This room could have walked straight out of a Martin Parr frame – the kind where he wanders into an ordinary cafe and finds it vibrating with accidental theatre. Or maybe that’s just me, seeing through his lens since he died in early December, noticing how he caught humour and humanity in places just like High Nelly’s on Haddington Road. My godchild Ellen tipped me off; she has been in and out for months while wrestling a doer-upper nearby. She sits opposite me now, her acid-yellow puffa blending into the scene.
Everything is bright, cheerful, everyday. The white-brick walls reverberate in the glowing constellation of naked bulbs, doing their best impression of “ambient”, and a large, wildly saturated red canvas declaring “sweet home” presides over the room. A penny-farthing bike hangs on the wall beside it.
There’s the usual cafe detritus: a mix of chairs that seem to have arrived from different decades and decided to make it work; thick wooden tables softened by years of elbows and conversations, rope wound tightly around the single leg support at each end, loop after loop, giving the table a faintly nautical swagger, as if it might cast off at any moment and head for Ringsend. An espresso machine hulks in the corner. In the kitchen, stainless steel and plastic tubs jostle for space with packets of Tayto. The floor bears the scuffs and scratches of life.
And then the people. A table of women are mid-flow in conversation, coats draped over chairs, mugs scattered around, the kind of easy, habitual gathering that anchors a neighbourhood. A man in a hi-vis jacket studies the menu board. Everyone is going about their business, unposed, unselfconscious. It’s the kind of scene Parr loved: warm, slightly chaotic, and full of tiny human moments hiding in plain sight.
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The menu at High Nelly’s reads like a greatest-hits album of Irish cafe cooking. Breakfast is a parade of sausages, rashers, puddings, eggs and toast in every conceivable arrangement, with the odd flourish of hollandaise or a croissant, just to be current. Lunch is solidly in the comfort canon: lasagne, chilli, goujons, clubs, BLTs and anything else that sits happily beside fries. It’s unashamed, sturdy fare. The scampi is dish of the day, we are told, by owner Barry Cregan, who has been running this cafe since 2008. It’s a special for Mary, one of the refined ladies at the middle table. Ellen is swayed; I stick with my plan.
It’s the Full Irish (€9.95) I’m here for, which arrives on a square plate doing its best impression of a building site at breakfast-time, every element crammed in with absolute confidence. Two sausages parked neatly at the top, beside a pair of fried eggs with yolks straight out of a Peter and Jane Ladybird book. The rashers lie across the centre like a structural beam, half-lean, half-crisp. Beans pool obediently in one corner and mushrooms sit in a soft heap. There’s a golden hash brown and thick coins of black and white pudding. Toast is laid on top, like a makeshift barricade, two slices deep, ready to be smothered with butter as it’s released from its foil wrapper. It’s a straight-talking plate designed to feed you, warm you and possibly silence you for 20 minutes. The type of breakfast you’ll have eaten many times before. The familiarity is the point.
The scampi (€12.95) arrive as neat little crescents of golden crumbs, crisp shells giving way to soft, mild seafood, the kind you dip into absent-mindedly while talking. A generous drift of skinny fries sprawls over half the plate, and the rest is a classic cafe still life: iceberg lettuce with a token tomato slice, a scoop of coleslaw and a small ramekin of tartare sauce.
We share a large stainless-steel pot of scalding hot tea (€6 for two) and decide we have room for a slice of apple pie (€4.95). It’s a generous wedge, we tell our waiter. “Oh, they come in that way,” she says – no favouritism on her watch. The pie has that soft, tender crust you get from pies made in bulk, with a mellow apple filling, and a swirl of sweetened, highly aerated cream piped neatly beside it.
There’s nothing remotely aspirational about High Nelly’s, which is exactly why it works. It thrives on ordinariness – straight-up, feed-you-now food in a room that asks for nothing more than company. Parr would have recognised the rhythm instantly. You leave warmed, fed, and faintly restored to your senses.
Lunch for two with tea was €33.85.
The verdict: Soak up the atmosphere with a full Irish breakfast.
Food provenance: Sausages and bacon from FX Buckley, pudding from Whelan’s, fruit and veg from K&M.
Vegetarian options: Eggs Florentine, omelette, pancakes and goat’s cheese in filo pastry.
Wheelchair access: Accessible room with no accessible toilet.
Music: Ambient chat, no music.
