The Dublin Coffee Trifecta
“I’m into something more adventurous.”
To attempt to explain where we used to be when it comes to coffee in Ireland, and where we are now when it comes to coffee in Ireland, we have to tell a true story, dating from 1989.
We are driving our shoegaze Renault 4 car all around the country hoovering up as many food specialists as we can find for our first book, The Irish Food Guide. We are in a shop in County Donegal, looking to see what is novel on the shelves. But we also need some coffee to bring back to the gaff, so we ask the lady behind the counter if she has any real coffee?
“We do” she says confidently, and points us at a particular shelf.
And on that shelf were … jars of Carte Noire.
Real coffee, Ireland, 1989.
Fast forward to 2026, and we are in Mantle, in Temple Bar. You might miss Mantle as you walk up Anglesea Street, as there isn’t much to see from the outside. But what will catch you, what will stop you, is the aroma emanating through the doors. It’s heavenly, the aroma of roasted coffee beans being brought to a pitch perfect place.
It’s a tiny room, seats on two levels, and whilst Sally goes for a Bean & Goose hot chocolate, John goes for the pour over, with the beans roasted up in Belfast by Phil at Exemplar Roastery, at Balmoral.
Nothing happens quickly in Mantle, and everything happens only after lots of discussion. It’s not so much about ordering a cup of coffee as being fitted for a cup of coffee which is personally suitable for you. It’s a bespoke couture happening, and the punters in here know that already. When a young Gen X woman sits down beside us she says confidently to the baristas: “I’m into something more adventurous.”
Ok. Are you still with us? Because we are a long ways from Carte Noire here in Temple Bar on a Friday afternoon.
John’s pour over has been made by Steven with a Kerinci Sumatra Indonesian anaerobic, and when Steven places it down on the table along with a handless cup and a glass of cool water, he takes out a temperature gun, points it at the jug, and waits for the read-out temperature signal. 54 degrees. He is happy.
If you are thinking to yourself that we are a long ways off boiling point, well that would be the point. Steven begins to outline the flavour characteristics he expects from the Kerinci, which range from date, to pomegranate molasses, to guava. It’s all there and, as the coffee cools further, it reveals more citrus in the form of tangerine and blood orange zest. It’s a wee beauty.
Mantle is at the cutting-edge of coffee. They have the gear no one else has – the Slayer Espresso V3 (it’s got a three phase paddle); they have the Mahlkonig grinders; they use Orea V4s and Apax water concentrates; they have Module coffee and its wild prices; they have not an ounce of self-consciousness.
“Purpose; Premium; Community” is Steven’s trinity of aspirations. Ironically, this makes them a perfect fit for what the original promoters of Temple Bar had hoped to achieve way back in the early 1990’s, when they envisaged a warren of high-end speciality food and drinks artisans lining the cobbled streets. Maybe it’s not too late after all.
We can sum up Unfiltered in a single acronym: IYKYK.
Whilst the coffee world is filled with people who are as eclectic and crazy as jazz musicians, what Juljano, Thiago and the guys in Unfiltered in Inchicore are doing is free jazz. This is the Albert Ayler stuff, the late-period John Coltrane, the Sonny Sharrock sound waves. Wild stuff, oblique as bejaysus, IYKYK.
The interior of the Unfiltered room in Inchicore looks like a Builder’s Finish: a pair of counters wrap around the room that faces out onto the junction in one of Dublin’s funkiest zones. Two Jackson Pollock-like abstract scrawls across wet plaster are the twin artwork, and one is headed “I still got the vision like a line between two dots.” The design makes Radiohead’s artwork seem like flower fairy paintings, and the room feels like a sacristy.
“I’m addicted to that moment” Juljano told an interviewer, and that moment is when it all comes together: water manipulation; coffee characteristics; grind size; temperature. And the guys then want that moment to be your moment, as you sit on a stool at the counter and the coffee takes you away to somewhere else, to that IYKYK place.
We were there on a Saturday morning, sitting alongside Mums with babes in slings and a busy host of locals who know what they know. The coffee was sublime, transporting, vivid, precious.
The team created their ONI coffee roastery in 2025, so make sure to get a bag of beans before you leave, and do complement them on their achievement of grabbing the Number 56 slot in the 100 Best Coffee Shops in the world. Go dudes! IYKYK.
Thanks to Francesco Turrisi for coffee recommendations. Do check out his profile.
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