Meal Ticket: Fia Café, Dublin 6

Fia Café sits on a crossroads on Dublin’s Rathgar Road, between the villages of Rathmines and Rathgar, almost opposite the imposing Church of Three Patrons. A customer of Fia, who has been around the neighbourhood longer than most, remembers tales of a famous butcher’s that once thrived in this space. Until Fia came along just last month, this spot had been empty for some time.

Fia Café is the brainchild of friends and business partners Alan and Derek. While researching coffee and cafes in the city, they tried some Roasted Brown coffee from Thru The Green in Dundrum and loved it. They contacted Ferg Brown from Roasted Brown, who in turn recommended Keith Coleman, formerly of The Fumbally, as someone who could help them set up the menu. Coleman came on as a consultant chef, but liked what the duo wanted to do and has become a permanent fixture in this cafe’s modestly sized kitchen.

In the early assembling of the Fia Cafe team, Coleman recommended Aisling McHugh who had worked in Dublin 8 brunch stalwart BiBi’s, and Roasted Brown lent the café their barista Johnny Northcutt, who is making the impeccable brews (€3 for a flat white) with Roasted Brown beans the day I visit.

The toastie (€7.50) is a pan-fried sambo oozing with Gubbeen cheese and Gubbeen smoked ham. “Before I decided on the menu,” says chef Keith Coleman , “I sat down and looked at all the suppliers I wanted to use.” That meant Gubbeen ham and cheese would appear, alongside produce from McNally’s Family Farm and black pudding from McCarthy’s in Kanturk.

My lunch is Peas on Toast (€8), a dish that unapologetically makes use of the goodness in frozen peas by topping toasted sourdough with plenty of them, and covering them with chunks of McCarthy’s tremendous black pudding. A softly fried egg sits atop, a sprinkling of herb salt making it all the more interesting.

There are four breakfast dishes (served from 9am to noon) and three lunch dishes (served from noon to 4pm). Coleman uses two daily specials as a way to trial dishes for their weekend brunch menu. Rather than a soup, he offers a more substantial broth-based hotpot (€7), a style of cooking he had previously caught my attention with in The Fumbally.

Village Dairy organic milk goes into the coffee and is also used for their homemade yogurt, which Coleman makes on a regular basis. He likes the slow process of making yogurt. This dairy product demands your attention, and I can see the respite in slower processes for a multi-tasking chef.

Coleman is a keen forager, and the wild garlic that laces my lemony yogurt sauce in the other special – a Filo Pie (€10) – was picked two days earlier from a patch in Phoenix Park. The Filo Pie is a mix of sizeable spinach leaves from McNally’s Family Farm, lightly steamed, and parcelled into sheets of filo alongside bay leaves, rosemary, dill seeds, mint, dill, Greek feta from Lilliput Stores in Stoneybatter and eggs. It’s a satisfying take on the classic spanakopita. Coleman makes his brownies (€2 a mini-slice) using miso, which helps make them extraordinarily fudge-like yet not overly sweet.

The menu will change regularly, and will be influenced by what Coleman’s suppliers can offer him.

“It’s a nice way to plan the menu,” says Coleman. “I try to use everything I order. If I don’t use something or I over-order, I try to pickle or dehydrate ingredients to make the most out of the produce.”

Indeed, when I first pop my head through the door, I see him carrying two trays of dehydrated onions into the kitchen, destined to add a distinctive layer of flavour to a dish here at Fia.

Visit on Tuesday to Friday from 7.30am to 4pm, and Saturday to Sunday from 10am to 4pm.