Pike Deli in Clonakilty

Pike Deli
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January 24, 2025
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By Caroline Hennessy

“We’ve seen our bread sales double since we opened”, says Ryan Hoy of Pike Deli in Clonakilty, the bakery that he and his wife, Ann Marie Menzies, started almost two years ago. “From word getting out [that we were open] to people trying the sourdough for the first time and then coming back, either because they like the flavour or the fact that it’s a healthy alternative to supermarket bread, we see the same faces coming in every two to three days. It’s just become something they’re doing regularly, which I think is amazing”.

Sourdough is the cornerstone of this small bakery, tucked into the unassuming spot on Connolly Street which was formerly the home of the iconic Lettercolumn Kitchen Project. “The building already had a following because of Lettercolumn. It was an easy segue into a bakery”. The bread display in the window is always primed to entice curious shoppers through the door. Once inside, it’s difficult to resist the beautifully burnished loaves, made from just three ingredients: flour, water and salt. “Everyone wants the standard country loaf, which we make using Wildfarmed [regeneratively farmed] flour”, says Hoy. Despite the light colour, this bread also includes “a nice 15% of wholemeal flour” for extra nutrition and flavour. He also makes a loaf that has been an unexpected hit locally. “It’s a 100% rye sourdough with treacle and seeds, baked in a bread pan. It looks like soda bread but has definite sour characteristics and a deep, almost alcoholic, meady molasses flavour which is great with just butter or cheese or smoked fish. That’s become hugely popular with people looking for soda bread”.

Tray of tasty pastries

It’s not the only unexpected hit with customers who come through the door and are seduced by the other temptations on display: multi-layered focaccia sandwiches, delectable savoury pastries and an array of sweet treats, including their ever-changing maritozzi. “They’re the most fun that we have, the most experimental”, says Hoy, who describes these Roman-inspired pastries simply as a “cream bun”. Combining infused cream with seasonal compotes, different textures and fruits, these good looking treats deserve a display window all on their own, but don’t skip the savouries. “That’s where we try to tap into whatever’s good, whatever is seasonal,” says Goy, “We use beetroot quite a lot. For the end of autumn into the winter we bought hundreds of euros worth of crown prince squash from Camus farm. We had beautiful Indian spiced squash with paneer from Macroom Buffalo Farm, chilli and red onion. Sometimes it’s braised leeks and Cashel Blue. In the summer time it’s all light flavours with fresh tomatoes, herbs and courgettes”.

Ryan and Ann outside Pike Deli

From Fermanagh originally, Hoy started his journey in bread as a young chef at An Crúibín, the funky post-Lobby Bar, pre-L’Atitude 51 spot on Union Quay that served Irish-style tapas back in the late 00s. “The first time I made sourdough was 16 or 17 years ago”, he remembers. “It was my first kitchen job, working there with Wayne, a friend of mine who now works for [Cork food company] My Goodness. We were experimenting with a kind of San Francisco sourdough”. At the time they were baking the bread in tins and it had what Hoy describes as “a really closed crumb. It was super tasty, super fermented. That was my idea of sourdough”. The experiments paid off: the bread was good enough to get a mention from John and Sally McKenna in their 2009 Bridgestone Irish Food Guide.

After some time in Cork city’s Paradiso (“An amazing kitchen to work in”) and at Little Otik in Berlin – “a neighbourhood restaurant, everything meticulously sourced, deceptively simple” – Hoy, then in his early 30s, took a job as a head chef in East London, setting up and running a restaurant / gastro pub. “It was scary alright. It was a kind of baptism of fire. I still probably have a little bit of PTSD from it”, he laughs, “but at the same time I had the idea then that this was something that I could do on my own someday, or with my right-hand woman, my wife Ann Marie”. Menzies, who is from Carrigtwohill and a graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design, also had food experience, having worked with The Real Olive Company and Toonsbridge Dairy. “She had a good grounding in front of house and sourcing, the whole logistics side of things”, says Hoy.

Freshly baked treats

Having bought a “slightly dilapidated fixer-upper house with land” near Drinagh before the pandemic and observed the lockdown surge of interest in sourdough, the couple decided to open their own business locally. “We wanted to do something really simple, to set up in a community in a small village or town and Clon was the spot”. Having been in London during the mid 2010s, Hoy had observed the rise of that city’s obsession with sourdough – “there was just this wave of sourdough bread that was everybody was eating and everybody was talking about. I remember thinking, ‘that’s going to happen in Ireland’”. Around that time he did an “inspirational” class with Joe Fitzmaurice of Riot Rye Bread School in Cloughjordan in Co Tipperary, a man whose practical sourdough classes have had a sizable influence on the current crop of artisan bakeries across Ireland. Hoy and Menzies brought all their food experiences together in Pike Deli, and they’ll celebrate two years at Connolly Street on 16 March. “It’s tough out there for small businesses but we’ve been well received in Clonakilty”, says Hoy. “People do travel for the bread but we’re focused on serving the immediate community, first and foremost. We feel very much part of the community now and that’s the backbone, all the other small independent businesses. Clon is one of those towns where it’s taken for granted that everyone mucks in and helps each other out”.

Tray of Croissants and Pain au Chocolat Pastries

With the resurgence of interest in locally baked bread, Hoy is optimistic about the future of bread in Ireland. “There was a time when bakeries were just a given in every town”, he says, “and it seems like that’s starting to come back again. It’s great to see small towns and villages getting their own sourdough bakeries. It’s not a fad, it’s just growing and growing”.

Author Information

Caroline Hennessy
Bibliocook: All About Food

Caroline Hennessy Award-winning food writer, broadcaster and author Caroline Hennessy discovered as a child that cooking and baking was the most delicious way of winning friends and influencing people. She hasn’t stopped since. Professionally, she has been focused on food since editing Ireland’s first food website for RTÉ in 2000 and establishing Bibliocook: All About Food in 2005. 

Chair of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild,  she graduated from Ballymaloe Cookery School’s 12-week certificate course in 2007 and is the author of The Official Guinness Cookbook and co-author of Sláinte: The Complete Guide to Irish Craft Beer and Cider.

Through her writing and working as an MC, she continues to highlight the work of Irish food producers, restaurants and people working to develop and maintain a sustainable local food system.  

Caroline Hennessy speaking on a microphone, standing in front of a painting

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