Cloud Picker Coffee has found a permanent home on Pearse Street.
Established in 2013 by Frank Kavanagh & Peter Sztal, Cloud Picker Coffee was inspired by a coffee farm in the Doi Chang area of the Northern Thailand/Burma border. As Dublin's first micro-roastery, the team at Cloud Picker roast speciality coffee from all over the world to supply cafés and restaurants with coffee. The duo operated the café at the Science Gallery for nine years before deciding to venture out on their own. To find out more about Cloud Picker Café, which opened on Pearse Street this week, we spoke to owner Peter Sztal.
How do you feel about the prospect of opening up your own café?
"It’s very exciting as it’s a challenge that we haven’t done before. We haven’t had to start from scratch like this before. We had nine amazing years in the Science Gallery, but it was a public space that we were part of. It was a great learning experience, but it’s time to move own and do something on our own. Our brand has gotten more recognisable so we thought it was time to open a high street presence to back up our brand with our own values and ideas. Now we're ready to be out in the open for everyone to judge!"
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Tell us more about the food at Cloud Picker Café.
"The idea behind our food is to offer customers something that is affordable, quick and healthy. I also want it to relate to my heritage and what I know about food. I was taught by my mother in Poland and we had a restaurant back home, so I want our Irish customers to enjoy delicious Polish food too.
We want to focus on good baked products. I'm most comfortable with yeast dough, so we will have our version of Danishes, like a Scandinavian cinnamon roll with different fillings. It all goes back to my childhood memories: In August, yeast buns would be filled with blueberries, while in winter we would use preserved fruits and nuts, so expect to see a lot of these flavours.
We're also planning to focus on eggs. There’s a very limited choice of takeaway breakfast in Dublin, usually only porridge or granola, and places try to be creative but really it’s all the same. We’re going to have an egg station with toast, made with our own challah bread, which is a traditional, soft brioche-like bun. The eggs will be available scrambled, poached or as omelettes, with toppings like Irish seaweed pesto from the Aran islands. We want to keep things simple, but different. For lunch, we'll be offering a lot of salads for lunch but I also want to reinvent my mum’s beef goulash as a staple in the cafe. We really want to focus on the provenance of flavour at the café."
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What have you planned for the café going forward?
"The unit is narrow but gorgeous and we're going to use most of the counter as a display for the chefs so that customers can see everyone working. We're also going to have a massive focus on sustainability, so we'll have branded lunch-boxes where you can get a keep cup-like discount if you use them or you can bring your own. We'll also be doing the same things with takeaway cups. People are so environmentally conscious now so that's really important to us.
We're really going to focus on the coffee here so we're using the best equipment on the market right now. It's really important to us that we're efficient but our product is really good. We will be serving single-origin coffees and rotating them all the time. The café will be the first place you’ll be able to try our coffees, it will be a fresh selection
We really want to focus on getting this one right. We want to stay with our clientele and stay local in a really happy place that represents our food and coffee product in the best light."
Find out more info about Cloud Picker Café here.
