I’m standing in a queue surveying the pastry bar at the Firehouse Bakery in Delgany, County Wicklow. A giant sugar-coated praline brioche (€5) is making eyes at me, while delicate shortbread Jammy Dodgers (€2) and fat, flour- dusted scones vie for attention. Behind the counter is the blazing wood-fired oven, out of which the team shovel pizzas seven days a week.
Around the corner from the oven, there’s another counter for the freshly baked baguettes (€2.10) and loaves of white, rye and spelt sourdough (€3), ready for you to have sliced (if you wish) and take home.
“This bakery is the best thing that has happened in Delgany in 15 years,” a local in the queue tells me, in response to my enthusiastic ordering of pretty much everything in sight. “Actually, make that 20 years,” he says, cradling a freshly baked rustic baguette in his arms.
The Firehouse Bakery has become synonymous with real bread in Ireland, thanks to the work of its owners, Patrick Ryan and Laura Moore. “Local have really taken ownership of the bakery,” Ryan tells me. “We wanted it to be what a bakery used to be and should be – a part of the community.”
I first came across the Firehouse Bakery when I visited their base on Heir Island off the coast of Skibbereen in west Cork, back in 2012. Ryan and Moore had moved back to Ireland from Bath, where they set up their wood-fired sourdough bakery in Moore’s childhood holiday home on this tiny island. It is still a destination bakery school, running in tandem with their Delgany operation, and it’s as off the beaten track as you can get.
When the landlord of what was formerly the Old Delgany Inn in Co Wicklow approached Ryan and Moore about bringing their bakery to this leafy part of the garden county, they went for it. “Geographically, I suppose it didn’t make a huge amount of sense to move from west Cork to east Wicklow,” Ryan tells me. “But it’s not often you get offered a space and are allowed to do exactly what you want with it.”
Though at first it appeared that there was no particular connection between the Firehouse Bakery and Delgany, it turned out that Ryan’s grandmother, originally from Wicklow, had been an occasional patron of The Old Delgany Inn back in the day. The Firehouse Bakery opened its doors in May of 2013 alongside three other independent Irish businesses. Today, this complex is home to Roasted Brown’s coffee roastery, The Delgany Grocer and Pigeon House restaurant.
The game pies (€3.50), golden-coloured parcels of rich pastry packed with the even richer, autumnal flavour of succulent cuts of game, are a good example of the collaboration between head chef Gerard Dodd and pastry chef Clare Fletcher.
We get the day’s soup (€5.50) and it’s made from wood-fire roasted red peppers laced with smokey Gubeen chorizo. This is how red-pepper soup should taste. Into our soup, we dip triangles of the day’s toasted special (€8), melted cheddar with prosciutto and onion jam layered between slices of Firehouse’s signature sourdough, complete with blackened lines fresh from the griddle pan.
The coffee is excellent, brewed with a Badger & Dodo blend and served in double shots as standard. It’s less than a 10-minute drive from Greystones and the journey to Delgany is particularly beautiful in the full swell of autumn. As Ryan himself puts it, this old pub, now home to four separate Irish businesses, has “become a bit of a destination”. Fire up the GPS and make it your next food destination. AMcE
