Chef Caomhán de Brí has built The Salt Project into something closer to a travelling portrait of Irish food than a conventional street-food venture. Launched in 2021, the trailer moves from county to county and shapes each menu around what is available locally, with an emphasis on seasonality, sustainability and small-scale producers. The result is a dining offer that changes with geography as much as with the calendar, and that tries to make provenance feel immediate rather than abstract.

De Brí’s approach is deliberately narrow in the best sense: he works backwards from what a region can genuinely supply, rather than forcing a fixed menu on to every stop. That can mean fish from small boats, dairy from specialist makers, vegetables from nearby farms or, when the landscape allows, foraged seaweed and hedgerow ingredients. The chef has said the aim is to let the produce do much of the work, reflecting a belief that better ingredients naturally require less intervention in the kitchen.

The project has already been used to stage more formal pop-ups, including "Salt of the Earth" dinners with New Leaf Urban Farmers in Ballyneety, Co Limerick, where a five-course menu drew on local produce such as baby carrots, salad leaves and Hakurei turnips. Other collaborations, including events at Roe & Co Distillery and at Hartwell Farm in Kildare, have extended the same idea into different settings, combining foraging, open-fire cooking and a strong farm-to-table message. De Brí, who studied Botanical Cuisine at TU Dublin, has positioned the project as both a food business and an argument for closer ties between diners, growers and the land.

That wider ambition now includes a digital producer app that de Brí says lists hundreds of growers county by county and is designed to help people find local food more easily. The idea fits neatly with the philosophy behind The Salt Project: that buying closer to home can improve flavour, support rural economies and make the act of eating feel more connected. The project is due to appear at Taste of Dublin from 11 to 16 June, as interest in local sourcing continues to shape how Irish food is presented and consumed.

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