You can call me Al, chef tells Marietta
I mean do they not think there is any way to a woman’s heart? Or that women have no stomachs? Or even have no hearts? Now there’s a thought. But I digress.
Whatever his chosen route, top chef Alan Foley has found his way to the heart of top stylist and TV presenter Marietta Doran. They spent their very first night away together at the Powerscourt Hotel in Enniskerry last Tuesday week. It was a wonderful night. How do I know this? Marietta told me.
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There was plenty of consuming passions as she and Al dined in the 5-star hotel’s Sika Restaurant before retiring to their suite to burn off calories.
The night before, the loved-up pair had been at the LIFE magazine Restaurant of the Year Awards (Alan was nominated for Best Chef Award) and decided to “dicky ourselves up again.”
Marietta and Alan, who are both from Carlow, have known each other since they were 15.
“We were never boyfriend/girlfriend we were just pals,” explains the Borris beauty. “After many years, we met up again last September when I produced a fundraiser fashion show in his family’s Step House Hotel in Borris. We slowly started to get to know each other again.”
Make that very slowly.
Alan, who is the Executive Chef at The Cellar Restaurant in the Step House Hotel must be part of the slow-romance movement, whatever about the slow-food movement. He asked Marietta out to dinner in February this year. Granted, they have been inseparable ever since.
“I am so admiring of Alan’s work ethic,” Marietta told me, “and his commitment to excellence.”
I’ve never heard it called that before.
Celebrity angst at Gulfstream gridlock
Hey here’s something Owen Keegan can’t control. The Dublin City Manager and his managers will be reaching for the traffic Xanax. Because this little number is not one an extra bike lane can solve: Gulfstream gridlock is expected next weekend. The seriously wealthy dynasties of the global racing establishment will be private-jetting into Dublin from all over the world on Saturday for the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby at the Curragh.
And they’re worried about the congestion. It can’t be easy having to deal with perfection anxiety, can it? I mean, what’s it like to have way too much money? Very stressful, apparently.
Made In Chelsea’s stress-free star Millie Mackintosh is flying in on Friday (with her minted parents Nigel and Georgina) and will stay at The Marker Hotel on Grand Canal Dock. Millie, who is one of the judges of the Most Stylish Lady on the day, is heiress to the Quality Street fortune and is going to that other quality street, Grafton Street, on Friday: she has an urgent appointment at Brown Thomas to be fitted for her Derby Day dress. Myself — I’ll be going in whatever’s not in the wash.
Minister Phil Hogan will be attending the lunch at the Dubai Duty Free marquee as their guest. His Excellency Khalid Nasser Rashed Lootah, the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates in Ireland, will be there and Enda Kenny has also been invited. The lunch will be hosted by Colm McLoughlin, Executive Vice Chairman of Dubai Duty Free and his wife Breeda. Invitees include Anne Doyle and partner Dan McGrattan, film director Jim Sheridan and wife Fran, and Gaybo and Kathleen. Your diarist gets celebrity anxiety around such big name hyper-achievers. As long as they don’t frighten the horses. The only mode of transport not controlled by Keegan.
Mr Norris turns a new Chapter
It’s official. After his liver transplant in hospital last week, David Norris has turned a new chapter.
On Wednesday night, he was the life and soul of Chapter One with seven friends (Chantal O’Sullivan and Dale Chihuly among them). When the senator arrived in the restaurant on Parnell Square at 8.30pm, the diners’ reaction was such that they might as well have stood up and applauded. And when the former Presidential election candidate eventually sat down to have his food (he ate from the tasting menu with the accompanying wines), well-wishers were coming up to his table almost as regularly as waiters with gourmet food for Norris and his party.
“He was in absolutely flying form,” co-proprietor and maitre d of the Michelin-starred restaurant, Martin Corbett told me. “By his whole demeanour and form last night, there is no doubt that he is in ship shape.” Indeed. The senator left at 1am, looking fit as a fiddle.
Valerie Roe was looking similarly fab last week. The beautiful former lady of the nightclub at Lillies Bordello had returned on Tuesday from a holiday in Florida with husband Dennis and their 12-year-old son Josh. They stayed at the swish 5-star Longboat Key Resort in Sarasota, visited Universal Studios in Orlando, before Josh impressed his parents by being awarded Player Of The Week’ at superstar coach Nick Bollettieri’s world-famous tennis academy on 40 acres near Bradento.
