Brian O’Caoimh and Kevin Powell are the barista-and-chef A-Team behind Dublin’s deservedly lauded Meet Me in the Morning cafe and adjacent Reference Coffee, just off Camden Street’s casual dining hub; with Loose Canon they have stripped things back to two of their great loves – wine and cheese – sourced with care and delivered with aplomb on one of Dublin 2’s finest people-watching corners, at the Castlemarket entrance to George’s Street Arcade.
These guys have pedigree and it shows in the Loose Canon offer.
Whilst building up a formidable reputation as one of Ireland’s best baristas, Brian worked in and managed renowned Parisian café, Coutume. During his Left Bank time, he fell in love with the city’s burgeoning natural wine scene and established a natural wine pop-up at Coutume itself. On his return to Dublin, he began seeking out these wines here in Ireland, and a wall of shelves at Loose Canon (rather beautiful mahogany shelves, built by Brian who is a former furniture maker) are lined with the fruits of that research, in the form of several dozen organic, biodynamic and low-intervention wines from importers such as Le Caveau, Fíon and other specialists. These wines are available to buy at take-out prices, or to drink in-house either with a small corkage fee or from the daily by-glass selection. Staff are knowledgable, enthusiastic and adept at steering customers to something suitably accessible or challenging, depending on your mood and palate.
While the wine is central to the experience here – the name itself is a play on ‘Boire un canon’ (the French colloquialism for ‘having a drink’) – it is ably supported by some superb cheese offerings, curated by co-owner Kevin Powell. Followers of pop-up fashions will be familiar with Kevin’s former life as the man behind Gruel Geurilla, a super-creative Saturday night supper club run with his then-partner in their Temple Bar apartment. The pair would visit the nearby Meeting House Square farmers’ market and stock up on goodies from stallholders like Jenny McNally of McNally Family Farm and Silke Cropp of Corleggy Cheese, one of Ireland’s first and finest cheesemakers with whom Kevin has also worked over the years.
These two superb food producers feature strongly on the menu here, alongside other artisanal stars like Gubbeen Farmhouse, The Wooded Pig and Broughgammon Farm for Irish charcuterie, and a selection of mostly but not exclusively Irish cheesemakers. A blackboard menu sports moreish and creative toastie combos during the day, switching to cheese and charcuterie board options by night. You can opt for a selection but it would be a shame to overlook some of the more individual servings: unique pairings like Toonsbridge burrata with fermented strawberry salt, perhaps, or Gubbeen sobrasado with pickled chanterelles.
All of this is served in the most casual of rooms, with just a smattering of high stools and lots of standing room around the marble-topped counters, plus a couple of street-side benches. This is somewhere to stop by en route elsewhere as much as a destination venue for natural wine lovers, of which there are growing numbers. While its cult following has been steadily growing, natural wine is always going to remain a niche alternative to mainstream commercial wine production. But this lovely little pioneer of a winebar-cum-cheeseshop has no truck with pleasing the masses. Instead, Loose Canon woos intrepid grazers and tipplers with the kind of disarming confidence that comes from knowing what you’re at, loving what you do, and not being afraid of doing things your own way.
A great addition to Ireland’s evolving wine scene.
