The bar of The Collins Club.
Paul O’Connell Photography
“Bono has been here twice in the last few weeks, so we never know when he might stop in.”
That was the explanation from the manager of the new restaurant Jean-Georges at The Leinster in Dublin, detailing why it was even more important than usual to hold a table or two open. The city’s most famous resident apparently agrees with others in town that the latest outpost in star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s empire is a hit; so is the hotel which opened in March.
The vivid decor of The Collins Club in The Leinster, a new hotel near Dublin’s Merrion Square.
Paul O’Connell Photography
At first glance, from the outside anyway, The Leinster may look a bit out of place, a new building in the middle of all of those Georgian doorways. And the interiors are also not what one would expect in this very traditional area just off Merrion Square. The Collins Club cocktail lounge in the lobby is an exuberant , floridly colorful with a crimson bar, walls and banquettes, a feathered glass chandelier, royal blue chairs and lemon yellow table lamps accessorized with Art Deco, zebra and leopard paintings; it was designed by the team of the late, critically lauded, Dublin born designer David Collins and named for him. There’s a DJ and on other nights, live music along with a simple, well executed menu with items such as Korean fried chicken, braised beef cheek croquettes and a lemon chicken piccata Caesar salad.
One of the signature dishes of Jean-Georges at The Leinster: tuna tartare with avocado, spicy radish and ginger marinade
The Leinster
Up on the rooftop, guests enter Jean-Georges through doors wrapped in large red bows and encounter a room (and terrace) with views out over Dublin, rounded fabric banquettes, orange leather chairs, brown and gold color block chandeliers and a lineup of trees. The dishes with ingredients from local purveyors mix with Jean-Georges’ trademark blend of French/Southeast Asian influences in dishes such as French toast with roasted plums for breakfast, tuna tartare with avocado, spicy radish and ginger marinade and pan roast duck breast with honey hibiscus glazed squash for dinner.
The colorful decor of The Leinster Suite.
The Leinster
In the four floors in between, the 55 rooms are small but cozy and designed with similar verve—flowered fabric headboards, cherry red couches, black and white spotted carpet, accessorized with the collection of modern paintings scattered throughout the hotel. They’re comfortable and cheeky instead of utterly luxurious but they’re also priced affordably, especially for this central part of town.
A Fanciful Afternoon Tea
One of the pastries created to mimic the paintings on display at The Merrion for its Art Tea. This one copies the lines and colors in Stephen McKenna’s painting Farm Buildings.
The Merrion
At the other end of Merrion Square, the hotel that does define as pure luxury, The Merrion, has a tea service, the Art Tea, that is truly worth experiencing. Reflecting the collection of important 19th and 20th century art on display in the townhouses that comprise the hotel, chef Paul Kelly has created a group of fanciful pastry concoctions that expresses the colors and themes of specific paintings as a second course to the substantial tiered traditional offerings of salmon, chicken, egg and tuna sandwiches, scones and jam and simpler tea cakes. Especially on a wintry day, it’s the perfect way to spend a couple of hours (there are four seatings daily) preferably in front of the fireplace on an overstuffed couch in their elegant, pale-yellow drawing rooms.
Where Else To Eat In Dublin
A selection of starters at the Dublin wine bar/bistro Note.
Al Higgins
There are a number of intimate, gastronomically advanced wine bars sprouting around town and one of the best is Note, a five minute walk from The Leinster. The ingredients are local, and the menu highly curated with dishes such as Comte quiche with Shimeji mushrooms, wild seabass with clementines and lime kosho (a paste of chili peppers, yuzu peel and salt) and a buttery lamb shoulder served on a potato puree with green herb sauce. It’s very popular; booking ahead is essential. Nearby, there’s always a line out the door of Bread 41 either to buy their crusty organic breads to take home or the sausage rolls and array of pastries to sample in one of the tables. It’s worth the wait.
The grand setting of the restaurant Hawksmoor.
Laurie Werner
Near Trinity College and Temple Bar, Hawksmoor, a spinoff from the London prime steakhouse original (and its New York outpost) opened last year in the sumptuous former National Bank building with a 40 foot high cast iron dome, Corinthian columns and Victorian plasterwork, a properly impressive setting for massive grilled ribeyes and sirloins from farms around the island as well as monkfish and native lobsters for non-carnivores. It also serves a classic Sunday roast lunch. A much simpler but totally satisfying meal, such as a richly stocked seafood chowder, is on order at a much longer resident of Dublin adjacent to Trinity College: the 200 year old Lincoln’s Inn, a hangout for James Joyce and the place where he would wait for his wife Nora who worked at Finn’s Hotel down the street.
A New Development At Trinity College
The college’s possession of the 1200 year old Book of Kells and its Old Library Long Room, now with its installation of Gaia, an art piece based on NASA imagery of the earth’s surface (but not its books which have been removed for conservation) should be enough for a Trinity College visitor. But to make the experience of this vividly illustrated tome of the New Testament’s Four Gospels come to life, there is now a digital presentation in an adjacent red shed, The Book of Kells Experience. It’s immersive, colorful, explanatory and loud but seeing the book itself for many will be enough.
Staying up to date: Tourism Ireland is an especially useful source for learning about new developments in the Emerald Isle.
