Brian O'Keefe came across artist and cook Fiona Hallinan when she and her collaborator Katie Sanderson brought their food and art project, The Hare, to Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris.
O’Keefe, originally from Dublin, had been working and living in Paris for a number of years, working in the renowned Coutume Café. Years earlier, he had become a self-proclaimed coffee nerd almost by accident.
He visited 3FE when it was still in Middle Abbey St in around 2009 and was intrigued with the unfamiliar taste profiles he got from Colin Harmon’s coffee.
He took a day course with Harmon, thus opening the specialty coffee rabbit hole for O’Keeffe.
Soon, his hobby turned into a clear path and O'Keeffe went on to win the Irish Brewers' Cup competition in 2015, representing Ireland in the World Barista Championships in Sweden that year.
O’Keeffe returned to Dublin in June 2015 to seek out a premises and found the space on Pleasant’s St just off Camden St. O’Keeffe did a complete refit of the space, building the elegant tables for two himself before opening on April 15th.
Meet Me In The Morning’s clear, unpretentious identity already feels fully formed within a month of opening.
He has brought his coffee ardour to his café, and my flat white (€3.50) is flawless and flavourful, made with organic milk from Coolanowle Farm in Laois. O’Keeffe has plans to rotate between an Irish and an international roaster.
When I visit, he's using beans from Hexagone Café, roasted in rural France by Stéphane Cataldi, who provided O'Keeffe with his beans when he competed in the Brewers' Cup, on both the Irish and world stage.
When he was getting closer to opening the doors to Meet Me in the Morning, he contacted Hallinan to seek a recommendation of who might be a good cook for the project.
I wonder if he perhaps, on some level, hoped that she would put herself forward for it? She did. Hallinan, who is one half of Fraoch Retreats, is an astute artist as well as being a skilled cook.
Hallinan is greatly influenced by the visual beauty of food, and her recipes are inspired by her travels to places such as Beirut and India. Her approach to her work seems to me to be gentle and calm, and that harmony comes through in her food.
Her Nut Eile (€5) is based on a friend’s recipe of roasted hazelnuts blitzed and coco-ed up with raw cacao. It’s served sprinkled with sea salt and slathered onto toasted slices of Le Levain sourdough.
The honey on the side is from O’Keeffe’s father’s hives in Roscommon. Her bowl of egg and greens (€7) accomplishes breakfast transcendence.
The egg is just cooked so that it runs gloriously into the rainbow chard and sorrel, supplied by Christie Stapleton from the nearby Green Door Market. There are also spring onions, sweetened through frying.
A dollop of garlic yogurt melds with drops of paprika and chilli oil that is evocative of chorizo while maintaining this dish’s vegetarian credentials.
There are just a handful of dishes every day, with an emphasis on produce, simplistic beauty, and above all, taste.
The name is special, too, and is taken from Bob Dylan’s song of the same name. “The name is an invitation for two people to meet in the morning. I wanted this café to be a social place, not a place for laptops.”
There is currently no Wifi for customers, and it doesn’t sound like O’Keeffe has plans to offer it in the future.
This space is simple and serene, tempting and engaging. There are some truly captivating tastes being served up here, from the coffee bar to the kitchen.
Taste the flavours for yourself from 9am to 5pm, Tuesday to Friday, and 10am to 5pm on Saturdays.
