The cute seaside town of Portmarnock has never exactly been a culinary destination, and despite being in a pretty idyllic location near the beach, it's never had a café worth travelling for. So we were excited to spot Honey Honey, recently opened on the main street, which looks like it belongs in the Laine my Love / Love Love Supreme / Two Boys Brew category of cafés.
Opened by Laura Weldon, a Portmarnock local, in April after a year long search for a site (finally getting lucky with the closure of The Wooden Spoon) it's a serious injection of life in an otherwise sleepy strip of shops.
The menu is short and simple, with breakfast options like homemade almond butter on tartine sourdough with raspberry chia jam, boiled eggs and toast, and overnight oats, and midweek lunch consisting of three sandwich options, with ingredients like honey-baked ham and Toonsbridge mozzarella (a current obsession of ours). The weekend brunch menu is slightly different, and includes four different types of sausage rolls.
They also have pastries on the counter (not fresh unfortunately but hopefully this will change once they settle in - god knows the north side could use some Sceál or something similar), energy balls and other homemade cakes, and coffee is from Kildare roasters Baobab.
The space itself is bright and comfortable, staff couldn't be nicer, and there's a real local feel about it, with used coffee grinds being given out for compost and customers joking about splitting the resulting crop with them (such a lovely idea).
This coastal stretch of Dublin has been quite barren for the past few years when it comes to modern, interesting cafés with good food, so we think Honey Honey is going to be rammed once word gets out beyond Portmarnock.
Honey Honey
Strand Road, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin
Opening hours: Mon - Fri 8:00 - 16:00. Sat 09:00 - 17:00. Sun 10:00 - 15:00.
