Don’t miss it this sunny season
12:43, 01 Jul 2026Updated 13:41, 01 Jul 2026
The Montenotte’s Pizza and Cocktail van
The Montenotte Hotel is bringing in a fab limited offering – a vintage van selling tasty pizzas and cocktails that’s a perfect choice for warm summer evenings.
The van will be stationed at The Glasshouse Courtyard from 2pm-7pm every Wednesday to Sunday throughout the sunny season. While chilling out under parasol-covered seating, customers will be able to enjoy Executive Chef Martin Lovell’s four signature pies as well as chilled Italian beers, wines, and cocktails and plenty of good vibes. The Montenotte team’s classic Citroen H van was previously used as a mobile cocktail bar, but had been lying idle for the last five years.
Find it at The Montenotte Hotel’s Glasshouse Courtyard this summer
In recent days, staff shared a series of videos showing how they transformed the vehicle to give it a functioning pizza oven. You can check out one of these videos at the top of the article. After a lot of elbow grease – the old Citroen is now finally ready for action with a sleek new look. The van has four pizzas on the menu, including:
The Vintage Van Margherita with smoky notes of Toons Bridge Smoked Scamorza.The Forager, made with crème fraîche, Garryhinch wild mushrooms, Cáis Na Tíre cheese & truffle oilThe Orchard Fire, which combines San Marzano tomato, Fior Di Latte mozzarella, Gubbeen chorizo, caramelised onion, rocket, and chivesThe Mandarin, made with Skeaghanore confit duck with hoisin glaze alongside quail egg, pickled cucumber, and spring onion
The Montenotte Hotel’s Pizza and cocktail van – complete with a fresh new look
The van will only be around for the summer, so make sure you don’t miss it – but fingers crossed, it’ll return again next year. Of course, there are still plenty of other great options for a slice on Leeside this sunny season. These include newcomers, Epomeo Pizza – a three-storey pizzeria that opened on Princes Street that opened early this year. The business was set up by two good friends and former staff of the city’s popular Bella Napoli – Italian chef Antonio D’Orio and waiter Anto Peric from Croatia. The duo told Cork Beo their main goal is to give Leesiders an “authentic taste of Napoli” just a short walk from their front door.
You can also check out Sano Pizza at Parnell Place – recent winner of the Restaurant of the Year and Best Pizza gongs at the Just Eat awards. This restaurant chain was founded by twin brothers Raymond and Tony MacHugh, and also has locations in Dublin and in Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror recently, owner Raymond said the goal with their restaurants is to “make it affordable, make it fun, let families come out and enjoy food. Good quality food… Sano means healthy in Italian and Neapolitan pizzas are extremely healthy.
“Margaritas are like 750 calories. And the research we looked at came back saying, young people want to eat more healthily, they’ll still sneak out for McDonald’s, but they wanted to eat a hell of a lot better. I think we’ve proven that with the three branches over the last eight years, we’ve sold over two million pizzas.”