What should we know about Noisette?
Bakers Vaarsha Baugreet and Jeremy Pastor bonded over a love of sourdough, viennoiserie and organic flour, and Noisette is the couple's first opening, in the North County Dublin town of Rush. Vaarsha was previously head baker at Bread Naturally in Raheny, while Jeremy was head pastry chef at Tartine. This site on Upper Main Street used to be a retail unit, but the couple have converted it to a bakery with some seating outside.
Anyone familiar with NoCoDub with know that artisanal bakeries are MIA in this part of the world. Only in the last few years have things improved with An Bácús Beag in Donabate and The Rock in Skerries (also shout out to La Boulangerie Francaise in Swords, open for an amazing 20 years), but the gaps are wide and deep for real bread and handmade pastries. When Noisette opened in March 2023, Rush strawberry danishes and lime meringue cruffins generated soul-crushing queues, but a year on things have calmed, so setting your alarm for sunrise shouldn't be necessary.
What should we have?
Doughnuts have a bad rap in Dublin, all brightly coloured and sickeningly confected, but these ones are light, airy, and fried golden. They've one upped the classic jam with their "strawberries and cream" version - a hard approve from us.
A cinnamon roll was the standout from two trips - an airy swirl neither light on cinnamon, nor icing, and all the better for it, with icing that's more of a glaze than a gloop.
There was a fair amount of kickback on the €5 almond croissants at new bakery Una in Ranelagh - anyone offended by that will be thrilled to know you can bag one here for the relative bargain of €3.80. Layer upon layer of light, flaky pastry from expert lamination houses a dense, generous almond filling - so dense it was threatening to spill out onto our hands. We weren't complaining.
A hotcross bun special was stuffed full of orange zest and raisins, showing up every supermarket version you've ever inflicted on yourself, and their custard tarts are more like Bread 41's custardos than Café Lisboa's pasteis de nata - good, but not quite the latter's standard.
A Mediterranean veg focaccia had tomato, peppers and olives, and if you're looking for a standalone lunch before moving to something sweet, this will cover the hunger hole nicely - juicy veg, expertly seasoned, and the crust was faultless. We also took a French style baguette home for sandwiches and it's unsurprisingly a whole pile better than what we could produce at home.
What about drinks?
Coffee is from Imbibe and on both visits our coffee was perfectly made, which is often not the case, even with the best product.
Why should I go?
As a county/country we do not have enough independent, artisanal bakeries - with so many people not having the time to make real bread at home, having somewhere in the locality to pick up a loaf should be a human right. Rush might be a journey for many of our readers, but make a day of it and head to South beach to enjoy your haul, recently named one of Ireland's 50 best beaches.
Noisette
3 Main Street, Rush, Co. Dublin
