Introducing 'French Foodie in Dublin Meets', a series of interviews where I speak with some of my food and drink heroes and those at the forefront of Dublin's foodie revolution. For the first in this series of interviews I met with Tom Stafford, main man behind ViceCoffee Inc, a speciality coffee shop on 54 Middle Abbey Street.
How did you get started in the coffee industry?
My background was in advertising. I studied
media, worked in the industry for a few years and then I’ve always kind of done
hospitality from secondary school right up to college. Then I travelled quite
extensively after college for a year and then back to Dublin. I left just before
the recession hit and eventually travelled in South America, New Zealand
and I ended up living for two and a half years in Melbourne where the speciality coffee scene is huge. I managed a café while I was
there and I got really big into the speciality coffee side of things. Then I moved
back in 2011; I stalked Colin Harmon in 3fe until he gave me a job and then I
work for the guys in 3fe for a year and half. Then they decided to concentrate on
opening their roastery so they pulled out of Twisted Pepper and the opportunity
came up to take over here and so yeah I’ve been in Vice Coffee Inc two years in January which
is pretty cool and I haven’t looked back.
When
did you start loving coffee?
I suppose I was a little bit into it before I left Dublin, then as
soon as I got to New Zealand it was just
a different approach to coffee. It was all about quality not quantity. Once I
got to Melbourne, the whole scene there is so different,
they have high end restaurants but a lot of it is more approachable and they have this amazing brunch
scene. You go out and you can have brunch any day of the week from like 7am
to 4pm and then all these cafes will
turn around and have an evening spread
as well and do amazing wines and craft beer and have music. That’s when I was
like ‘wow this is different!’, it was all affordable as well, you could and we
did go out for dinner and lunch nearly 5 times a week. Everyone was fun there
was none of that pretentiousness that kind of came with food. That’s how I fell
in love with it all.
What
do you think of Dublin’s current coffee scene?
It’s really impressive for such a small
city to have so many coffees shops that do a really great job. Some people kind of
give out but there is an amazing
coffee scene if you compare it to the likes of London and we have a great selection
of really talented baristas. We’ve gone on to compete in all the different
competitions and while we haven’t won the world title in a few years we’re always
right up there amongst the best. We always have international baristas and
coffee fanatics coming to Dublin and they always rave about how great our scene
is. In the next year we’ve got the countdown to the world barista championships
happening here in the RDS next June, so it will just going up and up till
then. I think Dublin’s scene is pretty amazing for such a small city.
What
do you think is the next trend in Dublin’s coffee scene?
In the last couple of years there’s been a
really big emphasis on filter coffees but the next thing is to focus
more on the cold drinks side of things. When the sun shines in Dublin everyone
wants to have iced coffees, we were probably one of the first ones to do the
Vietnamese iced coffees 3 summers ago, now you can get them
everywhere. There is a bakery on Georges street called Krust that do a nitro cold brew, I haven’t tried it but it looks like a pint of Guinness
when it’s brewed. We’ll be launching our new coffee cocktail menu in
September-October for the winter season. We won the best Irish coffee at the
whiskey festival in February this year and we’re gonna be expanding our menu
including lots of different types of
coffee cocktails so watch this space!
The best coffee experience you’ve ever had?
Hmm… probably the best coffee I've ever had was a coffee that was brewed by the world brewers cup champion in Rimini last year at the world championships. It was brewed in an aeropress, there was not even measurements taken but the coffee was what they called a 90+ coffee, a really high grade type of bean and at the time it was a Costa Rican coffee and it was the coffee the world champion barista had won with at the competition the previous day. It was just… I never had anything like it! We were really hungover and it still tasted phenomenal! I haven’t had a coffee like that since. We’re very lucky that we get high grade coffees here but that one was just ‘Oh my god! What is this?’
Finally,
what’s your advice for making a good cup of coffee at home?
Good water, you can make coffee really
easily at home and it doesn’t cost. You don’t have to buy an expensive espresso machine or grinder. Essential kit like either an aeropress or French
press, good quality coffee beans, a grinder (freshly ground coffee is always
better than pre-ground). Use good water and if your water isn’t great at home
and tastes chlorinated you can buy filtered watered from the supermarkets. Just
follow a routine, having something like a timer and a scale. Measuring
everything is very important you kind of have to follow a recipe it’s a bit
like baking. If you follow a recipe your coffee should be amazing!
