Restaurant review: Minuscule Cork eatery scores big on taste
Nádúr is located in a bijou former chapel to the front of Nano Nagle Place. The space is minuscule but having the GDD ‘big brother’ barely a minute away for additional support and backup is invaluable.
- Nádúr Deli
- ★★★★☆
- Nano Nagle Place, Douglas St, Cork
- nanonagleplace.ie/good-day-nadur-deli/
- Brunch for three excluding tip, including drinks €42
I’ve done plenty of eating on Douglas Street through the decades, especially when I was a resident of the street during the reign of the late, lamented Douglas Hide gastro-pub.
There have been other eateries of all stripes and standards through the years and a more recent favourite is Cafe Moly, a modest little corner coffee shop that has flown under the radar since quietly opening back in December 2020.
Owned by Daniel Garrett and his Korean business and life partner Sunmi Kim, they have largely eschewed social media screeching, instead getting on with doing what they do so well with a minimum of fuss.
The menu is minimalist. The cheese toastie, including option of ham, is decent though a puritanical omission of butter on the exterior before grilling, leaves the bread a tad dry.
Primacy, however, is accorded to excellent cakes and treats baked by Sunmi. The Café Moly USP is coffee, the fruits of Daniel’s superb roasting of impeccably sourced beans.
In a caffeinated county which is a national leader when it comes to roasting, he is one of the very best around. A coffee from the gorgeous Sanremo Café Racer coffee machine paired with a slice of Kim’s exquisite Genoise sponge is a sublime pleasure.
Once upon a time, Douglas St was the commercial centre for the local South Parish community, almost every second building a retail outlet or commercial enterprise, but those days are long gone.
It took the opening of Nano Nagle Place as a heritage centre to reacquaint Corkonians with Douglas St and to attract, for the first time, a steady stream of tourists.
The jewel in the centre’s crown, of course, is the Good Day Deli, in the gardens, operated by Clare Condon and Kristin Makirere.
It is often said that restaurateurs are a different breed with a vigorous streak of insanity an essential part of their makeup.
But when this couple opened a companion restaurant, Nádúr (Irish for nature), last year, as restaurants around the country were falling like flies, you’d be forgiven for wondering if the couple was swapping chef’s whites for straitjackets.
They are canny operators, however, having steered then-newly opened GDD through the pandemic.
Nádúr is located in a bijou former chapel to the front of Nano Nagle Place. The space is minuscule but having the GDD ‘big brother’ barely a minute away for additional support and backup is invaluable.
The premises are tucked into one corner of the plaza, nestling against the gable end of a tall building entirely covered in a giant mural featuring a Maya Angelou quotation as if a great fluffy pink and scarlet cloud had settled in overhead.
The delightful little cafe space includes a giant picture window framing a view of Mary St all the way down to the River Lee’s south channel.
But it really is so tiny, barely eight stools at most, that it requires the addition of exterior al fresco seating to make commercial sense.
Unsurprisingly, the worst of winter has restricted operations to Saturdays and Sundays but full opening with a new spring menu resumes this month.
Over the course of several visits in the last six months, we have always sat outside on the plaza, a combination of tree cover, parasols and appropriate clothing ensuring we were content through all sorts of weather and super service also makes a big difference.
I’d happily sit there for hours on a fine day.
The offering — also available for takeaway — shares an ethos of genuine sustainability with GDD, but retains its own identity.
Like GDD, it is primarily vegetarian or even vegan — not that a meat eater would ever notice. There is a breakfast/brunch menu and ‘plates’ available for lunch.
Sandwiches are available all day and Nádúr’s toasties are top drawer (the new menu includes an obscenely delicious béchamel and Hegarty’s cheddar toastie with roast uki kuri pumpkin and green harissa).
On one visit, I have a Hegarty’s cheddar and Macroom buffalo mozzarella toastie (€12.50). Toasted sourdough is a crisp, golden shell glistening with melted butter through which you crunch into lush goo of melting cheese, sweetened with caramelised apples, thyme and onion pickle adding bright acidic trill.
On another visit, I have pan con tomate with Frank Hederman’s smoked mackerel (€15), the pulped sweet tomato, mashed into grilled sourdough, softening the dense, oily acridity of superb fish. (Toonsbridge halloumi or lemon cashew cheese are alternative options to the fish to make it vegetarian or vegan, respectively.)
La Daughter, like Nádúr, is a big fan of ‘bowls’, from savoury to sweet, and always has time for Nádúr’s tahini granola (€11). Served with Greek yogurt, rich tahini caramel with sesame nuttiness and fresh fruit, it nicely trips the line between decadent and demure.
The common denominator between GDD and Nádúr is the range of house baked sweet treats, a high point since GDD first opened. Ethereal cream brioche bun (€6.50) with fresh cream, preserved raspberries cremeux and flaked almonds is billed as a ‘Morning Pastry’ but I’d commit this kind of indulgent eating at any hour of the day and it is as well the superbly judged lemon meringue almond cake (€6) is served in this deconsecrated space for the devil himself would renounce Satan for a slice. Coffee is top notch, sourced from West Cork Coffee.
Once that planned spring/summer introduction of a tidy list of natural wines comes to fruition in the coming months, I reckon I’ll be a near permanent resident of Douglas St once more, to be found at a table outside Nádúr on the plaza, watching the world go by.
