Dublin's Trocadero has spent 50 years dishing up late-night feasts to thespians. But most of all, it's the real life theatre of the place that has become a legend. Kate Holmquistreports
For three generations of theatre folk who have dined, glowed and table-hopped in its flattering ruby-tinted light, "the Troc" is more a club than a restaurant. After 50 years of dishing up late-night feasts of meat, potatoes and spinach to thespians, the place still feels Edwardian with its plush red velvet, mirrors, antique light fittings and rows of autographed portraits of actors who have dined there.
If the late Micheál MacLiammóir were to stroll in post-show to claim his favourite booth - the one with his own photographic portrait hanging above - he'd be hard-pressed to notice the changes in decor, though he might be amused to read the menu and see "sticky monkfish", one of the newer "healthy options".
For Robert Doggett, who has managed the Trocadero in Andrew's Street, Dublin, for 20 years and intends to continue managing it for another 20, the secret of the restaurant's endurance is that it's more womb than room. Regulars love the privacy of the cosy red padded booths, contrasted with the people-watching opportunities afforded by the larger tables for six and more, and the fact that if you're a theatrical, you're bound to meet someone you know.
"People love the Troc for its atmosphere," says actor Bosco Hogan, whose favourite Troc dish is the rack of lamb. "But what really makes it is Robert - the most welcoming person in the world. I had been living in New York and hadn't been in the Troc for years, but when I returned Robert greeted me like a regular customer."
Hogan and his actress wife, Leslie, brought each of their three children to the Troc on their first grown-up nights out for their First Holy Communions. Other theatrical dynasties - such as the Brennans and O'Tooles - have helped make the place something of a slightly louche family restaurant in a Little Miss Sunshine way.
Bosco's and Leslie's pictures are on the wall - so is actress Ingrid Craigie's. "For our generation of actors, the Troc was a rite of passage," she says. You really felt you'd become an actor when you went to the Troc for the first time. It just seemed so glamorous. With last orders at midnight, the novelty of eating late was part of the appeal. They look after you so well that you can go there on your own and never feel lonely, or go with one other person and then find yourself part of a large gathering. And no one is ever let go back out on the street without a taxi waiting," says Craigie.
Most of all, though, it's the real-life theatre of the place that has become legend. Craigie adds, "Those walls must have heard so many stories - love affairs, confessions, broken hearts!"
There's an oft-repeated tale of a heart-throb actor who fought with his male co-star in the gents', not realising that the paper-thin wall between the gents' and the ladies' made for choice eavesdropping. When the actor cried "You just hate me because I'm gay!", there were tears in the ladies' - until then, no one had realised.
Des Keogh, who has been going to the Troc since the early 1960s, credits Robert, who carried on from the previous manager, "Eddie the Greek", for the sense of continuity from the 1950s to the present that the restaurant offers in a Dublin where little has remained the same.
No matter how many or how few times you've been there, or how long it has been since you've been there, Robert gives you such a great greeting. He's the guy who gives the place its atmosphere. Robert says his ability to remember names and faces, as well as the likes and dislikes of his customers, is probably the gift that has made his career. A co-owning partner in the business with Rhona Teehan, Robert attends the theatre religiously.
He grew up in Slane, Co Meath, where his father, Gussie Doggett, was in many ways the soul of Slane Castle in his role as farm manager to generations of the Mount Charles family. Three months ago, Gussie dropped dead at the age of 72 while touring the castle grounds in preparation for the Rolling Stones concert. Robert is still coming to terms with his father's death: "As they say, [a heart attack] makes it easy for them, much more difficult for us."
When still a teenager in the late 1970s, Robert got work in the glamorous Slane Castle restaurant in the kitchens and on the floor. "That's where I saw my first avocado," he recalls.
When a favourable review of the restaurant by The Irish Times'sTheodora FitzGibbon singled out young Robert Doggett as making everyone feel cared for, Robert almost felt like a celebrity himself and was hooked on the catering business. He did a two-year diploma at Galway Regional College and returned to Slane as a chef, where his mentor - Sue Wade, a close friend and business partner of Rhona Teehan's - was the guiding light.
After two-and-a-half years in Slane's kitchen, his friends Sue and Rhona set him up with a job as a chef in the Troc 22 years ago. At that time, Eddie the Greek, as Cypriot Eddie Michaels was known, had been dead three years, having suffered a massive heart attack in New York. Eddie was a larger-than-life figure who lived for the theatre and began the tradition of putting actors' autographed portraits on the walls. He would squeeze into booths beside his customers and delight in the news and gossip.
