Can a building multi-task?
Can you say to an inanimate construction: okay, you are the shop. And you, eh, you are the bar. And you’ll be beside the bar but you’ll be the restaurant. And you over there, – yes, you – you will be the booking office.
Who’s left? Oh yeah: you’re the reception area for the hotel, and you’ll be adjacent to the café, is that o.k.? Everybody happy. Right so, let’s call ourselves – collectively – the Hotel Doolin. Ok, let’s go to work.
Hotel Doolin does all this, and it does it smartly and economically. Rather than having lots of working compartments in the building – as if its an Eataly, or a department store, or some manner of a franchise – it frontloads the offer: there in front of you are the shop, the café, the bar, the restaurant, the reception area, the booking office. It’s an hotel, but not as we know it.
And, now, there are a pair of smart guys – chef Peter Jackson; manager Donal Minihane – who have gotten this smart concept by the scruff of the neck and are working hard to create a destination. Mr Jackson cooks well: his food is clean and lean and modern and he cooks fish and shellfish surely and confidently, and has a polytunnel in clear sight to give him interesting leaves and queer gear, and hens and ducks run around the garden with the assurance that they own the place.
Mr Minihane runs the room well, even when a hen party are in attendance and when the hen party girls come down to breakfast next morning in their jimjams, the staff don’t even blush. Do note that you should get up early and run at least 10k before tackling their Full Irish: it is ginormous, and a fine example of the generous spirit, and the spirit of generosity, that prevails in Hotel Doolin.
