Meal Ticket: Two Fifty Squared, Rathmines, Dublin 6

In the last five years we’ve seen a new wave of coffee culture that has baristas taking their coffee as seriously as a sommelier takes their wine

Two Fifty Squared
    
Address: Williams Park, Rathmines Dublin 6
Cuisine: Fusion

Can we just take a moment and recognise how far we have come in terms of coffee? I still remember having my first proper cappuccino in about 1996 in Café Mocca in Rathmines. It was served in an enormous mug and the milk was frothy and bubbly. Coffee was a new thing, and it was beyond cool.

For a decade after that, it seemed as if the large, bubbly coffee would reign supreme forever. But in the last five years, since 3FE opened in the lobby of The Twisted Pepper in 2009, we’ve seen a new wave of coffee culture that has barista taking their coffee as seriously as a sommelier takes their wine. Two Fifty Square is a coffee bar and wholesale roastery in Rathmines. It’s housed in what once was a large-scale commercial bakery. The café is in one large, high-ceiling room with irons beams and light spilling in through a skylight.

The folks do cappuccinos alongside V60 drip coffee, a method of filter coffee that takes a slower approach to making coffee. The hot water seeps through the ground coffee layered in a filter, and drips into the glass coffee jug or mug. It gives a well-balanced brew where you can have a better change at tasting all of the things barisats talk about – toasty, bitter, sharp, earthy, fruity, nutty and fragrant.

Brunch included a V60 coffee and savoury French Toast (€9), a salty take on eggy bread pairing French toast with bacon, spring onions and a spicy ketchup. There are kale and avocado sambos (€6.50) and a soup of the moment, served with sourdough (€5.50).

READ MORE

It’s high up and you could easily miss it, but the inspiration for Two Fifty Squared is on the walls, in the form of a Melbourne skyline painted in black. The guys behind the cafe learned their love of coffee in the Antipodean food and coffee capital, and they wanted to bring it back to Dublin with them.

Aoife McElwain

Aoife McElwain

Aoife McElwain, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a food writer