The Old Bank Café. New Eating and Meeting Place in Mayfield

The Old Bank Café

New Eating and Meeting Place in Mayfield

Cork suburb Mayfield has a lovely new meeting place. The Old Bank Café, that the O’Connor butcher family opened last month, is quickly becoming the place to eat and meet in the area. 

It has the field to itself as, amazingly for a place of its size, there is no other café in the area. Why Old Bank, you might ask. Well because the new building stands on the Iona Road site occupied for many years by the Permanent TSB bank. 

O’Connor family member Sinead manages the Old Bank and is open for business from 8.00am. We arrived much later than that to try out the lunch menu! The café was quite full about 12.45pm and, as the first wave of diners left, they were immediately replaced by others. And, as we ate our excellent and well-priced dishes, we could see why it has taken off.

We could have had their excellent Roast of the Day, the healthy House Salad, or their highly regarded honey glazed ham, but we had been tipped off on two dishes in particular.

One, my pick, is their take on Eggs Benedict. The Old Bank Café style Benedict poached eggs come on sourdough toast with hollandaise or with salsa verde and is further enhanced by a choice of slow roast tomatoes, sauté spinach and roast button mushrooms or home cured bacon and slow roasted tomatoes. 

I went for the hollandaise, spinach and mushroom version. It is absolutely superb, terrific flavour and textures, well executed (eggs perfectly poached) and presented. And excellent value at €7.50. Both this and CL’s choice below are available all day (8.00am to 4.00pm).

CL meanwhile was tucking into her modestly named House Dish (again great value at eight euro). This includes crispy home-made potato hash, smoked ham hock, smokey baked beans, poached egg and salsa verde or hollandaise. That hash, the potato is done rosti style, is excellent and lots of flavour come through from the other ingredients.

We were feeling pretty satisfied after that  - they are both large dishes - but were tempted by the pancakes, newly added to the menu. These are American style and are made in house and served with cream, maple syrup or lemon curd. Delicious, with a beautiful texture, and, with a cup of well made coffee, we had no bother in finishing them off. Happy out!

* In the same building as the café, the O’Connor family also have a butcher’s shop and a food hall. See more on the complex here. 

The Old Bank Café

Iona Road

Mayfield

Cork

(021) 453 0541

Taste of the Week. Spice O’Life Curry Sauce

Taste of the Week

Spice O’Life Curry Sauce

Picked up a can of this Curry Sauce (it is made in Dunmanway by Spice O’Life) at the new O’Connor’s Butcher Food Hall in Mayfield that features some other artisan products as well.

There are some basic curry instructions on the side but no harm in adding carrots, mushrooms, onions, peppers, whatever you've handy, to the mix. And of course, you’ll have rice as well.

When cooked, just pour the sauce over the lot and fold in. That's what we did and were pleasantly surprised at the result. This sauce is excellent, our Taste of the Week.

The West Cork company “develop, create, and manufacture the solution to your sauce, marinades, dressings,  spice, seasoning and new product development needs” and their other brands include Dip!t, Marinade Me, Insanely Good and Presto! 

O’Connor’s, by the way, have a large bright building where the old Permanent TSB were and also a busy café called, appropriately enough, the Old Bank.