Dublin was a bleak place in 1987. She was grand, yes — there was all that Georgian architecture — but she was also poor. One in every five locals was unemployed, and the most popular form of entertainment was the pub, where the national malaise was dissected over pints of Guinness. No one is quite sure what my parents were thinking when they opened an expensive French restaurant that fall. Yet Whites on the Green soon became the most fashionable place for dinner in Ireland. On the back of my parents' success, I forged a career as a food critic in London and New York. Returning in 2000, I launched a magazine, The Dubliner, which documents life in a city that has changed beyond all recognition in the last two decades — yet retains its love of culture, craic (loosely translated as "good times") and long, unruly arguments.
While Ireland's reputation as the Celtic Tiger is flagging, it is indisputable that money has transformed the country. Catalysts such as the arrival of American companies (Dell, Intel, Microsoft) and Ireland's membership in the European Union allowed the economy to grow by 7 percent each year for seven consecutive years in the 1990s. As a result, this thousand-year-old capital suddenly began filling up with billionaires' tchotchkes, and the quality of life is still remarkably high, despite the weather. (The view from Bono's house is like Naples in the rain.)
Indeed, the last twenty-one years have been good to Dublin. My friends and I argue over what is the best museum or restaurant that this newfound wealth has brought, but we all agree that registering the changes in our local culture is an exhilarating task. These are my current favorite fixtures of the New Dublin.
ART
While there are few obvious landmarks — nothing, for instance, as conspicuous as London's Tate Modern — the city's museums and galleries are undergoing something of a Renaissance, buoyed by all that money and a government keen to protect and promote the national identity. In my view, there are three outstanding institutions. The National Gallery of Ireland (Merrion Square West; 011-353-1-661-5133; nationalgallery.ie) houses a sparkling collection of works by painters such as Paul Henry, Walter Osborne and Jack Butler Yeats (brother of the poet W.B.) alongside a solid selection of Old Masters. The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Royal Hospital, Kilmainham; 011-353-1-612-9900; imma.ie) is located in a 17th-century complex that was once a home for retired British soldiers. The space itself is not ideal — it's on the edge of town, and large works of art are not easily accommodated — but the dynamic Spanish-born director of the museum, Enrique Juncosa, is undeterred. He recently mounted major shows by painters such as Lucien Freud, Francesco Clemente, Georgia O'Keeffe and Jasper Johns.
Finally, there is (take a breath!) Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane (Charlemont House, Parnell Square North; 011-353-1-222-5550; hughlane.ie). That cumbersome title — so obviously designed by committee — does not do justice to an institution that celebrates its centenary this year, nor indeed to its director, Barbara Dawson, who was responsible for a notable coup in 2001 when she opened the reconstructed studio of Dublin-born painter Francis Bacon in a dedicated wing of the gallery.
THEATER
Theater remains a vital part of the culture in Ireland, and it is often as much a social experience as an artistic one. Orson Welles started his career as an actor in Dublin's Gate Theatre (Parnell Square; 011-353-1-874-4045; gate-theatre.ie) at the age of sixteen, and the Gate continues to attract heavyweight stars like Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons and John Hurt. A few hundred yards away, the Abbey Theatre (26 Lower Abbey Street; 011-353-1-878-7222; abbeytheatre.ie) is also making headlines under director Fiach MacConghail, a foppish Gaelic speaker with a refreshingly irreverent attitude toward the classics of the Irish canon. A new production of Conor McPherson's Seafarer, which wowed audiences on Broadway, opens on April 26.
SHOPPING
Louise Kennedy's flagship boutique (56 Merrion Square; 011-353-1-662-0056; louisekennedy.com), ensconced in a Georgian building, is full of elegant clothes in luxurious fabrics, like a black silk evening dress and an embroidered white linen skirt. This is also the only place in Dublin where you can buy Viscount David Linley's furniture and household items (such as a hand-carved chess set or a leather-bound guest book) and Kennedy's glassware collection, produced in conjunction with Tipperary Crystal.
The smartest department store in the city is still Brown Thomas (88–95 Grafton Street; 011-353-1-605-6666; brownthomas.com), which is owned by Canada's third-richest man, W. Galen Weston. His daughter, Alannah, who is the creative director at Selfridges, takes a very personal interest in the store. A new department, the International Fine Jewellery Hall, is set to open in Brown Thomas at the end of the year. Cartier and Tiffany are among the marquee names likely to be represented.
