First Look: Marker hotel in Dublin’s docklands gets a multimillion euro makeover

The Marker on Misery Hill is introducing a new and eye-wateringly expensive revolving door policy as it reopens under a prestigious new name after a multimillion euro refurbishment.

Visitors familiar with the five-star hotel, which faces on to Dublin’s Grand Canal Dock, will notice the sliding doors that once welcomed guests – and sometimes savagely cold winds blowing in off the water – have been replaced by a large revolving door. An enormous awning, meanwhile, will allow guests and diners shelter from the rain as they wait for cars to take them wherever they need to be.

“We had an issue with the sliding doors from a sustainability perspective,” says the hotel’s general manager Michael Davern.

[ Marker Hotel to be rebranded under Anantara name ]

“We face on to the canal and every time the doors opened they let the heat out and let the wind in, so we created a wonderful porch for people to stand under and the revolving doors are much more luxurious and keep the heat in.”

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All that heat and luxury comes at a cost mind you.

“I don’t think there was much change out of half a million, so they weren’t cheap,” Davern says.

The decision to replace the Marker’s sliding doors, which were barely a decade old, was taken by its new(ish) owners, the luxury brand Anantara, which in turn is owned by the Minor Hotels group.

Minor Hotels was born in Bangkok and so-called because its founder William Heinecke was still a minor when he started out in business in the late 1960s. The business has come a long way since then and in recent years Anatara has been expanding across Europe taking over hotels under its brand in Amsterdam, Nice, Budapest and Dublin and soon Rome.

Anatara took over the Marker just before Covid hit and the operator made sure not to waste a good crisis by doing much of the heavy lifting for its revamp – the plumbing and heating systems for example – while the hotel was shut over lockdown times.

When it came to refurbishing the hotel rooms, floors were closed one by one with all 187 rooms redone by St Patrick’s Day.

The sometimes stark white walls in the bedrooms have been replaced by softer autumnal colours, and in-room is more befitting of 2023 – including new smart televisions and Chromcast.

The lobby – which was once open plan – has been made cosier through the addition of undulating wooden partitions designed to create a sense of wild Atlantic waves.

Those wooden waves are intended to accentuate the existing ceiling which was designed to echo the blockiness of the Giant’s Causeway. Oh, and the granite floors, incidentally, were laid in honour of the Burren while the facade, which has not changed, was designed with the Cliffs of Moher in mind.

Speaking of floors, new carpets have been laid throughout the hotel’s public areas which look a little like a tie-die T-shirt selling at a Grateful Dead concert but – we are told – represent the skittish clouds of an Irish day.

The hotel’s executive chef Gareth Mullins has overseen an overhaul of the hotel restaurant and plans are afoot to rebrand it as Forbes St by Gareth Mullins.

When The Irish Times suggests that it be called Misery Hill by Gareth Mullins to reflect the nearby road of the same name, he says they have plans for Misery Hill too, although doesn’t elaborate much further than that.

Thre kitchen has been opened up to the diningroom to bring a sense of theatre to the dining experience – although he insists there is no dramatic swearing in his workplace – and to allow his team of chefs more ready access to the diners they are cooking for.

The hotel has “spent a good few quid on the plants too”, Mullins says pointing to the foliage which has softened the sometimes austere grey stone elsewhere in the restaurant.

Is he any good with the plants?

“I’m good at cooking them,” he says.

That’d be a no, then.

“One of the big changes for me is the Anatara motto which is ‘life is a journey’,” says Mullins. “We want to give our guests an experience,” he says.

He also said the new-look Marker will be importing an Anatara idea called the Spice Spoon from Bangkok.

And what is the Spice Spoon? In Thai terms, it sees guests brought to the markets in Bangkok where they buy the ingredients for a green curry and then go back to the hotel to make it.

In Irish terms it will see guests brought out to Howth by one of the kitchen team, taken around Ireland’s Eye and to Kish Fish close to the pier where they will see salmon smoked and oysters harvested. They will then go back to the hotel and learn how to make soda bread which they will eat.

There’s also going to be a cheese experience which will see the guests visiting Sheridan’s Cheesemongers on South Anne St, to create the perfect cheeseboard after which they might stop into Keogh’s for the perfect pint of stout. “Making a cheese board is not as simple as people think,” Mullins says. “There’s an art to it.

No better man to share that art.

Another experience will see guests brought out to the 40-foot in Sandycove for a morning swim after which they return to the hotel’s rooftop terrace for breakfast.

Davern – who has in times past been general manager of Sandy Lane in Barbados and the K Club in Kildare – says the focus of the hotel under its previous owners was on corporate guests and “we will still much welcome them but we are trying to find new and authentically local experiences for all our guests to make their stays as memorable as they can be.”

Sustainability is also key. The plastic hotel room key cards of old have been replaced by wooden key cards – a reflection, Davern says – of the hotel’s commitment to a more sustainable future while the hotel will also focus more on sourcing everything from food and drink to furnishings and features from Irish suppliers.