Rocha’s Zoe sprouts wings
Just as John Rocha is taking a step back from fashion (retiring from London Fashion Week, dahlings), his daughter Zoe is branching out on her own. Or sprouting out.
She is leaving Sprout, Stephen Fry’s independent film and TV production company in London, to seek world domination.
Spare a thought for Mr Fry. He once told me of his young protégée who has been with Sprout since 2009: “It is absolutely safe to say that we’d be a) bankrupt b) imprisoned c) on the dole or d) the laughing stock of the media world if it were not for the fantastic professionalism, charm, brilliance and flair of Zoe Rocha.”
Be that as it may, Zoe is off to the Glastonbury festival next weekend with her musician husband Matt Tester (they married in London last December — with the beautiful bride in a gown designed by her internationally acclaimed designer dad and the likes of Guggi and Alex Zane in attendance.)
After Glasto, they are heading “straight off to France on hols,” Zoe told your diarist.
“We’ll catch up soon and I’ll fill you in on my world take-over plans!”
Just as John Rocha is taking a step back from fashion (retiring from London Fashion Week, dahlings), his daughter Zoe is branching out on her own. Or sprouting out.
She is leaving Sprout, Stephen Fry’s independent film and TV production company in London, to seek world domination.
Spare a thought for Mr Fry. He once told me of his young protégée who has been with Sprout since 2009: “It is absolutely safe to say that we’d be a) bankrupt b) imprisoned c) on the dole or d) the laughing stock of the media world if it were not for the fantastic professionalism, charm, brilliance and flair of Zoe Rocha.”
Be that as it may, Zoe is off to the Glastonbury festival next weekend with her musician husband Matt Tester (they married in London last December — with the beautiful bride in a gown designed by her internationally acclaimed designer dad and the likes of Guggi and Alex Zane in attendance.)
After Glasto, they are heading “straight off to France on hols,” Zoe told your diarist.
“We’ll catch up soon and I’ll fill you in on my world take-over plans!”
Bookish fun in Bonoland
Talk about making Hay while the sun shines. Ok, if you insist. I ducked out of the blistering rays on Wednesday eve into the hallowed cool of TCD’s Long Room for the Hay Festival launch. Hearing all about Hay were a trinity (sorry) of intellectual heavyweights — Provost Patrick Prendergast, broadcaster Myles Dungan and John Banville — who’ll be joined down in Kells on July 3rd (Trinners, Books of Kells — have you joined the dots yet?) by artistic supernovas Jung Chang, Louis de Bernieres and Liam O’Maonlai for a bout of Hay fever.
As it was Bloomsweek, I continued my bookish rambles yesterday in Bonoland for the Dalkey Books Fest which kicked off on Thursday with the great Robert Fisk talking about the Great War. The brainchild of David McWilliams and his delightful wife Sian Smyth, this is always a fab fest, but the couple surpassed themselves this year luring stunning Salman Rushdie who scintillated the locals before shimmying with the literati at local hostelry Ouzo’s. My dears, Dalkey hasn’t seen such glamour since Mrs O popped in for lunch.
Roberta Rowat to be a model mum
Roberta Rowat, the stunning ex girlfriend of Fiachna O’Braonain of Hothouse Flowers, is blooming gorgeous. The South African beauty is pregnant with her first child. She announced the good news to friends last week, adding that her husband Clint, who she married in LA last year, “couldn’t be more supportive and even rubs my swollen feet daily”.
Roberta, once one of Ireland’s top models with Assets, lived in Ireland for over a decade and dated Jackie Lavin’s son Gary for eight years. The pair were a glamorous part of the Dublin social scene.
There was no shortage of glam in House on Leeson Street last Saturday, akin I know, to saying the sea is salty or Eamon Dunphy is prone to the odd swear word or two.
Two of Ireland’s top models Hayley Ryan (gorgeous ex of Ireland rugby player Dave Kearney) and Faye Rooney (stunning ex of Ireland soccer player Sean St Ledger) came in after the Respect Ball at the Four Seasons. Hayley looked particularly ab fab and bronzed, after a recent trip to Ibiza. She wore a backless white top and sat at the Buck Whaleys’ table along with fellow Assets models Michele McGrath and Jodie Wood.
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