- Culture
- 05 Apr 01
Located in Dublin’s thriving Temple Bar area and owned by U2, The Kitchen is one of the hottest clubs in one of the most happening cities in Europe. Report: Colm O’Hare
In the past few years Dublin has become something of a mecca for nightclubbers and dance fanatics. Fuelled by the nineties dance boom, new clubs like The PoD, Ri-Ra, and Temple Of Sound have flourished and expanded the range of choice available for the increasing numbers of people disillusioned by the old style ‘crushed velvet and plastic palm trees’ style of nightclub decor. In 1994 the emphasis is on dancing rather than posing and nightclub design has taken on a more minimalist, post-industrialist theme.
In many ways, the opening of The Kitchen at the Clarence Hotel in Temple Bar last month heralded a brave new era in Dublin nightlife. Apart from the fact that the club is owned by the four members of U2, and is located at the heart of new bohemian Dublin, it represents an even more radical departure from the conventional nightclub experience which currently prevails around the city.
The initial hype and media reaction surrounding the club’s opening largely centred around its superstar ownership and the number of celebrities in attendance at the first-night bash. But this only served to ignore the ethos and philosophy behind The Kitchen, which was never intended to be a plush late-night watering hole for media celebs and wannabees, but rather a club for a new breed of discriminating nighthawks who like their nightlife and entertainment to have an edge. This is certainly how the club’s manager Nodd McDonnagh sees it.
“We’ve tried to create an atmosphere in The Kitchen where the kind of people who enjoy being with each other, can mix and enjoy the experience we’ve got to offer. Obviously this doesn’t suit everybody, so on occasion we have to say to people ‘look we’re not really sure this is what you’re looking for’. If they can persuade us that it is, then fine, but I think it’s a more honest approach to say to people ‘we appreciate that you’ve taken the trouble to come along and that you’re prepared to spend money with us but it might be that we’re not quite what the hype suggests. We’re not worried about the question of whether or not they’re fit for us,” he continues, “it’s more a case of whether we’re fit for them.”
He is adamant that there is to be no special treatment for anyone and, once inside the club, everyone is equal. “There aren’t any private rooms or restricted areas in The Kitchen as in some other Dublin clubs,” he stresses. “If we were simply waiting for supermodels to land in the club every night, we’d all be a bit hungry for wages!”
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Everything about The Kitchen is radical. The structure and design, the music policy, the door policy and the ambience experienced within the club which reflects the philosophy of U2 themselves and is an attempt at providing for a niche of clubbers who were not being catered for elsewhere. As Nodd McDonnagh states “We’ve tried to create something that is uniquely Dublin and yet international in outlook – a Dublin-based European nightclub.”
And so they have.
EVEN BETTER THAN THE SURREAL THING
There’s a consciously post-modernist feel to the design of The Kitchen
The interior design of The Kitchen is almost impossible to describe in purely physical terms. It’s not something you see, more like something that is experienced. In essence, the designers were looking for an emotional response rather than an aesthetic one. Or to put it another way, it’s not how it looks, it’s how it feels.
The creation of The Kitchen was a unique challenge for the architects, Cahill-O’Brien Associates Ltd. Ross Cahill-O’Brien worked closely with the four members of U2 in transforming the original concept into reality and he describes the process of planning and completion of the project with refreshing passion and animation.
“What I really enjoyed about working on The Kitchen,” he says, “was the input of the band. We started out with a kind of brainstorming session, bouncing thoughts and ideas around and I was really impressed with their ability to pick out concepts and articulate them so precisely. I think they were impressed that I could understand what they were getting at too,” he laughs.
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“They had a particular wish that it should be surreal,” he continues. “U2’s view is that surrealism is freedom – it gets you out of the real world of the pragmatic and into a world of imagination and liberty. Their whole Zoo TV thing was about perceptions of image as opposed to reality and with The Kitchen they wanted to twist all the common everyday objects and distort them into something else entirely.”
CURVED AND ROUNDED
He explains that this approach was partly achieved from working with the impressions the band members would have had, growing up in a Dublin with certain architectural and design traditions. He describes how the physical appearance of shops, public buildings, schools, hospitals and other institutions all have an affect on the way we relate to them.
“Bono in particular was interested in the idea that things of our past which are perceived as being oppressive, can be interesting when taken as a basis to create something new. There is an immediate emotive reaction to institutional images and we tried to make them slightly warmer and use them in a different, more unexpected context.”
The club is situated in the part of the Clarence Hotel which was originally used as the kitchen (hence the name) and in creating the nightclub, the architects wanted to retain something of the flavour and feeling of the old hotel.
