Cúpla Focal

Caife Úna is Kildare Street’s hidden gem. Situated just around the corner from the hustle and bustle of busy Grafton Street, Caife Úna offers a relaxing retreat from the madness of Dublin city. As the name suggests, Caife Úna is an Irish speaking eatery. But before you get palpitations and are thrown back to your gaeltacht days of gulping down the Bean an Tí’s prátaí while desperately trying to avoid using the demon béarla, you can relax. While Caife Úna’s first language is Irish, the friendly waitress is more than happy to serve you up your spuds as Béarla. And its not just spuds that are on the bilingual menu here. Caife Úna offers a more sophisticated salmon dish or a veggie paninni… not very Coláiste Gaelach at all at all. 

The décor is elegant yet homely with wooden floors and pretty paintings setting off the red-brick walls. The ambiance is relaxed and cosy, with the clientele ranging from mums taking a coffee break from shopping and business folk closing a deal over the laptop, to ladies of leisure enjoying a boozey lunch. I popped in for a simple cupán caife with my English only speaking friend who, after much encouragement from yours truly, managed to unearth cúpla focail from his school days to order a pot of tea and a scone. (I must add that he was so chuffed with his efforts I felt I should give him a gold star on his copy book).  

Caife Úna is not an “in your face” type of Irish language establishment. The choice is left entirely up to the customer whether or not they want to speak Irish, and so the balance is just right. I couldn’t resist a bit of investigative eavesdropping (ahem) to hear whether any of the tables were actually speaking Irish, and I was pleasantly surprised to find one couple having a full blown conversation as Gaeilge! While the rest of the tables spoke mainly English (one Polish, a sure sign of modern Ireland) nobody left without throwing in a cheery “go raibh mile maith agat” before heading back out to the rat race.