Cornucopia has evolved and changed over it’s 25 years. This would not have been possible without it’s array of staff with their wealth of knowledge and passion. From Head Chefs developing exciting new recipes to volunteers working for dinners, Cornucopia thanks them all. It is a truly unique thing to be a ‘Cornucopian’. The dictionary describes a ‘Cornucopian’ as being someone who believes there is an abundance of resources available to us. That definitely relates to the restaurant’s founder who has an ability to not only manage, organise and pay generations of staff but to also respect, inspire and see them grow.

Many of our current 35  part-time and full-time staff members have been with Cornucopia for over 10 years. Many have left to experience the world and have come back to work again with new insights and recipes to share. Many visit year after year. One of our managers began life as a kitchen porter; the writer of our cookbook began as a waitress; and many of our chefs are self taught and began their vegetarian chefing careers chopping vegetables in a corner of our small kitchen space.

The Team

Owner

Deirdre McCafferty is our owner and proprietor. She established Cornucopia on Wicklow Street with her late husband Neil in 1986 and has had a hands on involvement in Cornucopia since the day it started. Prior to starting Cornucopia she graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1975 with a degree in Sociology and in 1979 achieved a Master’s in US Women’s History from Goddard College Vermont in the USA. While living in the USA she worked for two years as Fitness Director for the Women’s Athletic Club in the Boston YWCA and for two years in the Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston, Ma. (now located in South Florida) as their Director Of Education. She has a keen interest in nutrition, vegetarianism and veganism, fitness and health, living–foods, environmental issues, Compassion in World Farming and ethical business.

Our Kitchen team

Tony Keogh – Head Chef, has been working as a chef for 16 years. He began his career while paying his way through college when studying liberal arts. He has been with Cornucopia since 2002. It is here he honed his skills and developed his repertoire. He became head chef in 2006. He is interested in all elements of vegetarian cuisine, and is particularly interested in working with new ingredients and developing recipes with unusual combinations and flavours, while maintaining the standards of recipes both new and traditional within Cornucopia. He runs our kitchen with efficiency and energy and is an enthusiastic team leader.

Our chef team also includes Josef Koutecek our very talented Czech salad chef; James Burke, who specialises in vegan cooking, baking, and raw/living cuisine; Anna Bernard hailing from Australia; David our newest and talented salad and evening chef; Eamonn Reddington our breakfast and salad chef extraordinaire; Eddie Eriksson our wonderful Swedish chef,  Ken Doherty evening chef, salad chef and food writer for the Irish Examiner and Karen Kelleher who combines medical studies with evening chef talent. Our chef team is assisted by many and varied prep staff. Thanks for all the chopping and peeling everyone!

Our Kitchen porters

Our Kitchen porters, who hail from every corner of the globe including China, Poland and South America wash and scrub, sweep and mop and run up and down the stairs from morning to night. Without the work of kitchen porters (in every restaurant in the world) everything grinds to a halt!

Our Counter team

Perry Lynn our vibrant Scottish floor manager hails from Glasgow and is ‘an institution within an institution’. He has lived in Dublin for 10 years and is known to many of our customers as he worked locally in Cafe Fresh and the Metro Cafe. He now heads up our welcoming counter crew made up of an interesting collection of new and old, part-time and full-time staff. With the help of our many supervisors he keeps us on our toes, keeps the salads filled and keeps the delicious hot dishes rolling out of the kitchen for you.

All of our counter staff enjoy meeting new and regular customers. As many of our staff have seen Cornucopia change over the years so have our customers and we all look forward to the next stage. Thanks to all the counter staff who have kept our customers happy and feeling welcomed over many years.

Our Office team

Philip West and Margaret Burke – Managers

For the past ten years Cornucopia has been jointly managed by Philip West and Margaret Burke. Philip has worked in Cornucopia for the past sixteen years and prior to becoming joint manager with Margaret and in more recent times general manager he had done practically every job in the restaurant from kitchen-porter to head chef. As well as managing all aspects of Cornucopia from stock control and finance to building maintenance and project management of the new development he has a second career as DJ extraordinaire in many local music establishments – a busy man!

Margaret has been a driving force behind Cornucopia for many years and is particularly gifted at maintaining standards of excellence in human resources management, decor, food standards, and office systems. In recent years she has worked part-time as she is now the proud mother of two young children.

Danielle Serpico – Assistant Manager

Danielle is our new and enthusiastic Assistant Manager, joining the team in 2010. Danielle is of half Italian/half Irish descent and grew up in Rome. She has always been surrounded by good food and a sincere love and respect for it. Therefore, it was not surprising that after first studying Art in Dublin, at the age of 21,her passion for food and the warm ambiance that encompasses eating among friends took over and in 1994 she opened a popular and much loved Pizzeria in Greystones called ‘The Pizza Mill’. This was followed by ‘Serpicos’ Italian Restaurant in 2001 and ‘The Bakery’ Restaurant in Wicklow in 2006. A vegetarian since the age of nineteen, her growing interest in food for health, nutrition and ethics caused her to become vegan in 2009. Upon meeting Deirdre and having frequented Cornucopia many times previously she was only rapturous to have the opportunity to join such a well suited institution that fitted so well into her lifestyle and personal beliefs and she has not looked back since!

Sammy Murphy – Office Manager

Sammy initially worked as a waitress and counter-staff member in Cornucopia, left for a few years and returned as part of our office team. She is gifted in sytems creation and as we develop we constantly require new office systems to keep us flowing efficiently, and the administration of Cornucopia working smoothly. She combines all this and the day to day running of our office with a parallel interest in African Dance, Comedy and improvisational acting.

Orla Keeshan – Marketing and Creative Manager

Orla Keeshan has also worked in Cornucopia as a counter staff member while studying photography and Fine Art in Dun Laoighre College of Art. She has been the photographer for our award winning cookbook ‘Cornucopia At Home’ and has recently returned part-time to manage the marketing and creative development of Cornucopia. This is a wide and varied position and includes among many exciting and creative projects, the management of the many art exhibitions that have graced our walls.