Restaurant Review - Big Mike's
Wednesday 06 August 2025
For good and for bad, there have always been bullsh**ters around the hospitality scene. I’m talking about the kinds of hosts, chefs and guests that waffle about the night they quaffed a 1957 Chateau d’Yquem with Charlie Haughey, while discussing affairs of State and his penchant for Charvet shirts, or sipped Dom Perignon with Prince Albert at the Monte Carlo Rally. Then there’s the inevitable smartass that “told” Gordon Ramsay or Marco Pierre White how to properly cook a sausage. All of this, you can take with a grain of salt. They know everyone, even the ones that they don’t!
Some diners, however, just revel in being acknowledged and very often “wanna go where everybody knows their name” – which is why the bullsh**ters often thrive. Back in the day, people flocked to Sean Kinsella’s legendary Mirabeau in Dun Laoghaire. Kinsella was a good chef but an arch-bullsh**ter who set the bar high by having his Rolls-Royce parked outside the front door, presented menus with no prices to the ladies, and fawned obsequiously over celebrities, politicians and businessmen, who’d arrive with their latest squeeze. However, if anyone queried anything, he tore up the bill and threw you out with the dishwater.
lucindaosullivan.com
First Published In The Sunday Independent