Sexy Boutique Hotel Dublin. The Dylan
Is this the best best luxury boutique hotel in Dublin? Must be the most romantic hotel in Dublin. As everyone from taxi drivers to bar staff and shop assistants will tell you, Dublin has changed and is still changing. In the Eighties, it was rudely alive, rough around the edges and obviously, shockingly poor in parts. But now the city is booming.
The dilapidated dock area is being rebuilt in glass and chrome, new office blocks have sprung up around the River Liffey, and Dublin today is a place where conspicuous consumption is celebrated.
The Dylan complements this perfectly. Formerly the old Royal Hospital Nurses’ Home, latterly the rather run-down Hibernian Hotel, the Dylan is now a beautifully designed 44-bedroomed boutique hotel. In Dublin, the D4 postcode is shorthand for a certain type of swank and there’s no denying that the Dylan’s ultra-modern bar, all angles and reflections, plays to that flash attitude.
Initially, it appears that this is a hotel you stay in to make a point, to see and be seen, rather than to relax in and feel at home. Yet appearances are truly deceptive. From the moment my husband and I arrived, we felt relaxed and suitably pampered, the reception staff were incredibly efficient, the highly-rated Still restaurant lived up to its billing with an outstanding menu centred around well-presented local produce, and our suite was so comfortable that it was quite easy to imagine spending the whole weekend simply lounging around in it.
This sense of welcome elevates the Dylan above its peers. For just as underneath new Dublin’s trappings, old Dublin’s rambunctious heart still beats, so beneath the Dylan’s highly polished surface lurks the warmth and, most importantly, the substance of a classic country hotel.