OUR STORY
It all started on a glacier in New Zealand. Nicola, from Ireland, met Dvir, from Israel. Their love, life and culinary adventure started from there. Nicola moved out to Israel where she consumed a life’s worth of pita bread stuffed with the most mind-blowing flavours that she decided to stick around for 8 years. There were many parties (before the kids!) and gatherings, lots of cooking, and trips centred around eating. The couple then packed up their bags again (actually a container this time), gathered their two small kids, and quit their managerial office jobs in Tel Aviv to try their luck in Ireland.
In September 2015, Mezze was born from a small pop up tent and borrowed equipment at Harvest Festival in Waterford city, Ireland. Working from Nicola’s mother’s kitchen on potentially the smallest prep counter in the world, Dvir cooked up a selection of his favourite mezze; dips, salads and breads usually served at the start of the meal in the Middle East. People liked it, came back for more and the business grew from there.
With years of project management experience and almost zero experience in the food industry (Nicola did a stint in a hotel and restaurant as a teen) but with a love for cooking and sharing food, the Irish/Israeli couple decided to throw caution to the wind and start a food business.
OUR STORY
It all started on a glacier in New Zealand. Nicola, from Ireland, met Dvir, from Israel. Their love, life and culinary adventure started from there. Nicola moved out to Israel where she consumed a life’s worth of pita bread stuffed with the most mind-blowing flavours that she decided to stick around for 8 years. There were many parties (before the kids!) and gatherings, lots of cooking, and trips centred around eating. The couple then packed up their bags again (actually a container this time), gathered their two small kids, and quit their managerial office jobs in Tel Aviv to try their luck in Ireland.
In September 2015, Mezze was born from a small pop up tent and borrowed equipment at Harvest Festival in Waterford city, Ireland. Working from Nicola’s mother’s kitchen on potentially the smallest prep counter in the world, Dvir cooked up a selection of his favourite mezze; dips, salads and breads usually served at the start of the meal in the Middle East. People liked it, came back for more and the business grew from there.
With years of project management experience and almost zero experience in the food industry (Nicola did a stint in a hotel and restaurant as a teen) but with a love for cooking and sharing food, the Irish/Israeli couple decided to throw caution to the wind and start a food business.
In September 2015, Mezze was born from a small pop up tent and borrowed equipment at Harvest Festival in Waterford city, Ireland. Working from Nicola’s mother’s kitchen on potentially the smallest prep counter in the world, Dvir cooked up a selection of his favourite mezze; dips, salads and breads usually served at the start of the meal in the Middle East. People liked it, came back for more and the business grew from there.
In 2019, the couple made the leap of opening a bricks and mortar place in their hometown of Tramore, Co. Waterford. They’d been working at festivals, farmers markets, doing pop up dinners and cooking classes and wanted a place of their own to do all of that and more.
Although their plans for their first year in business were thwarted a bit by a pandemic, the couple kept their business open and it has been thriving ever since.
Mezze in Tramore, the couple’s HQ for all things Middle Eastern food, is a dynamic space for people who love food with plenty of personality. It runs as a deli/ cafe/ shop by day with cooking classes and events at night.
OUR ETHOS
We make simple food with lots of Middle Eastern flavours ensuring we source as much as we can from local producers and growers. We care about the environment and the impact that our business has.
We use compostable packaging for all our deli products and consciously source products for our shop that support local businesses and are plastic free.
We work on a daily basis to reduce our food waste by creating new salads to use up fresh produce, using clean veg peels for making stock, and preserving our lemon rinds for cooking with.
