Restaurant review: Sandwiches and cakes are a quiet triumph at this West Cork deli
Pike Deli, Clonakilty. Picture: Vickie Maye
I am en route to the heart of West Cork when hunger jams on my handbrake outside The Pike Deli in Clonakilty. I first came across a neophyte Ryan Hoy when he was working as a kitchen porter in An Crúibín, a short-lived restaurant that followed The Lobby Bar and pre-dated L’Atitude 51 in the same premises.
Though local recollections of An Crúibín are now little more than a fever dream, it is where Hoy’s culinary career began, the young kitchen porter badgering his way on to the stove.
He moved to Paradiso, then on to Berlin, and eventually a head chef role in a London gastropub, before returning to Ireland.
He and his partner, fine artist Anne Marie Menzies, opened The Pike Deli together in 2023. Hoy, by that stage, had become a deeply passionate baker and the establishment was bread-led, producing exceptionally good sourdoughs, soon followed by an equally superb range of patisserie and baked confections.
I’ve previously relished one of their very fine roast beef sandwiches but, though it is only 12.30pm (on a busy summer Saturday), they’re all out.
Instead, I get the taleggio sandwich (€9.50), with Dijon mayo, pickles, sweet onion, and leaves. The bread is superb, billowing, pillowy crumb, chewy amber browned crust topped with sesame seeds. Taleggio is a dense, silky Italian cow’s cheese, creamy, and rich of texture but with a gentle, buttery flavour that could almost get lost in such a bread. The mayo and pickles counter with peppy acidity, while soft, sugary onion compote enhances cheese’s gentle sweetness. Good local leaves add a fresh, crisp crunch.
Quite delicious, it more than gives the roast beef version a run for its money. I also pick up a savoury square, laminated pastry with ricotta, tarragon, broad bean, and lemon crumb — again excellent.
The Pike Deli’s social media feeds — especially the cakes, desserts, and patisserie — is the stuff of full-blown food porn, which has no doubt seen many a smartphone drowned in drool.
But after all those savoury riches, I go for the elemental simplicity of brown butter cake. A more complex cousin of a sponge cake, the texture is moist, tender, and velvety, with the fats of browned butter, the same butter that adds a nutty, sweet butterscotch to the overall flavour and baked in apple compote adds a sweet acidity.
It is a quiet triumph.
