Review: Puccino’s, Cork

The great Maria Crispy took my little girl and I to West Cork for the recent long weekend, and we had a lovely time altogether.  After seeing the incredible Spring  Break on the Sunday night, we found ourselves hungover and bewildered in Cork City on the Bank Holiday Monday, looking for somewhere to feed us.

Our criteria were: somewhere that would be suitable for a small kid, that would serve us burgers or pizza or something equally satisfying and unchallenging, and a menu that wasn’t too pricey. After a bit of dithering outside various places, we settled on Puccino’s on Paul Street.

I’d never seen a Puccino’s before, but on going inside saw that it had the hint of a chain about it – the menus were well designed and there were little quirky statements attached to the walls.  A quick Google search showed that it’s a the largest cafe franchise in the UK – how on earth have I missed ever seeing it before?  Anyway, the branch in Cork was perfectly good and our lunches hit the spot.

Maria had a tasty baked potato with cajun chicken for €9.  It came with a side of fries which was a little confusing, but the hangover didn’t have any problems with it.  I had a chicken burger for €12, which was good; it came in a big herby bap, with nice shoestring fries and a substantial side salad.  My tiny sidekick had a little pizza with ham and olives for only €5; the perfect price for a kid’s portion, in my opinion. The attention to detail for kids was good too; such as her drink coming in a cup with a lid.

The menu has a wide range of diner style food, like pizzas, pastas and a good choice of breakfasts.  It’s very simple, serviceable food which does what it says on the tin and is at more or less the right price. Chain restaurants would rarely be my first choice of places to eat, but I do have to say that the UK is quite good at them – Giraffe, Nando’s and Puccino’s all serve reasonably decent food.

And so to our Cork readers: what do you think of Puccino’s?