"A part of me feels was I a little bit mad because not only did we open at the height of the recession but we opened on Capel St in the height of the recession. Even at the height of the boom, not much happened on Capel St on the northside,” says Garrett Fitzgerald, co-owner of much loved Dublin cafes Brother Hubbard and Sister Sadie.
Mad or not, it was a risk that paid off for him and his partner James, as they slowly build a mini foodie empire, that now consists of the original café and the building next door, breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner menus, a sister restaurant in Sister Sadie (soon to be renamed Brother Hubbard South), a healthy takeaway business Piply and now, a cookbook.
The Brother Hubbard Cookbook brings together recipes from the ever-changing and evolving menus from both cafes as well as some recipes developed specifically for the book from ideas they’d been kicking around.
“We’ve got the old favourites like the Croque Monsieur and the Turkish Eggs Menemen and there would be riots if we changed them, but a lot of our other dishes evolve and change quite a lot. Our salads, our soups and hotpots change at least once weekly. We’ve had a very warm reaction to that and people have been very interested in our approach to the food and we get asked quite a lot about our recipes. That’s where the idea [for the cookbook] came from initially,” says Garrett.
He’s written the book as a ‘friend in the kitchen’, offering more of a helping hand than the typical cookbook might. It stems from the fact he’s a “cook and not a chef”, he says. He started cooking at home and found it taking over more and more of his personal life. He was working in a legal role within the public service – a “grand pensionable job” his dad thought he shouldn’t leave. He, however, decided to take a career break to pursue the Ballymaloe cookery course in Cork and do some travelling to foodie destinations, starting in Melbourne and ending with a tour of the Middle East.
“I did the Ballymaloe course but you don’t come out of it as a chef. To do the full cheffing thing takes several years; Ballymaloe is very much an introduction to different cuisines and techniques. It’s designed to make you a better cook as opposed to a chef. After Ballymaloe, I went traveling and I ended up in Melbourne. I worked in a little artisan bakery in a neighbourhood café and again, I just felt the ethos of those places and now Brother Hubbard, is about people who are passionate about the food. That’s not to say that chefs aren’t, but there’s a slightly different vibe to a chef,” he says.
“The book is written in a very conversational style. There’s a lot of guidance there. Ultimately what I’m trying to do, if you’re taking one of my recipes at home and cooking it, because there’s that little bit extra, you’ll feel a lot more confident approaching the dish, you’ll enjoy cooking it, and you should end up with something you’re quite happy with and quite proud of. There’s an element that I’m the cook beside you, but not in a creepy way,” he laughs.
A cookbook wasn’t even on his distant future to-do list when he left his job. Opening a café was a hope, but returning to work was equally a possibility for him. Similar was true for James, who worked in financial services, but by the time they returned, the café was a well-embedded dream.
“It was just something that developed as an idea and a dream between us. We were both ready to change our lives at that time and we jumped off the cliff together so to speak,” says Garrett. “I could have gone back to my job, and I came close to us deciding to do that but after a while and doing a bit of research, we realised that for what we wanted to set up, there was still an opportunity for it. People weren’t going out and spending €150 on dinner on a Friday night anymore but they were looking for something good, interesting and creative, at a less premium price.
“We felt there was a strong opportunity to provide that to people in a daytime setting and do something interesting. It was obviously a bit of a risk but we felt we could wait for the world to change but we didn't know when that will happen or we could just go for it. We were very careful and very conservative in how we approached things, but it was time to get on with it,” he says.
Opening a Middle Eastern inspired café was a risk at the time, according to Garrett, who says in 2011, very few cafes were offering anything like it. He fell in love with the cuisine while travelling around the Middle East and wanted to change how Irish people view the food.
“What I love about Middle Eastern food is how it’s full of colour and flavour and texture. It’s such a bright, beautiful cuisine. A lot of people when they think of middle eastern food or at least when they used to in the past, they’d think of a kebab, rather than all these wonderful salads and vibrant dishes and things like that.
“That was my initial attraction to it but why I was keen to bring it into a café was I felt previously particularly in Dublin, if you wanted a Middle Eastern experience, you had to go to that very specific Middle Eastern restaurant and while they might do very lovely food, it’s a very specific experience. What I thought was, let’s introduce it in a more casual environment, it’ll feel like a different offering to the café down the road, so it was about bringing something new and exploring it for people,” he says.
It’s been largely very well received, besides the off customer still looking for a taste of the classics on their menu. “What I felt was, stuff like the Full Irish breakfast or Eggs Benedict didn’t sit well with our ethos. They’re pretty much available on every single brunch menu or café menu in Dublin. It’s not that they’re bad dishes, they can be great, but they’re so available.
"Occasionally we’ll have people who come in, and on a Sunday morning when they’re hungover, Coke and a full Irish might be the two things they’re looking for. They might leave again, that happens rarely but it still happens, but that’s fine. They can walk into literally any other café and get that but I think we’re busier because we’re doing something a bit different and people are up for trying new things moreso than ever now. The way food has gone, people are up for new experiences. I think people can often value that more,” he says.
Since then, others eateries have introduced more Middle Eastern flavours to their menus, but Garrett views the foodie explosion in Dublin as mostly very positive. “I worry sometimes is there nearly too much happening, but I think it’s come on so much. I think a number of years ago, we paled in comparison with the likes of London and Paris and Berlin and Melbourne and New York and all that, but now, we’re up there.
“We’ve got interesting stuff happening and there’s a celebration of creativity and to an extent, individuality. When I think back to the Celtic Tiger, I think about chains and franchises, there was so much of that happening, whereas now you see more independent businesses shooting up and the people behind them are really passionate about doing something new and creative and things like that. That’s what I’m really encouraging of,” he says.
He won’t be adding to the potential café congestion in Dublin with a string of Brother Hubbard cafes. “We obviously have the two outlets and I think, genuinely, that’s likely to be it. It’s funny, the whole point I did all this was the happiness factor, to be passionate about it all, and I don’t think having a fleet of Brother Hubbard cafes would make me happy. If we do something new, I think it will be something different,” he says.
That’s not to say there aren’t plans afoot for the soon-to-be Brother Hubbard North and South. There’s a tote bag designed in collaboration with an artist coming very soon, and they’re looking to get Piply out of Sister Sadie’s kitchen, where it’s currently run from, and into its own.
“Then I would like to do a different evening offering in Sister Sadie, I’d like to try a different style of thing over there. I’d also like to start doing, even once a month, long table suppers in Brother Hubbard. It mightn’t even be Middle Eastern, we might try a few different cuisines. I think possibly then we might look at developing a product that would work well on supermarket shelves, but I don’t know what it’ll be yet; something a little bit different and more interesting. That’s what keeps it interesting for our staff as well,” says Garrett.
No major plans to look out for then!
The Brother Hubbard Cookbook is on sale in all good bookshops now for €27.99. See the Brother Hubbard website for more details.
