The Pepper Pot

All the tables at Dervla James and Marian Kilcoyne's first floor café in Powerscourt Town House are beside the railings overlooking the central area, allowing excellent views of the hustle and bustle of the ground floor - and, if you’re lucky with the timing, you can eat to the accompaniment of a pianist tinkling the ivories down below.

The Pepper Pot takes pride in the fact that they make and bake everything daily. This Dublin restaurants menu is short but it’s good homemade fare, with lots of daily blackboard specials - and they use and name a lot of Irish produce.

And you’ll know it’s the genuine article as soon as you taste it. The savoury basics may be soup, sandwiches and salads, but they are fresh as a daisy, with some unusual combinations.

An excellent choice to accompany the day’s homemade soup, for example,would be a sandwich of roast pear, bacon and Mount Callan cheddar, perhaps, or red pepper pesto with lovely soft Ryefield goat’s cheese. Deliciously unusual salads and seasonal tarts might include a black pudding salad with Cashel Blue cheese and candied walnuts, and a creamy organic leek tart with caraway seeds and Durrus cheese.

An all day breakfast includes variations on scrambled eggs, organic porridge and homemade nutty granola served with Glenisk low fat natural yogurt and rhubarb and ginger compote.

But, of course, it’s the mid-morning or afternoon tea that brings a lot of people here – and no wonder, as a freshly baked scone with homemade jam and cream or a slice of Victoria sponge is the perfect pick-you-up with your tea or coffee, and the vintage mixed china presentation is pretty. Alternative drinks drinks include freshly squeezed orange juice, organic elderflower fizz and perhaps a raspberry and pomegranate juice.

Everything is very appetising and some products are available to take home – apple and tomato chutney, red onion marmalade or raspberry jam, for example, also homemade dressings; the breads need to be ordered a day ahead, but it’s worth it - and they include gluten- and dairy-free bread.

The Pepper Pot is a lovely and very useful place to know about.