Lucinda O’Sullivan’s restaurant review: JFK’s grandad serves up punch-you-in-the-nose flavour at Honey Fitz

‘Have you mango chutney to go with this...

or any chutney?” I asked, looking down at my curry. “No, not here. I have at home,” replied our server, grinning from ear to ear with his own humorous nod to his subcontinental heritage.



This guy is future GM material, we decided, for he handled our visit to the new Honey Fitz restaurant at the Hilton Garden Inn on Custom House Quay with an easy but efficient friendliness throughout. Named for President Kennedy’s grandfather, on his mother’s side - the canny, wealthy John Francis ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, who was Boston’s first Irish American mayor - €1.5m has been spent on developing this new bar restaurant area.

It leans on Irish American history and the ‘special relationship’ that we like to think we have with whoever is sitting in the Oval Office! They know their audience, for, as I arrived in a taxi, Americans were pouring out in their droves, and as I departed later, another coach load was rolling in..