Since it opened in July, Clontarf eatery Restaurant TenFourteen has been winning plaudits from critics and punters alike. The chef is Gareth Smith (ex-Chapter One), the manager is Margaret Butler (ex-Fire), and the food is both adventurous and reassuring. Think pan-seared Castletownbere scallop salad with chorizo and pea butter served with hand-cut chips or ham-hock terrine with apple compote, crusty toast and mustard salad. Everything, from the fresh scones bursting with apricots and raisins to the tomato ketchup, is made on site.

But what hasn't been made explicit until now is the fact that the restaurant is owned by Casa (the Caring and Sharing Association), which provides social outlets, friendship and one-to-one care for people with disabilities, with all the restaurant's profits going directly to the charity.

The restaurant came about because of a need for fundraising, Casa's Mags Travers explains. "We are a charity that has quite a low profile, even though we've been around since 1981," she says. "The people who need to know about us – the people with a member of the family who has a disability or indeed the service providers like St Michael's House – know about us, but our public profile in terms of fundraising is non-existent."

Casa has seven shops and is one of the few charities that still calls door-to-door. While the recession has brought an increase in the shops' footfall, stock has been seriously affected by bogus charity collectors. Initially Casa looked into the idea of opening a coffee shop and then thought it would go one step further. It found its premises in Clontarf and borrowed from the bank. "We were lucky we went to AIB earlier rather than now," Travers says. "But we've traded for 25 years with our shops so we were a good bet too. There's no way we'd let our members or the charity down. They need us."

The official opening of the restaurant only happened two weeks ago, because the organisation wanted to make sure that everything from the staffing to the food to the décor was exactly right. Travers says that while mistakes are made every day in top restaurants, "people mightn't be as forgiving of us". Not that there is anything to forgive because TenFourteen is ticking all the right boxes and intends to keep on doing so. Go see for yourself.

restaurant ten

fourteen

324 Clontarf Road, Clontarf, Dublin 3

Tel: (01) 805 4877

Restaurant/1014.com