Restaurant Reviews

John McKenna has a good experience in Galway's House Hotel

A cosy, cuddled up cat is the symbol of Galway's House Hotel. It's an obvious design steal, but in the case of this cosy, cuddled-up city hotel, it's a wholly appropriate one.

House is cosy. It's comfortable. Sure, they have far too many chairs downstairs in the lobby, but the dining room and the public space and the bedrooms have been really well realized in making over what was the old Brennan's Yard hotel.

It's worthwhile stating the importance of this sense of comfort. As the editors of the Nota Bene travel guide noted several years back on the subject of boutique hotels, "We are tired of suffering for their art".

But suffer is just what too many boutique hotels make you do - design wins out over comfort. But in House, design has been used to good effect. They have synthesized several styles and created an appealing expressionist effect, letting textures, colours, surfaces and angles collide happily.

Where The G is seamless, House is stitched together. Best of all, it is not pretentious. In so many boutique hotels the staff are so busy being cool that they have no time left to look after you. But in House, everyone does their bit, quietly and without affect. Of course, they should do something about the music - it's better to keep your Hot Chocolate in a cup rather than coming over the speakers - but this is a winning little place, smack in the heart of Ireland's liveliest city.

www.theHousehotel.ie