irish mark

hiya

long shot maybe but has anyone heard anything about the new 5 star cliff house hotel in ardmore Co Waterford ireland??

was thinking about a weekend away; well away at home anyhows if that makes any sence...

thanks

mark

paul2

Mark, I have not heard anything about the hotel except for the restaurant.
I heard from a friend that the food was over the top fussy and the tables ridiculously close together.

paul2

I see that the restaurant at Cliff House has been awarded a michelin star for 2010.
Did you take your weekend there Mark?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...262472256.html

http://www.thecliffhousehotel.com/

irish mark

had a great weekend...booked a 2 night and one dinner package and then got upgraded when we got there....definitely would recommend; stayed at castlemartyr in cork around the same time and got upgraded again to the fab presidential suite but i'd still go for the cliff house; that said i prefer smaller more intimate hotels so each to their own..

paul2

Thanks Mark, by coincidence the hotel was featured on a travel programme on tv tonight. It looks really good and quite intimate. The room they featured looked a little small but had nice views. The pool area looked great.

vuittonsofstyle

If you look at the Video Clips on the website, this shows you the suites, which look reasonably sized. I really like the fact that the website has video clips featuring the GM and other staff members - a really nice touch.

Earthman

Lol!
The irony of the fact that it's typically raining when they took that video isn't lost on me

I am soooooooo going to check the place out for a night though,it being only an hour down the road!

irish mark

hey paul; didnt think there was a pool area...just a big jacuzzi tub; we got upgraded to the cliff veranda suite which was great..room over 2 floors and a really nice deck area with great views. From what i gather the basic rooms could be quite small so id tend towards one of the larger rooms is possible. the food was good not quite sure that it rates one star Michelin but was definitely good and is great value if you get a room and dinner option.

Earthman

Well the same might be said of thorntons on the green in Dublin[I prefer chapter one by a long shot or one pico[not michelin] for that matter] but the same standards surely apply to the michelin guide everywhere presumably.
Ymmv I suppose.

irish mark

I agree ( from my meager experience) that thorntons was good but not excellent; best in the last few years was mint followed closely by "BLU" a restaurant in the shangra-la in singapore whose head chef happened to be irish; shame both are slightly less than accessible.

paul2

The pool looks great on 'No Frontiers' and in the website pics and video.

I thought the same about the rain drenched terraces Earthman !

Re: OT restaurants, its Guilbauds all the way for me !

Earthman

I haven't been in Guilbauds in a few years so I guess I'd better go back-I have too many quick but excellent lunches up the road in hugo's!

No frontiers is an RTE travel programme for those that don't know and it's available on the RTE player site.

If outside Ireland you'll need to be inventive to be able to watch it so I'd suggest using firefox with the foxyproxy add on and then google a working irish ip address and add it into foxyproxy and then you should be able to watch the following link to the review of the cliff

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1064286

If you don't go the proxy route and live outside Ireland,you'll get a content unavailable message :/

vuittonsofstyle

Agree that Gilbaud's is the best. Even better than it used to be. Much nicer, too, since they re-modelled the room and built that lovely outdoor terrace with the fireplace.

Earthman

We finally bit the bullet and checked out the cliff house but just for dinner.

I have to say I'm impressed.It's very tightly situated and quite pokey ie small but service is wonderful in the restaurant and bar area.The food is just simply gorgeous,I'm not surprised they have a michelin down there.
The place is very busy,we noticed a lot of nationalities as well as locals!
Having had a good galk around while there,the views are amazing out over the Bay and the beach is lovely.
I'd like to go back though as a guest to see what that end of it is like.
We didn't see the rooms but afaik,theres just 39 of them.
The village is quaint and very rural.
It's easy to find as it's off the N25 nearer to Youghal actually than Dungarvan town or Waterford City.
I'd guess it's an area you could easily justify a few days touring

irish mark

if you decide to try it go for one of the packages that combines a dinner...quite a good rate. When i was booking it on the website i couldnt find the room i wanted so i rang them up and got a if we have a better room available we will give it to you answer and they did..fair play..