The city of Dublin is cosmopolitan enough that there’s room for more than one painfully stylish boutique hotel; the Clarence is not the only game in town. Here on the north side of the Liffey—just north, in fact, overlooking the river—the Morrison Hotel is slightly less in the thick of it, but creates something of a scene of its own, with a fine bar and restaurant and some inspiring views of the water.
The Morrison’s style credentials are impeccable. The hotel is the brainchild of the Hong Kong-born Irish fashion designer John Rocha, and executed by the interior designer Douglas Wallace. The result is something rather like London’s better boutiques—ultra-modern, to be sure, but ultimately comfortable, even luxurious, quite obviously a hotel beneath all that modern design, in contrast to some of the more avant-garde design hotels we’ve seen, which possess all the warmth and hospitability of a museum foyer.
Rooms are decorated in a soothing palette of creams, browns and blacks, with the by now familiar Frette linens and high-tech entertainment centers. There’s more space than one might expect, and some of the views are extraordinary, the penthouse quite naturally having the best.
The surrounding neighborhood is relatively serene at night, compared with the Temple Bar district on the other side of the river, but the Morrison is a destination unto itself. The Morrison Bar looks out over the Liffey through wide open windows, and the Halo restaurant is one of Dublin’s most in-demand. Lobo, the auditorium-style nightclub, is open to the shocking hour of 3am on Fridays and Saturdays, making it something of a late-night mecca.
author watson@mouselink.net, source www.tablethotels.com
