Restaurant Review - Simmons @ the InterContinental Hotel
Thursday 27 August 2026
Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to see the familiar face of one of Ireland’s billionaires already ensconced en famille on a long leather banquette beneath glittering Art Deco style chandeliers, as I walked into the new Simmons restaurant in the InterContinental Hotel in Ballsbridge.
From the front gate inwards, the five-star ‘InterCon’ exudes a kind of old-style Grand Hotel atmosphere, with service to match, and regularly attracts international celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Rod Stewart, Cristiano Ronaldo, and indeed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and China’s President Xi Jinping.
Naturally, there were a couple of local Maseratis, a few Porsches and copious Range Rovers sweeping up under the portico as I arrived, the glamorous passengers disembarking seamlessly as the hotel porters took their keys. It all reminded me a tad of Jilly Cooper’s Riders, geed on, I guess, by the fact that it was Dublin Horse Show week and, greeting us in the foyer, was a stunning floral display surrounding a statue of a show jumper.
lucindaosullivan.com
First Published In The Sunday Independent