“We looked at the hotel at first to try and ascertain what people actually liked about it,” he explains, “and we decided that it was typically Irish ‘Free State’ architecture of the 1930’s with terrazzo floors and visiting priests and people up from the country, all that sort of imagery. It was definitely Irish, as against English Georgian architecture, and there was also a kind of a Flann O’Brien ‘pint of plain is your only man’ feel about it. It gave off an aura of honesty, hard work and frugality. The Kitchen took some of those themes as basics and tried to make them surreal, distorting those images and feelings.”
Cahill-O’Brien explains that another theme they utilised in the design was, even more surprisingly – butchers! “Strange but true,” he laughs. “We visited quite a few of them to get some ideas. The older, more traditional ones tend to have terrazzo and maple floors with marble tops. They also tended to use things that worked – practical, hard-wearing material. The bar top in The Kitchen is made of the same beechwood as a typical fifties Irish butcher’s shop and we modelled the fittings in stainless steel with hooks, the kind you’d see with meat hanging off them. This links back to something that is quintessentially Dublin, while contemporary at the same time.”
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As anyone who has been to The Kitchen will testify, the use of space is unorthodox in that everything appears to be curved and rounded; nothing follows the usual expected pattern. When you walk around the club you are inclined to lose your sense of direction easily. This was fully intentional, as Cahill-O’Brien explains.
“We got rid of every vertical line and square within the club,” he says. “Everything is rounded, which is to encourage people to circulate and move within the club. Most restaurants and pubs these days have panelling and other features like fancy light fittings etc. You get this nouveau-riche yuppie effect which is based on luxury and comfort. We wanted to challenge that notion, so we decided to exclude anything that the eye might catch onto – except for form and shape.”
LOTS OF IDEAS
While this approach might make the interior feel disorientating for some people, Cahill-O’Brien insists that this can only be a good thing. “The less you’re feeding the brain with objects and straight lines,” he says, “the more your heart or the other side of your emotions should rise. Even the tables around the dancefloor which are boat-shaped are all facing the same direction to give the impression of movement, a bit like the opening sequence in Star Trek.”
Of the two bars in the club, the main one nearest the entrance is described as a kind of “public living room” where people can chat and sit comfortably while listening to the music in the background. It has alcoves and leather seating and serves as a convivial meeting place for people to gather as they enter the club.
The back bar, beyond the dancefloor, is more cavernous and cellar-like, almost like the crypt of a small church. The dancefloor which divides the two is encircled by streams of flowing water which reflect the laser light system and which are surrounded by steel tubing which hold small tables. There are fibre optics coming up into the tables and when you put a drink down on it the beam jumps into the glass giving it a kind of surreal effect. Cahill-O’Brien stresses that the water was a necessary and integral part of the overall design.
“It’s important in that water is one of the natural elements and it also gives the impression that there is a subterranean river flowing through the club,” he says.
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The long, flowing drapes hung around some of the walls are intended to give the club a slightly theatrical effect. “We were actually trying to get them to blow slightly with the help of the air conditioning,” he says, “which would have given it an eerie kind of feeling but I’m not sure if that particular idea worked out. We tried lots of ideas and some of them didn’t work out as planned.”
Ross Cahill-O’Brien is more than happy with the way The Kitchen turned out and feels that most of the concepts they came up with have succeeded in their original intention. But is there a chance that with changing fashions, the whole interior will be ripped out and re-designed in a few years time?
“I don’t think so,” he says. “The design had to take account of the space that already existed within the hotel so it wouldn’t be simply a matter of ripping everything out. Most of the features are an integral part of the structure of The Kitchen so it should remain as it is for some time to come. In fact, the yellow plaster effect which was our own invention should improve with age and in time develop a kind of lived-in permanence within The Kitchen.”
No fly-by night club, this!
SOUND PROOF POSITIVE
The crucial area of sound proofing at The Kitchen was the responsibility of Terry Cromer of Audio-Engineering. Given that the nightclub is in the basement of an old hotel, one of the main requirments was that the sound shouldn't travel into other parts of the building. It's a daunting brief – but a vital one as anyone who has had their sleep disrupted by discos in what had been advertised as quiet retreats will tell you!
“Our main problem was to make sure the sound stayed within The Kitchen itself and didn’t seep up to the bedrooms in the hotel,” Terry confirms. “But I think we've succeeded very well in this.”
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That wasn't the only technical challenge facing the Audio Engineering team.
“The volume levels in dance music can be quite high and The Kitchen was designed to have a wave of bass flowing around the dancefloor,” Terry reveals. “We wanted to make sure that the dance floor was the loudest place in the club. At the same time there had to be an adequate fall-off in other parts of the club where it was important that normal conversation could be heard.”
A tricky balancing act. And there was one more important stipulation.
“We also had to make sure that the sound didn’t go out into the street. But overall, I think we’ve succeeded in all our soundproofing objectives at The Kitchen,” Terry Cromer concludes.
Which is just as well, when you think about it!
