Meal Ticket: First Draft Coffee, Filmbase, Dublin 2

Have you been to the space above Filmbase in Temple Bar? It’s a bit of a hideaway in plain sight, an upstairs room flooded with light thanks to a wall-to-floor window looking out over Curved St in Temple Bar and across into the windows of The Button Factory. Over the years, it has been home to cafes such as Momma’s Place, Roasted Brown and, most recently, First Draft Coffee.

In July, there was a changing of the specialty coffee guard when Roasted Brown moved out and First Draft Coffee moved in. Ferg Brown of Roasted Brown wanted to focus on the roasting side of the business, but also on their new spot Laine, My Love over on Talbot St. When Ger O’Donohoe of First Draft Coffee got the call from Ferg about taking over the space at Filmbase, he jumped at the chance.

“It’s actually been my favourite space in Dublin since I was a teenager. It was one of Dublin’s first internet cafes,” remembers O’Donohoe. “I used to go there on Saturday mornings to learn how to use the internet when I was 15.”

Since then, O’Donohoe has become one of Dublin’s foremost names in specialty coffee, thanks to his tamping work at The Fumbally, but also because of his company First Draft Coffee, which he co-founded with the late Rashel Winn, a young barista who tragically passed away earlier this year.

First Draft Coffee are Ireland’s representatives and distributors of The Barn coffee, an esteemed roastery based in Berlin. First Draft Coffee also offers official SCAE (Specialty Coffee Association of Europe) courses for blossoming baristas.

It’s been a seamless shift for First Draft Coffee to take over from Roasted Brown in this Temple Bar space. “Ferg and Roasted Brown did a lot of the hard work for us,” says O’Donohoe. “They set up this space as a go-to for specialty coffee. With Roasted Brown’s reputation mixed with my reputation from the Fumbally, there’s a level of trust there already which means that people are coming in and are willing to try something a little different.”

There’s a big focus on filters and black coffees, because of their association with The Barn who are known for their filters and black coffees. Baristas like black coffee because you can taste more of the nuanced flavours, particularly when properly filtered.

You can discover this for yourself at First Draft Coffee thanks to their Coffee Flight, a coffee tasting plate made up of a trio of one coffee bean brewed three ways. You get to taste just how different a coffee bean can taste when served as an espresso, a milky coffee and a filter coffee. Having them all laid out in front of you means you can distinguish between the brewing techniques. Plus, the First Draft Coffee baristas are among the best in the city, and they’re on hand to talk you through the bean that’s being showcased. Typically an espresso is €3, while milky coffee and filters are €3.50.

There’s food, too, and the menu has been laid out and set up by Jasper O’Connor, whose food you may have tasted at The Fumbally or as part of his Dillisk project with chef Katie Sanderson. There are delicious Pan Toasted Gubeen Ham & Cheese Toastie (€7.50), making use of the renowned West Cork family farm’s dairy and meat outputs. The toasties are made with sourdough from the local Tartine Bakery in Dublin, and they’re served alongside pickles and relish made in the First Draft Coffee kitchen.

Also on the side are green leaves from Denis Healy’s Organic Delights, which sells homegrown and imported organic goods right outside Filmbase on a Saturday at the Temple Bar Food Market. This toastie is the sum of its parts, and all the care and attention to detail makes for a thoroughly scrumptious lunch. There are cakes from the Stoneybatter-based Wild Flour Bakery (delish, as usual) for something sweet, too.

As well as the professional barista diplomas that First Draft Coffee hold at The Stables in The Fumbally in Dublin 8, it’ll be offering home brew and cupping classes in its new Filmbase home for those of you out there who want to learn more about specialty coffee and how to make a great cup of Joe at home. Call in to them in Temple Bar or see firstdraftcoffee.com for more.