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Wild Cafe
Corner of The Mall and Ashe Street
IT might be only February, but there’s a real buzz about the food business in Tralee at the moment that suggests optimism for the year ahead.
Croí has been getting great reviews since it opened last May, The Brogue is absolutely flying and is about to start expanding, Ugly Mug on Ashe Street is a charming little cafe opened last year, Ballyseedy Garden Centre is doing great things in the Wetlands and Chez Christophe has moved his restaurant around the corner to a bigger premises where Il Forno operated.
This is great news for Tralee as new jobs are created and it brings more life to the town centre. It was timely then that Wild Cafe opened its doors at the start of December to coincide with the completion of The Mall revamp.
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The cafe is in an excellent location at the corner of The Mall and Ashe Street which sees a great amount of footfall all day.
The owners have done a fine job on it too, and the colour scheme is really cool throughout — a mix of light blue, turquoise, greys, browns and mustards.
The cafe is over two floors so I headed upstairs as the ground floor was packed with diners (it was lunchtime). It was quieter there and I was immediately given a menu to peruse by the friendly waitress.
I found the choice very impressive. There was a choice of four superfood salads all around the €8 mark, sandwiches like roast beef, smoked salmon, cornfed chicken and ham were between €9-€10 and large plates ranged between €8 and €13.
The Wild Seafood Fish Cake with avocado, pineapple salsa and spice salad looked especially appealing, but being a bit boring I plumped for the ‘Dingle Bay Seafood Chowder with Bácús Soda Bread’ for €7.
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I didn’t have long of a wait until it arrived. A big proper bowl of chowder with a thick slice of bread on the side. It looked delicious and tasted even better.
I’m not a big fan of the actual soup being thick in the chowder, rather I prefer the fish and veg to provide the thickness in the bowl and this didn’t disappoint.
This was excellent, perfectly seasoned chowder, the haddock and other white fish working with the diced veg to create a tasty and filling lunch. The bread was great too.
I finished off with an Americano. If the rest of the dishes are anything like as good as the chowder, Wild is here to stay.