TALL IN THE SADDLE
Paul Dakeyne is one of the frontline DJs at The Kitchen, manning the decks on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. He is also a renowned producer, specialising in remixes and has worked with big names like Erasure. He is suitably impressed by the reaction of the Dublin club crowds and hopes to try to break some new hits in The Kitchen.
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“I did a bit of reconnaissance around some of the other clubs to see what the standards were like and I was knocked out,” he says. “The Dublin audiences are well clued into the house scene, even more than in London I would say.”
Though based in West London, Paul flies into Dublin each week to appear at The Kitchen. How did he end up working in Dublin?
“I’ve done some work in the past with Nodd McDonnagh at some of the other clubs he was involved in and he asked me if I would be interested in coming to Dublin to work at The Kitchen, so here I am.”
He describes the reaction on the dancefloor when things hot up at The Kitchen as “orgasmic”. He also brings in the latest house tracks each week, ensuring that the Dublin audiences get to hear an up-to-date selection of the hottest sounds around. Paul even indulges in some live sampling during his performances at The Kitchen.
“They have some great electronic toys there,” he says. “There’s a DAT player and a sampling machine which I use from time to time, sampling tracks as I spin them and relaying back into the sequence.”
The DJ’s art is an increasingly sophisticated one that’s central to the way music is moving in the 90s. If you want to hear one of the best check Dakeyne out. You’ll always find him in The Kitchen!
The Kitchen Top 15
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1. Come & Take A Trip. Smooth Touch
2. Inner Fantasy/Get Up............... Reefa
3. Son of a Gun....................... J.X
4. Lion............................. D.O.P.
5. Eighteen Strings................ Tinman
6. Ligeirin........................ Heitor
7. Jungle Kisses................... Roc & Kato
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8. Work That Body.................. .Chanelle
9. Chemical Beats................. .Dust Brothers
10.Stand Up........................ Loletta Holloway
11.Stoneage.......................... Floorjam
12.Majorca........................... Jason Nevins
13.Santrandisco..................... Punchinella
14.Uno Spezia De Vita............... Progetta
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15.Soul Power....................... Edwards World
Chart courtesy of Paul Dakeyne, DJ at The Kitchen
LIKE NO OTHER CLUB IN TOWN
The manager of The Kitchen Nodd McDonnagh elaborates on the club’s ethos.
NodD McDonnagh, the manager of The Kitchen is a Scotsman who has been managing and running nightclubs in Britain for over ten years. “I’ve worked all over the place,” he says. “Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Great Yarmouth, London, London and London!”
He was initially approached by U2 through various acquaintances when they first had the idea of setting up their own club in Dublin. “People in the business in the U.K. were telling me that they’d had enquiries about me asking for references and that sort of thing in connection with a club U2 were thinking of opening in Dublin. Eventually I got a call from one of the band’s agents who asked ‘how do you feel about coming over for a chat’.”
McDonnagh flew to Dublin and met the band, who discussed their ideas for the club. “They told me what they wanted to achieve with the club and the reasons they were going for the club,” he says. “They’d said that they’d been all around the world and had never found a club that quite hit the mark, so they decided to do it themselves. The whole philosophy of the club was to be that it’s not merely another Dublin nightclub but one that is pointed towards the world.
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“They wanted it to be like no other club in town,” he continues. “I tried to make the design workable for them in a practical sense. There were certain things that had to be done in this Dublin way, of not letting the dance floor take over the whole club but at the same time keeping it at the heart of the club.”
QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT
The music policy at The Kitchen is probably the most clearly defined aspect of the whole venture and McDonnagh is confident that they’ve got it just about right. “That was one of the things we were the most certain about from the word go,” he says. “Obviously it’s dance-driven entertainment but it’s important that it has an edge to it. Part of the crowd we’ve been looking for are the people who’ve been frightened away by this great big monster ‘house music’, so we’re likely to appeal to a more mature taste. We’re not into the hardcore rave kind of sound that’s more identified with younger people. Our target audience is likely to be older than their teens and younger than their zimmer-frames,” he laughs.
The door policy has come in for some criticism in the media with people phoning up chat shows and saying they travelled a long way and were refused entry. McDonnagh says that they’ve now overcome any misunderstandings that might have arisen in the early flush of excitement after The Kitchen’s opening.
“Somehow it got out in the beginning that we had an open door policy,” he says. “Which just isn’t the case – no club could operate that way. It’s a small club and the hype surrounding the opening has been far larger than the size of the club itself. That’s been a problem for us in that we attract more people than we can physically fit in. We have a policy of admitting people who we think will mix in the same way you might pick guests at a houseparty.
“It’s a new venture and I’m not a Dubliner so I’m still feeling my way around,” he continues. “Anyway, a club crowd is built up over a period of time, it doesn’t just arrive at the door on the first night. We’ve already got a regular crowd who’ve been to The Kitchen several times since it opened and they know they’ll have no problem getting in.”
