The Marker Hotel

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Champagne with Scarlett Johansson at The Marker Hotel in Dublin

Thursday, July 18, 2013 in Dublin, Ireland

Roof Top Bar, The Marker, Dublin

Scarlett Johansson look-alike on the Rooftop Bar at The Marker Hotel in Dublin. Photo by David Lansing.

So. Ireland. Where I’ve listened to Dean Martin play “Danny Boy” on the church organ at St. Columb’s Cathedral in Derry, had a garden lunch with Joan Crawford at Glenveagh Castle, dined with a relative of Winston Churchill in Monaghan, and stayed in a chic hotel room directly across the street from The Edge’s penthouse. How do you top all that? By having champagne with Scarlett Johansson, of course.

Here’s the story: Yesterday, before going out to dinner, we went up to the Roof Bar at The Marks Hotel to have  sunset cocktails, get a good look at the city, watch the cool people, etc. So we take the elevator up there and when we arrive, who should approach us with a tray of just-poured Veuve Clicquot but Scarlett!

Okay, it wasn’t really Scarlett Johansson. But she looked so remarkably like her that I actually gasped. And then I asked her if she’d mind if I took her picture.

“You want a photo of me?”

“Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

A Scarlett-like smile crept across her face. “But why?”

“Because you look just like Scarlett Johansson. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”

She blushed. “Never.”

“Really?”

“No, sir.” Slight pause and another wicked smile. “But I can’t say as I mind.”

And so I took her picture.

Now you tell me: Put a little red lipstick on this Irish lass and give her some fancy turquoise earrings and do you not think even Sean Penn would do a double take?

The real Scarlett Johansson. Looks like the champagne server, no?

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Cronuts at The Marker Hotel

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Dublin, Ireland | 4 comments

A box of cronuts from The Marker Hotel in Dublin. Every Monday the chef introduces two new flavors. I suggest never eating them; they’re too addicting.

It started May 10th when pastry chef Dominique Ansel introduced a Frankenstein pastry he perfectly named a “cronut” in his New York bakery, Ansel’s SoHo. It took only a day or so before people were lining up at 5am to make sure that, for $5 each, they could get a cronut before they sold out. Then the scalpers appeared, re-selling cronuts for $30 each. Then $40. Soon a third-party delivery service promised to deliver a cronut to your home or office for $100—each.

So what is a cronut? According to Ansel’s bakery web site, it’s “a half croissant, half doughnut.” But it’s more complicated than that. Ansel says the creation took more than 2 months and “is not to be mistaken as simply croissant dough that has been fried.” In fact, he says, the “entire process takes up to 3 days.”

Oh, my.

So why am I mentioning cronuts? Because they have come to Dublin. To The Marker Hotel, where I am staying. A little over a week ago, executive chef Gareth Mullins began making and selling cronuts. And people here are just as crazy about them. So much so that the hotel has had to limit distribution.

“I would advise people to get in early as when they are gone, they are gone!”

Mullins sells boxes of cronuts (4 to a box) for 10 Euros or about $13. A bargain over the New York version.

And are they worth that much?

Oh. My. God.

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