As one journalist recalls, it has always been the actors whose pictures go up on the walls, but the Troc has equally been home to journalists who went there after putting their papers to bed. "If you were to appear at the Troc for dinner at 6, then go to work and return later in the evening at 11, no one would remark on it."
Occasionally, a night editor with a breaking story would call the public phone box at the Troc, knowing that he was likely to find a hack or two at the Troc sober enough to be recalled to the office. (This was in the days of hot metal, when certain journalists were in the habit of plonking their huge Royal typewriters on pub tables in the evening, whiskey in hand.) Likewise, the politicians and lawyers for whom 9-5 was anathema, would dine late at the Troc and sometimes themselves be reliable sources of "stop the press" headlines, as they dined on cosmopolitan exotics such as sole on the bone, warm spinach salad, asparagus, deep fried brie and potatoes dauphinoise.
Twenty-five of the Troc's 50 years were presided over by one waiter, Frank Harrison, who attempted several times to retire and was always forced to return by popular demand. He and the Troc were guaranteed eternal fame when Frank, a bit of a trade unionist republican at heart, went to support Charles Haughey at a Dublin Castle Tribunal. In film footage repeated regularly on Sky News, Frank is seen running up to Charlie to shake his hand. He sometimes referred to non-regulars at the Troc as "bloody day-trippers".
When Robert began his Troc career in the kitchen, Dymphna Healy, wife of Shay Healy, was the life and soul of the place, attracting yet another generation of local celebrities and international musicians and actors. It was Dymphna who took charge of the subtle re-decorations of the restaurant, managing to completely replace everything on a sort of rolling schedule with such finesse and so faithful to the Troc style that regulars rarely noticed.
Robert, meanwhile, refused to be chained to the stove back in the 1980s. He was so curious about the buzz and sociability of the Troc, as gossip filtered back into the kitchen about who was in that night, that on his nights off from the kitchen he would work as a waiter, gradually moving into his current role of highly visible restaurant manager, which he has held for 20 years. He was made partner 12 years ago. "The Troc is my pension. It's also my social life. Managing the restaurant doesn't feel like work."
He has become close personal friends with regulars such as Jane Brennan, Phyllis Ryan, grande dame author of The Company I Kept, with Lynn Parker, theatre director and founder of Rough Magic theatre company, with Brenda Fricker, whom Robert liked and got to know even though it was years before he realised she was famous. He's also pals with Peter O'Brien, the fashion designer, and with Catherine Condell, a fashion stylist who had her birthday party there this year. As his gift to Condell, Robert placed a glamorous photograph of her, taken by Barry McCall, in every other frame. "It was all worth it for the look on her face when she realised, and after the party, every guest got to bring a portrait home."
Colin Farrell says the Troc is the equivalent to Joe Allens in Manhattan, though some prefer the Sardi's analogy. Actors you might see at the Troc in the booths or on the walls include Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ralph Fiennes, Cillian Murphy, Cecelia Ahern and her father the Taoiseach, Stuart Townsend with Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp with Vanessa Paradis. Also among the younger generation of regulars are Kate Brennan, Claudia Carroll (also a novelist), Marion O'Dwyer and Alison McKenna.
Des Keogh says that the Troc is the natural place to bring visiting directors visiting the city, who are genuinely amazed to see the pictures on the walls and to realize that every featured actor (with the exception of Judy Garland) has actually dined there at least once, if not dozens of times. "I brought a leading American director there one night for a meal and Gerry McSorley came in and stopped at the table to say hello. The director's eyes lit up: 'I can't believe I just met Gerald McSorley!' "
Robert knows everyone, but does get caught off-guard occasionally. One evening he was dining when a guest was introduced. Robert swallowed his forkful of fish and realised he was looking up at Mel Gibson. When he is off duty, Robert might eat at Eden or at the Winding Stair.
While all the Troc's a stage, broadcaster Derek Mooney probably sums up Robert's charm best when he says, "Robert's great contribution is that he's discreet."
Robert says these days the bohemian value of non-judgmental acceptance has begun to wane. Late-night drinking is now frowned upon, people want low-fat food and the gossip has grown increasingly bitter. "That's a symptom of stress. We're living in an incredibly stressful society. People walk in the door with frowns and grimaces, and so I sit them down, pour a drink into them and say, you're here now, forget the world outside for a few hours." Which, of course, has always really been the point of the Troc.
In memory of Sue Wade, who died of cancer, Red Door Project Management has published a book of photographs from the Trocadero called Curtain Call, €25. All profits go to the Irish Cancer Society's night nursing care service. Edited by Melanie Morris, it's available at bookshops, at www.trocadero.ie and www.cancer.ie