One of the best things about weddings in Ireland is the dancefloor after about 11 p.m. Stiff unfamiliar jackets are cast aside, high heels come off and the dancing starts - men who would normally rather stick pins in their eyes than take to a dancefloor are suddenly transformed into Fred Astaires, determinedly flinging enthusiastic women under their arms, around in a twirl and even up in the air, unless carefully watched.
Yet the dancefloor diva that obviously lies dormant in so many of us rarely gets the chance to show off those moves, as nightclubs, from the sleasiest to the choosiest, just don't play the right kind of finger-clickin', toe-tappin' big band music. Until the Sugar Club arrived on the scene last month.
On first appearances, the Sugar Club, a self-styled "multimedia theatre" does not promise a return to the life of seamed stockings, cocktails and a touch of class. It is situated just off St Stephen's Green on Leeson Street, in a severe 1960s office block that mature party animals will identify as either the old Siucra Eireann building or the Irish Film Theatre, and the younger crew will identify as plain ugly. But once you're on the maroon carpet and past the two besuited doormen, you're into a very different night-time venue.
Turn right and you're in the old IFT auditorium, which has hung onto its old, slatted Burmese teak panelling covering every square inch of its walls and its high, curved film auditorium ceiling, but lost its 10 rows of cinema seats. Instead, there is a gradually inclining bank of banquettes or booths, five rows in total. Although the club has been open only for a month, any weekend now finds every booth filled with people clinking cocktails or trawling from table to table in search of gossip or a good dance partner.
The raked seats all face forwards, looking on at a big band, an upbeat jazz ensemble or a souled-out singer and, of course, the all important dancefloor. One wall is lined with windows - but at a glance they could be taken for Graham Knuttel paintings full of women reaching, men smoking, liaisons being made, broken and endured. Once these were the four soundproofed translation booths of the IFT; now they've become a small cocktail lounge that features a birds-eye view of what's happening on the dancefloor and more importantly, what's going on in the booths. A fundamental part of the club is the sharp-suited, slick-haired general manager, Oisin Davis, who welcomes people at the door and tries his best to conjure a table out of nowhere. Formerly entertainment manager at the Harcourt Hotel and an independent promoter, he was just back from a year in San Francisco promoting corporate entertainment and running a cabaret show when he met up with Nicky Toppin, who had taken on the lease of the old IFT building.
Toppin, who was involved with the Eddie Rocket's and Abrakebabra chains, admits to being inspired partly by nostalgia, not for the days of big band music but for the old IFT days. He also liked the style of the auditorium and decided to hang on to it, apply for the theatre licence to be reinstated and turn it into a venue. When Oisin came on board, ideas for the club started flying.
"First of all," says Oisin firmly, "We knew it had to be waitress service. When I arrived back from the States, Vicar Street had just opened as a venue. Everyone was talking about it, but they used to mention the table service first and the gig second." The other place that interested Davis and Toppin was the Gaiety, which Oisin describes as "atmosphere rather than act-driven. We wanted to combine the service of one with the atmosphere-driven ethos of the other".
The resulting mixture of sounds and styles ties in with the decor of the place - there is jazz, blues, soul, Latin and swing, as well as movies with cinema club, Galaxie Lounge, on Sundays and a recently introduced light supper menu courtesy of former Fitzers chef, Catherine O'Neill from 5 p.m. The swing bands have proved particularly popular, in, who describes himself as and Oisin is "intent on creating the proper atmosphere" for the kind of swing joints that are all the rage in San Francisco. "People love attempting the dance moves - so much so that we're going to start running swing classes on Sunday nights."
The other mainstay at the planning stage of The Sugar Club was the cocktail list. "Every publican in town was telling me cocktails wouldn't sell, the venue was too small and people wouldn't come to see local talent", says Oisin with the smirk of a man who has to turn away legions of people at the door each weekend. "I knew there had to be a market for cocktails - there isn't at the moment because most places that sell cocktails don't have the right atmosphere and serve tacky drinks rather than the classic cocktail, and they're over-priced and badly made."
Challenging words, but Davis has his own list and specially-trained cocktail bar staff to back him up. From classics like martinis to house specials such as the Sugar Momma (creamed Smirnoff, Kahlua, Amaretto di Saronne and cream), there is something for everyone at £3.50 or £4.50 - prices which wouldn't even pay for a pint at other clubs.
The final point in the carefully-imagined plan for creating the Sugar Club was the age and type of punter they wanted to attract. "In my opinion, every other nightclub in this town is aimed at the 18-25 market - they may not exclude the older market at the door but they do by filling the place with 21-yearolds. We're a very small venue - if we have 220 people in here we're happy - so we need to be sure that those people aren't afraid of spending some serious money."
To this end, hopeful punters have to get through what Oisin gleefully calls "the strictest door policy in town". It is over-25s only, no jeans or sportswear, and patrons who have paid £300 for the privilege get preference. Davis is unapologetic about what many would see as a rather Jurassic idea of smartly dressed - after all, who doesn't wear trainers? "Because of our location, we're going to get a lot of people in suits. In my experience, it's the people in suits that feel bad if somebody is dressed very casually, not the other way round. As long as you look smart enough, you'll be fine."
He is proud of the personal touch they are aiming at in the club: soon, patrons will be issued with swipe cards which they will whizz through a machine on entry. This means Oisin or one of the junior managers will greet you by name, and relay your arrival through to the auditorium where somebody else will hail you by name and whisk you to a table.
It is things like this that make it immediately clear this is a club or venue that couldn't have emerged - or survived - five years ago. in. "People in Dublin are cosmopolitan, they travel and they have certain standards when it comes to night life nightlife and service. They deserve to get them too." Nicky Toppin reckons "There's just more people with money to spend these days. We've got a whole new generation of people who want to be entertained."