Avoca (11–13 Suffolk Street; 011-353-1-677-4215; avoca.ie) is my favorite place to buy presents. The rambling emporium stocks clothes, ceramics, glass, books and accessories for the home — you might come here for a French dollhouse or a woolen blanket — on seven floors. Avoca also acts as a showcase for a new generation of emerging designers, and the teeming top-floor restaurant is the sort of place where publicists might introduce visiting authors to local journalists and where a wealthy hostess might plan a soirée over a cup of coffee with a confidante.
DRINKING
Dublin's pubs have always been celebrated for their conviviality, and visitors are still treated like old friends — or, at the very least, like friends of friends. On a Friday night I like to have a Guinness in the Old Stand (37 Exchequer Street; 011-353-1-677-7220; theoldstandpub.com), where lecturers from Trinity College mingle with actors, or Neary's (1 Chatham Street; 011-353-1-677-8596), where writers like Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh once held court. These grand old pubs are comfortable, neither seems especially stained by progress, and when we asked readers of The Dubliner to nominate their favorite bars in the city, both pubs wound up in the top ten. Tradition still counts for something in this town.
The best of the new bars (always described, with quiet Irish cruelty, as "style bars") are the South William (52 South William Street; 011-353-1-672-5946; southwilliam.ie), which sounds and looks like an homage to Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and Ron Blacks (37 Dawson Street; 011-353-1-672-8231; ronblacks.ie). Here, realtors come to curse the sudden demise of the property market and to console themselves in the arms of lawyers.
SLEEPING
Featuring open log fires, a stunning collection of modern Irish art and exemplary service, the Merrion (double rooms from $400, suites from $850; Upper Merrion Street; 011-353-1-603-0600; merrionhotel.com) is where dignitaries stay on official business — it's right across the road from the prime minister's offices.
The grand dame Shelbourne hotel (double rooms from $300, suites from $500; 27 St. Stephen's Green; 011-353-1-663-4500; theshelbourne.ie) has reopened after a $150 million face-lift. An expansive cocktail bar has usurped the restaurant's pride of place; a new version of the latter is now confined to the rear of the hotel. (The Irish are still better drinkers than eaters.) In any case, guests have little enough reason to complain: Dublin's five best dining rooms are all within a five-minute walk of the hotel.
EATING
L'écrivain (109A Lower Baggot Street; 011-353-1-661-1919; lecrivain.com) serves "modern Irish cuisine," a catchall term that allows chefs to use local produce in dishes that owe more to the French than to anything the natives have concocted, such as a peppered tuna loin with a green-pea purée. The Unicorn (12B Merrion Court, Merrion Row; 011-353-1-676-2182; unicornrestaurant.com) hosts the media classes and high-tech millionaires who come to gawk at one another. The Italian food is very much an accompaniment to the wine, which is consumed here with remarkable gusto.
Patrick Guilbaud (21 Upper Merrion Street; 011-353-1-676-4192; restaurantpatrickguilbaud.ie), within the peerless Merrion hotel, is the one true temple to haute cuisine in Ireland, and as a result, Guilbaud, a Frenchman, is the high prince of Michelin in these parts. His only Dublin rival is Kevin Thornton, of Thornton's Restaurant (Fitzwilliam Hotel, 128 St. Stephen's Green; 011-353-1-478-7000; thorntonsrestaurant.com). A wildly talented but capricious chef, Thornton shares a patch on St. Stephen's Green with Shanahan's (119 St. Stephen's Green; 011-353-1-407-0939; shanahans.ie), where Irish-American tycoon John Shanahan — he's the maverick entrepreneur who created Hooked on Phonics — is indulging his vision of an uptown steak house. The building that now houses Shanahan's is where my parents had Whites on the Green — so I am, I admit, unable to review it with any dispassion. Sitting down to dinner always feels like coming home.
So there you have it — a list of grand diversions. There are, of course, many more things to do, but these few places give beginner visitors a sense of why Dublin is today a beguiling destination. This ancient capital of a still-young nation truly feels like a city reborn.
TRAVELER'S TIP: The newly christened Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt (double rooms from $350; 011-353-1-274-8888; ritzcarlton.com) is set on a 1,000-acre estate in County Wicklow—the emerald-green setting for the film Braveheart and the perfect big-city getaway.
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