WHILE cook extraordinaire Darina Allen may, like Alexander the Great, find herself running, short of empires left to conquer, other members of her family continue to advance. One brother Rory O'Connell is already head chef at Ballymaloe House and now comes news that another sibling, Tom O'Connell, has become general manager of London's Ritz Hotel.
Forty year old Mr O'Connell originally trained at Shannon's College of Hotel Management, spending a year apiece in Geneva and New York before going to work at the Brussels Hilton, during which time he met his Belgian born wife Annette. Since then, he has spent time - at other hotels in the Hilton chain before becoming food and beverage manager at the Savoy Hotel; he says his resignation from that position conveniently pre dated the Savoy's takeover by the Forte group - this company in turn is now subject to a hostile takeover bid from the Granada group run by Donegal born Gerry Robinson. Fortuitously, the Mr O'Connell's former boss at the Savoy, Giles Shepherd is now managing director at the Ritz.
Barely a year ago, Tom O'Connell was appointed deputy manager at the Piccadilly hotel just as it also changed hands, being bought by the Berkeley brothers from the Trafalgar House group. Not only is the Ritz now the foremost privately owned hotel in London, but it's also the only one managed by an Irishman - Mr O'Connell's nearest equivalent is David Wilkinson who deputy general manager at the Dorchester Hotel.
The Ritz's new general manager has an immediate challenge awaiting him because at the start of March the hotel begin a total refurbishment programme expected to last the next three years, one of the first areas affected by this will be the restaurant which is to close for three weeks in April. We want to bring the whole place back to what it was when Cesar Ritz first opened the hotel in 1906," explains Tom O'Connell, who understandably says he doesn't imagine he'll be returning to work in this country in the foreseeable future.