Dubliners who had happily made the trek to Kerry to experience the Murphy brothers special ice cream on its home territory could not believe their good fortune in 2010, when not just one but two of the cheerful blue and white fronted cafés opened up in Dublin city centre.
Famously made with the creamy milk of black Kerry cows by Americans Kieran and Seán Murphy, who now live in Dingle (where they opened their first shop and café), this ice cream range has been a runaway success.
The company, which also has a Killarney shop and café as well as the ones in Dingle and Dublin (Wicklow Street & The Square, Temple Bar), supplies a network of discerning restaurants and specialist outlets around the country and has now become a household name.
The cafés (also styled ‘dessert houses’) are unusual in that they only offer coffees and ice cream (the range of flavours is growing all the time), scooped in time-honoured fashion from a freezer cabinet in the shop and available in little tubs to take away if you like; also milk shakes and ice cream desserts (sundaes, banana split).
The main exception to this rule is German baker Wiebke Murphy’s collection of superb utterly irresistible gateaux, which are displayed in a cabinet and would be very difficult to ignore. There’s also a Murphy’s Ice Cream Cake, the perfect party piece, plus chocolate brownies, Murphy’s tarts and some of the Murphys’ own favourite chocolates.
* Kieran and Séan Murphy's lovely ‘Book of Sweet Things’ is available from the cafés and from bookshops.
: Open daily 12-8pm
