We all now know Drury Street and environs as that ‘quarter’ where a certain brand of middle-class twenty-somethings like to gather at weekends to be performatively young. More power to them I say. As someone teetering on the precipice of early-onset middle age I’m not jealous of youth at all. This is fine. They can enjoy their sour wine and queues for pizza, I can slip in and out of Asia Market unobserved like a wraith. So while this once dreary stretch has been revivified by their entry-level licentiousness and FOMO on social media food trends, few realise the role that the area itself has played in the political awakening of this cohort, or the significance of a totemic Gen X cri de coeur rediscovered. So how did this epicentre of tote-talitarianism become the place for getting high and mighty?
I’m no social scientist but it is this restaurant critic’s firm contention that the activism activation was born not of conflict in the Middle East or the death throes of American democracy, neither the threat of the Russian barbarian at the gates but rather by a determined core who decided to make a stand on these streets and fight for their right to party. The year is 2024 and fair-weather weekend gatherings of Gen Z types begin to be noted by some olds in traditional media, mostly because of the detritus they leave in their wake. The term ‘Golden Geese’ is coined to describe the group of young Irish who feel compelled to take wing – fleeing the golden shower of the housing crisis for the golden sands of Bondi beach and the likes. Change, suffused with the smoke of many rollies, was in the air.
Fast forward to the endless, blistering Dublin Summer of 2025 and the numbers are swelling to unsustainable levels. Drunk on the possibility of effecting real change and bags of cans, calls ring out for dedicated Porta-Loos, for voices to be heard. One particularly unruly Friday sees a gathering suppressed by the stern words of multiple Gardai. At this point I can reveal for the first time an unwritten chapter – the story of a pivotal screening of Herbert Ross’ 1984 social realist classic – Footloose. Shown for the first time (at an unknown SoCoDu location) with needless Irish subtitles to an all Pellador-clad audience, the tale resonated with a group socially maladjusted and roiled by the ‘unbelievable unfairness’ of Covid restrictions.
In the film a displaced big-city teen (26 year-old Kevin Bacon) has a political awakening when economic migration lands him in a small town where Christian crypto-fascist grown-ups have basically banned being cool. It’s a drag but Lori Singer (27) is a fit high-school feminist and totally into him. By exposing the oppressed kids to verboten ideas of music, dancing and finger-clicking he wittingly unleashes a wave of radicalism that has never been more relevant, or it seems, inspiring.
The leaders of the Drury St movement had identified their core text and in Kenny Loggins’ rousing titular theme – their own raméis Marseillaise. As news of the film’s message spread it became clear that they had succeeded in the unthinkable – uniting the factions. The neophyte pintmen of Castle Market, the Fade St flaneurs (lanyards trousered) – all captured by a revolutionary spirit that (almost certainly) propelled the likes of Connolly to the Aras and (whisper it) Mamdani to Gracie Mansion. Believe in better.
Rei Momo is a relatively new Brazilian restaurant located at the very nexus of the movement’s birthplace and if you’re wondering how this relates to that then I’ve got three words for you – Paulinho da Costa. Beloved samba percussionist and noted son of Rio de Janeiro’s Irajá neighbourhood – he’s the guy banging the skins on the Footloose title track. Look it up. The restaurant is the brainchild of the folks who bring you Big Fan, Egan’s and Sprezzatura, respectively. Something of a Dublin hospitality-partnership supergroup then.
What comes to mind when we think of Brazil? Football, favelas, Carnival, rapacious deforestation, South-of-the-equator depilation perhaps, but not I think food. Not yet. I imagine that for many Dubliners their primary interaction with Brazil and food is through the intrepid Brazilian food riders who deliver their Chinese take-aways in all weathers. It would be nice to think that Chinese people deliver Brazilian food somewhere like Luxembourg, just for the sake of cosmic equilibrium.
Rei Momo is here to educate us in the exotic delights of real Brazilian cooking and these are lessons worth learning. Occupying the former Bootleg space the first thing you’ll notice is that the space contains pools of lovely light. Sympathetic, soothing light, every area of the place has depths of honey and amber to settle into. Can other places take note please – I’m cutting up a chop, not performing an autopsy.
There’s an extensive drinks programme as you might imagine from a culture that parties competitively. The caipirinhas here will get you where you want to go. In a hurry. Two’s not enough, three might be too many. For you. There appears to be a frozen one served in a whole coconut if you’re crazy enough. Food and drinks feel like they share equal billing – you can fill up, you can get down. It’s all good. The petiscos (small plates), pastels (pastry hot-pockets) and coxinhas (croquettes) would all be very happy to share table space with quantities of cold beer. Deep fried things tend this way. Bolinhos de bacalhao (salt cod fritters) were the pick of the bunch for us.
The real draw here though will be the stuff coming from the wood-fired grill. For much of Latin America this is simply ‘cooking’. We pasty northerners came to the party late. Frango Peri Peri here is as good as this preparation gets. A mere €15 buys you a half-chicken boisterous with garlic and citrous, with a potent chilli sting. The chimichurri is spot-on. Punched Potatoes (batatas a murro) in Portugal traditionally involve onions and cheese – these are probably closer to (Argentine god of fire) Francis Mallman’s smashed potatoes. That’s a compliment. If you think either sounds too violent then consider that comparatively benign-sounding mash can involve being skinned, boiled and forced through a ricer. I’ll take the punch.
A bone-in pork chop (Costeleta Com Abacaxi e Evra-Cidreria) with (sort of) candied pineapple and lemon balm was also superb. I didn’t particularly care for a powdery take on tiramisu ‘gelato’ but so what. I first encountered Thom Lawson as a callow youth (him, not me) some eight years ago when I reviewed his nascent Lucky Tortoise pop-up in the old Hobart’s space in Ranelagh.
He’s fronting here and has grown into a restaurateur who knows how to realise his ideas and how to execute them – Lucky Tortoise and Sprezzatura are both proof(s) of concepts. Other projects have come and gone, it’s the nature of the industry, but I don’t think that the party’s going to end for this one anytime soon.
The combination of top-drawer Irish producers and the obvious talents of chef Bruno Della Piazza would seem to be a winning one. Go on, let your hair down, get some light in your life. I’ll leave you with some words from the Drury St proclamation of ‘25. You can fly if you’d only cut Loose, Footloose/Kick off your Sunday shoes/Oowhee, Marie/Shake it, shake it for me.
Right on.
56 Drury St
Dublin 2
Words: Conor Stevens
Photographs: Rei Momo
