‘Thinking back to my kitchen in Glasgow, I just wanted anyone to like my food and the amount of people who really revere it is just very heartwarming’
Looking at House Proud on the Boucher Road from the outside, you could never imagine that it houses one of Northern Ireland’s most viral sandwiches.
When Co Antrim baker Ciaran McLarnon was left with nowhere to bake his masterful sourdough loaves and hefty focaccia sandwiches, he couldn’t have expected a move to a furniture store cafe would prove to be the perfect home.
Ciaran started baking in a Glasgow kitchen just before the pandemic, where he started teaching himself the art and science of sourdough and when he returned to NI in 2022, he decided to share his skills and passion with everyone back home.
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Since setting up shop inside a shop a year ago, The Focacceria has become one of Belfast’s foodie gems – standing out not only for its top quality food offering, but its unique location.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Ciaran shared his thanks to anyone who has enjoyed his bread and sandwiches over the past year while looking ahead at what is to come for The Focacceria in the next year and beyond.
He said: “It is all based on my passion for bread and things that go in and on it. The Focacceria was a solution for coming from a shipping container to a 70-seater restaurant.
“Here we do sandwiches like our meatball sandwich, our chicken parm – Italian-themed sandwiches with our baked potato chips which we have become a bit famous for as well.”
With his bagels winning a Great Taste Award in 2023 and hosting a sold-out bread event at the NI Science Festival last year, more and more people wanted to see what this culinary gem hidden amongst the furniture was all about – quickly leading to viral fame on TikTok and Instagram.
The Focacceria
“It’s been peculiar,” Ciaran laughed
“Because you kind of ‘ok go does this really work’ and does the kind of food that I am passionate about work in a kind of daytime cafe setting inside a peculiar space, which is a furniture shop.
“We’re obviously in a really good area [Boucher Road] in terms of footfall, but it was still a bit of, I don’t know about a risk, but it was just the only option that I had at the time.
“But we have just kept trying to find a way of keep doing the things we want to do and then hoping that the people that appreciate it find out about us.
“Going viral, on a number of occasions has helped that becasuse everyone’s just like ‘is this really where it’s at’.”
Ciaran added that while going viral was never in his business plan, he has loved how reviews and social media videos have allowed more people to discover what he has to offer and bring a whole new customer base into The Focacceria.
He continued: “People often come up to the counter going ‘I didn’t know if I was in the right place’ and it’s the kind of reverse of that song ‘if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’ – that’s kind of how I feel about it, making a viral restaurant inside a inside a furniture shop it was a bit peculiar.
“My favourite thing is when someone approaches the counter and I’ve misread their face and I’m thinking that they’re coming up to complain about something, but they’re just coming up to say how much they enjoyed it.
“The menu’s fairly settled. It’s chips and focaccia sandwiches so there’s nothing that’s too showy or different or interesting, but it’s just people’s surprise at the kind of food it is.
“I think it’s being in this setting, you expect to go to your standard issue like furniture shop cafe and get a wee tray bake and a cup of coffee.”
Ciaran’s attention to detail and exact science he has perfected in his bakes has caught the attention of world-leading kitchen equipment manufacturer Rational, whose oven he using for all of his creations.
His techniques are now featured on Rational’s socials as part of the company’s global reference story series and Ciaran said he is “thrilled” to be recognised on such a global scale.
As for what is next for the next year of The Focacceria, he said that things could get even bigger and better at his House Proud kitchen.
“The way that we work is very replicable, so the kind of food that we do is very easy to do in a different location – whether that means having another one in Belfast or in a different city or even a different country,” Ciaran explained.
“The idea is to grow this space, make better use of it. I want to have a bakery proper and a sandwich bar and even a cookery school here, and then from that open, up another site.
“We’ll take it as it comes – there’s no grand plan to do like 10 in the next 5 years or anything like that, but do the same thing again just as well and not try and water anything down.”
For the customers that followed him from his shipping container days to become his first customers in House Proud and still stop in for their loaves a year on, Ciaran has said their support has never been lost on him.
He said: “I’m really appreciative to have people that trust in me.
“Thinking back to when I started in my kitchen in Glasgow, I just wanted anyone to like my food and the amount of people that sort of really revere it is just very heartwarming.”
The Focacceria opens at House Proud Furnishings on the Boucher Road from 11am to 3.30pm on Tuesday to Saturday
VIDEO AND PICTURES BY HARRY BATEMAN
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