McDonnagh feels that the club has now established its image and people should know what to expect when they come to The Kitchen.
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“We’re stating the basic theme right now,” he says, “and we’d like to improvise on that later on and review some aspects of the music policy. We’ve already arranged some visits from other clubs in the U.K. We definitely see a metamorphosis taking place – we don’t expect to be static. It’s not a case of the tunes you’ll hear tonight will be the same ones you’ll hear in another six months, as is the case in other venues in town.”
The entrance fee at the Kitchen is between five and eight pounds, depending on the night and McDonnagh is satisfied that it represents good value for money compared to other clubs in town. Drink prices too are not exorbitant for a nightclub with a late licence and that is an important aspect of the policy of the club.
“We’re not in the business of ripping the loose change off people,” he says. “But we’re also not ashamed of the quality entertainment and ambience that we’re providing. We limit the crowd at the club to what we feel is comfortable rather than going up to our legal limit. Comfort is important to us – for example, we’ve spent a lot of money on air conditioning. The total cost of setting up The Kitchen was about three hundred thousand pounds.”
FAMOUS PEOPLE
He stresses that non-dancers are just as welcome to drop into The Kitchen to enjoy a drink and soak up the atmosphere.
“If people want to come in and enjoy themselves in a music environment, we’ve no problem with that,” he says. “There are no strict rules about having to use the dancefloor! What is unique about Dublin is that people seem to be capable of enjoying themselves without having to get up and shake their funky stuff.”
McDonnagh states that the staff at The Kitchen are of a higher quality than would be found elsewhere and that they are specifically trained to look after the customers.
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“Each of the staff is trained to extract any negative comments from the crowd,” he says. “We encourage feedback from people. We can’t just carry on in our own merry way with blinkers on. We spend a lot of time on our staff and there’s no arrogance or attitude problem with them. More importantly, they’re not confined to do just one job in the club – they are trained to react to any situation that might arise.”
Finally, Bono has joked that The Kitchen was set up originally so that The Edge would have somewhere to go when the pubs close. Have the celebrated proprietors of The Kitchen been frequenting the club since it opened and are they hassled by the crowd?
“Yes the band themselves do frequent it,” he says. “Obviously they’re not involved in the operational side, though they discuss philosophies and future plans and that kind of thing. We’d like to think that the crowd in The Kitchen would be cool about any members of the band that might be there. That’s another great thing about Dublin people, they’re not overly impressed with famous people and are more likely to leave them in peace.”
The ticket entry system at The Kitchen is state-of-the-art in every respect. It’s called Q-Entry which is an integrated admission and cloakroom ticketing system. Roger Bourke of Abbey Crest Traders who supplied the club with Q-Entry describes how it works.
“It’s a high speed ticket printing machine that will do up to 50 tickets a minute,” he says. “But it also works as a reporting system for the management of the club. They can get a printout of the times people came in, the rate of entry, even information like whether they have more women than men in the club at any given time.
“It’s a Swedish-designed system which also operates as a cash-flow information system. Abbey Crest Traders have supplied Q-Entry to other major venues including Club M, The Harp Bar and the National Student Centre.”
The bars at The Kitchen can carry two thousand cold bottles of beer at a time thanks to the latest in American style coolers. Tom McGrath of McGrath Refrigeration advised The Kitchen on its behind-the-bar requirments and supplied Gredos slide-top Coolers which are the latest in cooling technology. “Five years ago, you might find a copule of bottles of cold Harp in a cooler behind a bar,” says McGrath. “Now in some places much more bottles are sold than pints.”
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McGrath Refrigeration also supplied The Kitchen with glass washing and ice-making equipment as well as fitting the stainless steel modular shelving sytem which includes ice chests, storage bins and stainless steel sink units. At The Kitchen they have the ability to wash sixty pint glasses every two minutes and can produce 200 kilos of ice in 24 hours.
“The thing about a night club compared to a pub,” says McGrath, “is that you have only about two hours to do your main business. In that two hours, you must be able to get at everything quickly, without running out of anything. You need bar staff to be able to stand with their feet virtually stuck to the ground, with everything to hand.”
Lohan & Donnelly were the Structural Engineers on The Kitchen project. Martin Lohan describes some of the problems in buidling the nightclub.
“The main difficulty we had was in supporting a building overhead while clearing out the space down below. You have to be able to hold the existing building in place and not disrupt the work of the hotel.
“We were adding a bit of weight in some places so we had to try to take away a bit elsewhere. The whole structure had to be insulated to prevent transmission of vibrations throughout the building, so a lot of expense went into getting that right.”
According to Lohan, the water features in The Kitchen had to be designed so that water from the river Liffey wouldn’t flow into it. “There’s a high tide every fifteen years or so,” he says, “and we’re hoping the river doesn’t seep into The Kitchen someday!”