Meet the couple behind local business, Grálinn

Grálinn is a foodtruck and catering company run by locals Dee Kelly and Matteo Griscti. With a focus on family style eating and shopping local, the pair have become a staple within Dublin 8 markets. I spoke with Dee about their journey together, their influences and plans for the future.

It was just three months into their relationship that they decided to go into business together after watching the film Chef. 

“It was really stupid actually, so we had watched the movie and I was like I would love to do that, it would be so fun,” Kelly says. After looking around online in what Dee described as “the impulse buy of her life”, they purchased a food truck and got to renovating it. 

The named their business Grálinn. “We knew we wanted it to be an Irish name and something that was more of a story, Grálinn basically means love with us, so you’re sharing food and coffee with us and with other people.”

They continued to work for the next year at local cafe, Two Pups Coffee, to raise funds to work on the truck.  “For like a year we didn’t really do anything with it. I was working with Two Pups, Kevin and Zoe. They have a real like just go for it attitude, don’t wait for things to be perfect because they never will be. So we decided okay let’s go for it.”

With such an emphasis these days on shopping locally, they pride themselves on mainly using ingredients sourced from Ireland. 

“We try to calculate miles we use to get all our stuff. If we get fish it’s from Clare, most of the food is from Ireland other than the likes of pepper and spices.” 

Dee says this doesn’t come without some difficulties. “It can make it really awkward when developing menus because you don’t know what foods will be available each season. People will want to know exactly what will be on the menu in a few months time and we can’t tell them. 

“But we know that it’s so much better to shop with your farmer and your butcher. So you know where your food is coming from, knowing it comes from a good place.”

From starting out at Electric Picnic to working at Taste of Dublin at the RDS this winter, Dee and Matteo are going from strength to strength.