Guide author believes 50 hotels may go

IT IS “impossible” for foreign staff to recreate the “céad mile failte” which is central to the success of the Irish hospitality industry, the co-author of the Bridgestone guide has said.

John McKenna said many overseas visitors are disappointed to find they are not interacting with an Irish person when they arrive in a hotel or a restaurant in Ireland for the first time.

He blamed “the mad, drunken development” of developer-led hotels which he said had fostered a culture that Irish hospitality could be recreated by anybody.

“The pace of development meant that staff had to be gotten as long as they could stand upright and say a few words in English,” he said.

Mr McKenna stressed that eastern European staff, in particular, are often “wonderful” and hard-working, but Irish hospitality is a culture that cannot simply be recreated by immigrants who work here.

“If you live here for 10 or 15 years, yes, but can you fly in and put on a waistcoat and a white shirt and go and start in the dining room and have the thing that your customers want who have come in from overseas? No, it is impossible.

“We devalued the guy who was leading the dining room, we devalued service. We thought it could be done by anybody in a monkey suit, but it can’t be.

“That is not a reflection on them [foreign staff]. Picture yourself as an Irish person who dropped out of the sky into a hotel in Riga. Could you cope? No, you couldn’t.”

Mr McKenna predicted that a hotel will close every week this year because of the recession.

Many were built in the boom with tax incentives and will end up as “rotting hulks on the roadside of Ireland” or the “old people’s homes of the future”.

“I’m not sorry to see the back of them because they have been a thorn in the side of what we in the Bridgestone guide see as the real Irish food and hospitality culture,” he said. The 2009 Bridgestone guide, written by Mr McKenna and his wife Sally, includes 19 hotels in its list of best places to stay, but only one in Dublin, Brooks Hotel. There are 16 new entries in the best restaurant guide, but no entry once again for Ireland’s only Michelin two-star restaurant, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud.

“I admire Patrick, but it doesn’t have that sense you are truly in Dublin and you are truly getting an Irish experience,” Mr McKenna said.

The guide was launched in the L’Ecrivain restaurant in Dublin yesterday. Restaurant owner Derry Clarke said trade was holding up despite predictions that the new year would herald a large number of closures.

He welcomed that restaurants were looking at sharing staff and bulk-buying to stay in business.

“Restaurants getting together would really work. There are loads of things we can do to get through this recession. I think social partnership should work across the board,” he said.

Mr Clarke said restaurants were working on an average profit margin of about 5 per cent even in the good years and most will do well just to break even this year.

“This year is not about making money, it’s about staying in business, making sure that those who work with you know what you have to do to survive,” he said.

A taster

Six of the recommened places to stay

Brooks Hotel, Dublin: "There is a human warmth and contact about this hotel that is unmatched"

Ballymaloe House, Midleton, East Cork: "You can be beset with the problems of the world, but minutes in the door and they'll have vanished"

Longueville House, Mallow, north Cork:"Longueville is a world of diversity in microcosm, and a world unto itself"

Morrissey's, Doonbeg, Co Clare:"One only wishes that more publicans had the sort of intellectual and management flair he [owner Hugh Morrissey] has shown in rebirthing this fine family business"

Kelly's Resort Hotel, Rosslare, Co Wexford: "There is no other hotel like Kelly's, not just in Ireland, but anywhere in the world. It is one of those rare Irish luxury brands"

Rathmullan House, Lough Swilly, Co Donegal: "Gardener, chef, host. Rathmullan has what we consider the blessed trinity for the very best country house experience"

Some of the 100 listed restaurants

Chapter One, Parnell Square, Dublin:"Chapter One may be the best-loved restaurant in the country, both a temple of gastronomy and a theatre of vivid living"

Campagne, Kilkenny:"The most successful opening of the year, Campagne has hit Kilkenny like a whirlwind"

Shu, Belfast: "The food in Shu is intense, and the customers apply an equal intensity in their determination to enjoy it"

The Oarsman, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim: "The Maher brothers are on top of their game in The Oarsman. They select, they choose, they source"

Inis Meáin Restaurant Suites, Inis Meáin, Aran Islands, Co Galway: "The hottest, hippest couple in Irish food present the hottest, hippest experience in Irish food"
: "There is a human warmth and contact about this hotel that is unmatched"

Ballymaloe House, Midleton, East Cork: "You can be beset with the problems of the world, but minutes in the door and they'll have vanished"

Longueville House, Mallow, north Cork: "Longueville is a world of diversity in microcosm, and a world unto itself"

Morrissey's, Doonbeg, Co Clare: "One only wishes that more publicans had the sort of intellectual and management flair he [owner Hugh Morrissey] has shown in rebirthing this fine family business"

Kelly's Resort Hotel, Rosslare, Co Wexford: "There is no other hotel like Kelly's, not just in Ireland, but anywhere in the world. It is one of those rare Irish luxury brands"

Rathmullan House, Lough Swilly, Co Donegal: "Gardener, chef, host. Rathmullan has what we consider the blessed trinity for the very best country house experience"