauces from the take-out cabinet, as well as their terrific granola.
Brazco Coffee Academy, Carriag Lair Shopping Centre, Galway
It’s almost twenty years now since Linda and Maureen Lydon created the first Brazco Coffee Academy, on the Main Street of traffic-choked Oranmore. The shop became a vital destination for anyone circling Galway city heading north or south, because here was the place where you got an always-killer cup of coffee to sustain the driving.
Over two decades, Brazco has grown, with two outlets in Oranmore along with a coffee cart, and two in Galway city itself. When they opened in the Carraig Lair shopping centre, above the big Lidl supermarket, they solved the problem of never being able to get anywhere to park in Oranmore at a stroke: here was your vital cup of coffee, and a big car park to boot. Happy days.
But Brazco is more than just a fuel stop. As well as a larder offer of lovely things, they also have shelves of new books, courtesy of Galway’s inimitable Charlie Byrne’s Bookstore.
The bookstore signals the zeitgeist of Brazco: this is a place where people meet, and chat, and linger longtime. It feels like the best local secret, so if you only grab a cup of coffee to go you will miss out on a big, comfy room that has a big, comfy vibe. The crew are delightful, and the food is just what you felt like: breakfast bap with house salad; toasted bagels; sourdough sandwich.
My Kitchen by Sham Hanifa, Carrick Retail and Business Park, Carrick-on-Shannon
Discovering Sham’s Kitchen, at Unit 12 in the Carrick-on-Shannon Retail & Business Park, is the culinary equivalent of finding the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow and discovering that the crock also contains a winning EuroMillions lottery ticket.
This brilliance, in this place?! This quality of cooking, all day long!? Brilliant foods both on the menu and to take-away?! Talk about lucky…
Sham Hanifa is a household name in Ireland, and has joined the ranks of the culinary mononyms – Neven; Ross; Derry; Takashi; Gaz; Jp. He has achieved just about everything a chef could achieve – his book Agak-Agak actually hit Number 1 in the best seller lists – but, above all, he and his team deliver authentic and stunningly flavourful cooking for their customers, each and every day: prawn laksa; gado gado; Thai beef salad with vermicelli; Malaysian beef curry. Unit 12, that’s where you need to be.
Bakestone, Fota Retail & Business Park, Cork
There are any number of things that make it worth your while to turn off the N25 just east of Cork City, and make your way to Bakestone, at the Fota Retail & Business Park.
Bakestone have their own bakery, from which they produce pastries and loaves. They make a big deal of breakfast, where you can choose from their own granola, or one of their signature brunch dishes. They make a classy sausage roll – flavoured with black and white pudding – really fine sandwiches fashioned with their own focaccia, and they have a lovely team who are keen to look after you.
Aside from the food, two things also stand out: there’s a fantastic array of drinks served with their meals: Black Castle Bramble Sting and Irish Craft Sodas, King of Kefir and SynerChi Kombuchas, The Orchard Cloudy Lemonades are all offered alongside the local Badger & Dodo Coffee.
But, almost best of all, is their Pantry - with its fantastic selection of Irish artisan brands: Peanut Rayu, Sheridan’s Chutney, Builin Blasta Mayos and salsas, Irish Black Butter from Armagh, Highbank Orchard, Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms, Wild Irish Foragers, BBQ rub from Pitt Bros, Mella’s Fudge or Hadji Bey’s Turkish Delight… (this list could go on for a paragraph or two, so we’ll leave it there.) We can’t think of another store in Ireland that has this many of Ireland’s great food brands, so here is the Pantry to stock your own pantry.
The Bookshelf, Manor Retail and Leisure Park, Tralee
Bookshelf is a shelf full of delights.
Paull O’Carroll opened his first Bookshelf in the centre of Cork city in 2012, and has expanded the succeeding Bookshelves wisely and organically: a second in Cork and a third in Tralee, and most recently he has assumed control of Ballincollig’s splendid Good for the Soul café.
The Kerry branch is, as they say themselves, “on the outskirts of Tralee” but the signature Bookshelf dishes are so consistently fine that they would draw a crowd to the outskirts of the Moon.
Mr O’Carroll made his mark early with superlative coffee sourcing and barista skills, and that cup of joe is the prelude to the class act that follows on the plate: Bookshelf Turkish eggs with Rustic Boowa sourdough; smashed avo on Big Al’s ciabatta; breakfast bap with Athea black pudding. The cooking is as energised and committed as the crew who look after you, the room is sweet and lovely, and the outskirts are where the Tralee action is.
Scarpello & Co, Buncrana Road, Derry/Londonderry
Rachel and Kemal Scarpello began their sourdough journey almost fifteen years ago, lighting the fire of their Panyol oven and creating long-fermented sourdough loaves that are amongst the best you can find in Ireland. Their breads and bakes – the Portlough Seasonal; the 3 Malts – are sold from Thursday to Saturday in the Pizzeria & Bakehouse in Derry, which is today the principal focus of their operation.
The loaves have been joined by sourdough pizzas which demonstrate Kamal’s utter mastery of the medium, and which has seen Scarpello designated as one of the 50 best pizzerias in the U.K.
You have to venture to the west side of Derry, well outside the City Walls, to find the place, which looks like an alien spaceship which has just touched down in a nondescript retail park. No matter: the cooking in Scarpello is as good as good gets, with everything from the loaves to the pizzas to the gelato as good as it can be. (See below for longer review).
What great recommendations. The only place mentioned that we visited years ago when in Ireland was Cork, and boy did we get lost! I loved our time in Ireland, other than the weather, but you have to take the good with the bad, and honestly it wasn’t all that bad. The main places visited were Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin, and of course went to the Blarney Castle and the Cliffs of Moher. I would love to go back, there is so much more to see.