Beef on the brain at the Four Seasons
The Reading Room The Four Seasons Hotel, Simmons court Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Tel: (01) 665 4000 Open: Mon-Sun12-2.30pm, 6-9.30pm
Last time I darkened the door of the Four Seasons, I was there to be insulted. The occasion was an awards ceremony where the organisers failed to recognise my glittering contribution to the world of journalism. Worse, I wasn’t even shortlisted for one of their poxy baubles. Instead I had to sit there clapping as a succession of my peers – some barely capable of reading a newspaper, I might add, never mind writing for one – were called to the podium to collect their prizes. Talk about adding insult to injury. But I’m in no way bitter, not at all. Believe you me, I’ve been humiliated in more opulent surroundings than that. Besides, my previous visit to the hotel was a happier one. It was to attend one of the Lotto’s twice-yearly media lunches, which are held at various venues to launch the latest scratchcard games. That, at least, is the official purpose from the hosts’ perspective.
Many of the guests see it differently, however. I’m told that some of the press corps actually view these events as an opportunity to eat and drink their own body weight in an effort to recoup money wasted on losing quickpicks. Certainly, invitations to these lunches were sometimes compared to Willy Wonka’s golden tickets, except easier to get your hands on. I’d hate to get the chief executive of the National Lottery into trouble, though, so let me make it very, very clear this was all a long time ago. Nowadays I gather the launch parties are held in draughty parish halls and the menu doesn’t stretch much beyond a small bowl of coddle and a slice of dry bread. Something to do with austerity, apparently.
Of course, the A-word was only an unpleasant-sounding entry near the front of the dictionary as the 197-room Four Seasons opened its doors for business in 2001. When the hotel was built by an 18-member consortium put together by financier Derek Quinlan, the project reportedly overran its budget by almost £20m. Yet it was sold three-and-ahalf years ago for just €15m, which was about half the expected price and less than a quarter of what it apparently cost to construct. From the start of next year it will no longer operate under the Four Seasons brand, although a recent statement from the Toronto-based management chain insisted it was ‘business as usual’ until then.
I’m pretty certain I have never been in a Four Seasons hotel anywhere else in the world, but then again, if you’ve seen one I gather you’ve seen them all. The spacious reception area certainly smells of money, but it could be any currency under the sun. Soulless? Probably. But perhaps that familiarity is part of the appeal for the global business travellers who presumably make up the bulk of the clientele. To be fair, of the half a dozen or so staff we encountered – long story, but we got lost shortly after arriving and had to ask for directions – all were unfailingly polite and helpful.
The Reading Room is a 38-seater restaurant just off the main lobby. There’s an open fireplace on one wall, a large bookcase on another and a window looking out on to a landscaped courtyard. Decor-wise, it is light in colour – pale yellow walls, light grey carpet, cream leather upholstery – and, well, a bit characterless. Maybe a few punters in conversation might liven things up, but when we arrived at two o’clock last Wednesday afternoon, there was little more than a handful of people in the place and it had all the atmosphere of a funeral parlour.
Prices aren’t cheap, obviously, although in fairness, my starter of beef sliders – two mini-burgers, basically – was very good and worth the €9 price tag.
My guest had a full-sized burger as his main course, which came with a portion of very average chips. His Dublin Bay chowder came with plenty of meaty chunks of fish, though it looked a bit on the creamy side to me. Meanwhile, my haddock was a bit of a letdown; the fish itself was pretty tasteless and much of the batter just wasn’t crispy enough.
So not the greatest lunch in the history of eating out, then. I should say that the service was excellent – both efficient and charming – but, to be frank, the Four Seasons isn’t really my kind of place. Which is only to be expected, I suppose, given that it isn’t aimed at the likes of you and me. Well, certainly not me anyway. Put it this way: sitting behind us was controversial beef tycoon Larry Goodman. On his way out, he stopped in the lobby for a friendly chat with ex-taoiseach Albert Reynolds’s widow Kathleen. Who, of course, lives in the place. You get the picture.