Meal Ticket: Cocu, Dublin 4

I read on Cocu’s website that its name is a play on counter culture, and reflects this Baggot St spot’s approach to serving healthy food, fast. The menu was designed by executive chef Emilia Rowan in collaboration with dietician Orla Walsh. Their meat is from Higgins Butchers in Sutton, and their fish is from Wrights in Howth, and is Irish where possible. Bread is from Arun Bakery in Smithfield and juices are from Green Beards in Ranelagh.

I peek over the top of a long counter to see buckets of freshly chopped vegetables, nuts and seeds. Two whole lip-licking sides of roasted salmon lie on a baking tray, its portions ready to be flaked off to order. There are three large boards hanging on the wall behind the counter, which lay out the three phases of putting your lunchbox together. You choose a main, then two salads as a base and finally a choice of sprinkled topping of nuts, seeds or herbs.

I can’t resist that baked flaked salmon, especially as it comes with a miso kale slaw, sprouted greens and sesame seeds, with an Asian dressing on the side. To this, I add leafy greens and roasted sweet potato cubes, and top it off with a sprinkle of seeds. The salmon is moist and sweet, and the slaw, sprouts and seeds work well . The Asian dressing, however, is a little thick and cloying, and is the only part that I don’t enjoy.

Cocu’s coffee is supplied by the brilliant Dublin-based roasters Roasted Brown. There’s a reassuring scribble in chalk behind Cocu’s coffee machine that states how they heat their organic milk to 60 degrees to ensure a pleasurable brew. Instead of coffee, I opt for a bottle of Raspberry and Rosehip Synerchi Kombucha (€2.80), a live, naturally fermented tea brewed by Laura Murphy in Ireland’s first kombucha micro-brewery in Gweedore, Co Donegal. It’s one of my favourite Irish products because it’s a craft drink that I can feel really, really good about drinking; it’s good for me and I know where it was made. Stocking Synerchi Kombucha reveals Cocu’s attention to detail and a real commitment to their healthy eating ethos.

Lunch with kombucha is €11.80. There is no WiFi and there are only a couple of eating in spaces, for no more than 10 people at a time. I sit in and watch droves of local workers pile in for their takeaway lunch boxes, presumably to bring back to their offices. My, we’ve come a long way from deli counter rolls, and thank goodness for that.