Tony Divito – yes, that is his real name – is one of the growing band of young Irish people returning from abroad and bringing with them great new ideas for food businesses.
The former restaurant manager from Cabinteely recently returned from Australia, where he trained as a barista and also worked as a Crossfit instructor, and has just launched Cocobrew. It’s his answer to the bulletproof coffee craze beloved of fitness fans in which butter and high grade coffee are combined in a drink for which weight loss and energy boosting properties have been claimed.
“I use MCT oil and cacao butter instead of dairy grass-fed butter, which I found made me a bit sluggish. The cacao butter gives it a lovely chocolatey taste, plus you get extra minerals and antioxidants from it,” Divito says. MCT oil is a manufactured source of medium chain triglycerides (or fatty acids). “I blend five grammes of cacao butter with MCT oil in Arabica coffee,” Divito says.
If you’re in Dublin city centre today, you’ll find Divito and his cute coffee van – which also sells excellent normal varieties of coffee – at Picnic on the Plaza, a new weekly food market at Ulster Bank Plaza on George’s Quay, near Tara Street Dart station. The market runs from 11.30 to 3pm on Thursdays with a tempting range of lunches on offer.
Get out of the office and take a look. There are sourdough pizzas from Dave’s Woodfired; it’s actually Michael Lennon you’ll find stretching the dough, and you can buy some of his homemade tomato sauce to take home.
Agata Cudera and Monika Borkowska are Juice Heads, and as well as liquid lunches they’re also offering vegetarian and vegan salads and burgers. You’ll smell the tempting aromas of Maiija Kishnani’s Meera Foods Indian vegetarian curries before you spot her stall, and Vinnie McNelis has Thai curry and noodles on sale at his Men at Wok pitch.
Meat lovers will find it hard to pass the low ’n’ slow US-style barbecue ribs, brisket, pork and chicken at Sean Nelson’s Uncle Sam’s Smoke House. Sweet treats are usually provided by Mila Khokha of Baked with Love, whose Bramley apple twists featured on Taste of Success on RTÉ last year.
