Kilkee, like so many of the coastal towns in County Clare, may be changing all too rapidly, and in ways that are unsustainable and aesthetically displeasing. But the Haugh family's Stella Maris changes only slowly, sustainably, successfully, and we like it like that.
The design isn't cutting edge, the cooking isn't molecular gastronomy, and changes and improvements are made patiently, when the time is right, and that's why everything here feels just so right, so together, an echo of times past in times present, things done just the way they should be, just the way they have always been. Ann Haugh and her family run this elegantly simple hotel just the way they have always done, with hospitality to the forefront, with good honest cooking - do ask in the afternoon if they can arrange some lobster for your dinner that evening - with all the fundamentals of treating the guest as a honoured visitor always paramount in their mind. In an age when hotels are the playthings of builders it is refreshing to enjoy the real hotel culture.
