Dublin's Fumbally manages the most difficult balancing act in modern urban living: it is the most intensely knowing place – the sort of eating house where you half expect, on entering the bathroom, to find that they have a copy of Malevich's Black Square, which they've hung upside down, hanging on the wall – and yet it is totally devoid of self-consciousness.It's hip, without a downside, which means it's the sort of space that could only be created in Ireland.
Aisling Rogerson has talked about “wanting to do something a little bit different” when she and Luca d'Alfonso set up the space in 2012, but it's the extent of that difference – the avoidance of any thing that is obvious in any and every way – that makes The Fumbally so radical.Of course, everyone uses the term “hipster” when it comes to trying to describe the place and, as usual, “hipster” is completely awry, as wide of the mark as you could be. So let's hit upon what we think is the correct term for Fumbally – it is a philosophical space: it is a forum.
By that we mean that it is a space for people to enjoy the public aspect of city life – to see, and to be seen, to interact with each other, all in the context of intelligent and artful food. Creating this sort of space and that sort of welcoming atmosphere, and having the sort of food that marries with the space, is formidably difficult – you need to be very clever to avoid the clichés, and Irish people are notoriously cliché prone, especially when it comes to fashioning public spaces.
What Ms Rogerson has done is to bring the sense of space we find in a market, or at a festival, and caught it in the large interior space of the Fumbally. The Fumbally works because it feels open, and it comes as no surprise to learn that the founders cut their teeth cooking for food markets and festivals, the archetypes of public spaces.
But moving into bricks and mortar didn't mean that they changed what they cooked: Fumbally food is essentially street food – felafels; huevos rancheros; miso broth; pulled pork – and Ms Rogerson has brought the tenor of the street and the market to her menus.
Two recent visits showed the triumph of the Fumbally: a Friday lunch was all speed and bustle, the vibe of the city at the end of the working week and on the cusp of the energy of the weekend, perfectly encapsulated in the bustle and chatter of the room.
And then a Monday night function, with speeches and wine and large platters of food, showed that even at a private event, the Fumbally remains a place where people are characterised by their public faces, their extrovertness. Yes, the Fumbally is radical, but it's more than that: it's important.
John McKenna
