{"id":496602,"date":"2026-06-12T20:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496602\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T20:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:14:12","slug":"i-tried-the-new-italian-sandwich-shop-in-dublin-that-has-crowds-queuing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/496602\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I tried the new Italian sandwich shop in Dublin that has crowds queuing\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man horsing into the swanky-looking Chicken Parm outside Morso, the Italian<\/a> sandwich shop becoming a viral sensation just over 24 hours after serving its first customer, nods wildly when asked by The Irish Times if it\u2019s good. <\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he says enthusiastically, before pausing for a beat and a chew. \u201cThe only thing is you have to queue over here, and then pay over there and then you get one of those.\u201d He points to a buzzer sitting on one of the tables outside Morso, the former Mani pizza spot on Dublin<\/a>\u2019s Drury Street. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get that, there\u2019s another 10-minute wait. But it is definitely worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sold, we join the queue. Seconds later there are about six people standing behind us, neatly validating our life choices. <\/p>\n

\"CianCian Cooling and Jane Cudden from Darndale at Morso on Drury Street. Photograph: Conor Pope <\/p>\n

Cian Cooling and Jane Crudden from Darndale have the misfortune to find themselves standing close by so have no choice but to explain themselves. They are almost giddy with the excitement of it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting months for this sandwich,\u201d Cooling says. <\/p>\n

Months? But it only opened yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh yeah,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been following the buzz on Instagram<\/a> for ages. And I remember they used to have a food truck and it was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crudden says they have their order ready to go even though their time has not yet come. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get the Chicken Parm and the Porchetta. And then we\u2019re going to have half and half. We came into town specially for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cthis\u201d she refers to is a dream-turned-reality for Ciaran McGonagle. The Donegal native has opened his new venture on the site of Mani, his previous venture which relocated to a bigger premises across the road on Drury Street earlier this year. <\/p>\n

He is marshalling his staff as they take orders, make sandwiches and rake in the cash and does not, it must be said, look delighted when The Irish Times approaches to see if we could have a quick word.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? Now?\u201d His faced is etched with stress and it is clear the very last thing he needs \u201cin the middle of all the mayhem\u201d is to stop what he is doing for five minutes to talk to the media. <\/p>\n

\u201cCan you give me 15 minutes?\u201d he asks. <\/p>\n

We return to our place in line. <\/p>\n

\"LunchtimeLunchtime at newly opened Morso on Drury Street. Photograph: Conor Pope <\/p>\n

When our turn to order comes we go wild and get three of the six sandwiches on the menu. Actually by the time we get to the top of the queue there are only five options, as the Roast Beef has already sold out.<\/p>\n

We order the Caponata (the only veggie option), the Chicken Parm and the Turkey Caesar and hand over just under \u20ac40. <\/p>\n

The pleasant young woman managing the till hands us the buzzer and explains we\u2019ll be waiting 15 minutes, thanking us for our patience. <\/p>\n

We join others at the tables outside, staring earnestly at their little devices and waiting for their buzz feed. It is all very zeitgeisty and a bit strange to think that Morso might not be here were it not for Covid. <\/p>\n

McGonagle was the general manager of Coppinger Row, the restaurant on the nearby alley that shared its name, before leaving there to open a catering business for corporate clients.<\/p>\n

Business was booming until the pandemic, and then it fell off a cliff. With time on his hands McGonagle opened a food truck selling pizza. But it wasn\u2019t any old pizza. <\/p>\n

He started selling Roman-style \u201cal taglio\u201d pizza \u2013 which is close to focaccia \u2013 at markets around the city and people loved it. In 2024 he opened Mani, a slice shop on Drury Street, with Rory Shannon, formerly of Pala Pizza, as head chef and people loved it. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe sold-out sign at Morso, which went up at just 2.15pm on Friday. Photograph: Conor Pope <\/p>\n

And now he has started selling sandwiches. And it seems clear people love it \u2013 by 2:15pm on Friday the sold-out sign had to be posted on the door, leaving some latecomers full of sadness rather than fancy Italian sarnies. <\/p>\n

With the crowd clamouring for food finally thinning as a result of the sold-out sign, McGonagle can now draw breath. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is insane, and it\u2019s a brilliant problem to have,\u201d he says of the demand. \u201cBut it has been a really intense couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe made-from-scratch Italian sandwiches at Morso on Drury Street. Photograph: Conor Pope <\/p>\n

When asked what the secret to his sandwich success is he doesn\u2019t miss a beat. \u201cIt is because they\u2019re bloody delicious. We\u2019re baking the bread fresh every day. This has been something I\u2019ve been dreaming about doing for years. We\u2019re kind of building the plane while it\u2019s in the air. Everything\u2019s made fresh to order. We roast our own meats and bake our own bread and make all our own sauce, using Irish produce whenever we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits the everything-from-scratch business model has been a challenge on the first two days. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople might have an expectation of faster service because a deli sandwich might be ready in three minutes, but we\u2019re probably at 20 minutes now or even half an hour. Hopefully we\u2019ll get down to 10 or 15 minutes, but if you want good things, you kind of have to wait, don\u2019t you? We try our best to make it as fast as we can, but we really want to do it right in front of the customer. It\u2019s just better that way. You\u2019re getting the hot bread, hot fillings and maybe I\u2019ve created my own little nightmare for myself here but it will be worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And is it worth it? <\/p>\n

Well, The Irish Times had three sandwiches, each one excellent, but the standout was the Chicken Parm, which might just have been the very best such sandwich we have ever tasted.<\/p>\n

Was it worth the wait? <\/p>\n

Absolutely. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man horsing into the swanky-looking Chicken Parm outside Morso, the Italian sandwich shop becoming a viral sensation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[615,93,61,542,60,71183],"class_list":["post-496602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-instagram","tag-ireland","tag-italian-cuisine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}