“It was great to be the centre of attention in the media for a few days,” says Piglet co-owner Enrico Fantasia, recalling how the Temple Bar wine bar became the backdrop to a political scandal five years ago.
It was summer 2021 when former minister for children Katherine Zappone messaged then taoiseach Leo Varadkar via text: “Hi Leo, from the Piglet! I was expecting to hear from Simon C [Coveney] about my appointment as special envoy for human rights and LGBTQ+ issues. Have you heard anything? If you are around next Wed, hope to see you and Matt.”
The text became central to a saga over the controversy of Zappone’s appointment to the newly created position of special envoy to the UN for freedom of opinion and expression, which she subsequently did not take up.
“Everyone was asking, ‘What is The Piglet? Was it secret code for something?’,” says Fantasia, head of wine at the wine bar in Dublin 2 .
“I remember I wasn’t in Dublin that day, I was in Connemara meeting some friends and one arrived and said, ‘Everyone is talking about Piglet on the radio, in the news, in the media.’ The first thing I thought was a fire or something because the last thing that you expect in this place is to be in a political scandal.”
Co-owner Thibaut Harang says Varadkar was a regular at the time, but did not return “for a while” after the story broke.
Piglet offers an extensive wine list, with bottles ranging from €33 to above €1,000, as well as a small food menu featuring dishes such as côte de boeuf, halibut and cacio e pepe.
Harang and Fantasia opened the wine bar in late 2015 and will host its final service on October 12th.
[ Hidden in plain sight in Temple Bar Opens in new window ]
Harang says that while he enjoyed hosting famous politicians over the years, he most looked forward to welcoming people from the food and drinks industry.
“We also had a couple of famous chefs and wine makers within the industry. That’s our celebrities – the ones that we have on the shelves.”
Fantasia agrees: “And we were very popular with the trade – we were offering what everyone in the trade wanted”.
He says Piglet was born because he, an Italian, and Harang, a Frenchman – friends for almost 20 years – wanted to open the kind of place they would go to themselves.
“I don’t think there was something like that in Dublin at the time,” says Fantasia
“The idea was simple food, really tasty, loads of wines – way too many wines. Our list got out of control pretty quickly and still is.”
The closure comes as a result of increased financial pressure.
“The first decision is financial,” says Harang. “This is what dictates if you can make it or not.”
Piglet could have spent another year with the duo “seeing how we could change it or seeing if the market is changing”, says Harang, but they decided this was not a good idea. They will now focus on separate ventures.
“I am involved in a new place now with my partner, Enrico has more and more things to do also in his wine business. It’s just a bad time. Everything came together at this one point,” says Harang.