"I wanted people to be able to see and to smell the food," says Vanessa Clarke of her new Good Food Store, on Pembroke Lane in Dublin 4. "Everything we sell is healthy, and I would reckon 80 per cent of what we sell is organic. Some delis have lots of padding, have lots of things just to fill the shelves, but everything here is edible, everything is delicious."
The roll-call of foods in Ms Clarke's shop is enviable, a compendium of the great Irish artisan foods. In a small space - the Good Food Shop was formerly a long-lived local place called The Wee Stores - you can find most things your heart could desire, including rarities such as Holyhill butter, made from a herd of Jersey cows in West Cork (including unsalted butter), and fresh St Tola goats cheese crottins from Co Clare. There is a shelf of Andrew and Karen Wallace's fine Granston Manor preserves, produced in Co Laois without any sprays or pesticides. There is the exceedingly rare Dunworley Cottage salami, the new Green & Black's organic hot chocolate, and Michael Allmann's organic breads and croissants. You will also find Danny O'Toole's kiln-smoked bacon, and gorgeous little baby potatoes from Denis and Hilary Healy from Co Wicklow.
Everything about the shop speaks of careful choice. It has a Continental air about it, concocted by its very simplicity. There are some shelves, a table with cheeses, another with olives and comestibles, a cool cabinet, and wicker baskets with freerange eggs, garlic, apricots, apples, and fresh vegetables. You step in off Pembroke Lane into a little corner of Provence, and the very lack of design in the shop focuses your concentration on the food. "I wanted a place that sold the foods I like," Ms Clarke says simply. "I was running the Dublin operation for Toby Simmonds's Real Olive Company, but when I stopped that, I was just desperate to get back into the food business. I found this place, and the location was great."
The shop unites the dedication of a wholefood store with the discrimination of a modern deli. Besides selling some hard-to-find things, it also has good sandwiches ("you can have everything we sell in the shop in a sandwich," says Vanessa). And while you could quickly assemble a dinner party's worth of food - Hederman's smoked trout, artichoke hearts, smoked salmon rillettes and meat terrines, some honey-roast ham, stuffed vine leaves, an oozy brie - you could also drop in just to buy a loaf of bread and a packet of bacon. It feels like a neighbourhood store, not just a drive-in deli for the well-heeled of the area. Its opening hours mean that you can emerge from the office or library at 7 p.m. and be eating a good dinner bought at the shop half an hour later.
The Good Food Store, 7 Pembroke Lane, Dublin 4. Tel: (01) 667 5656. 10 a.m.-7.30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 10 a.m.-5.30 p.m. Sat.