Living Dublin Pubs

The VAT House

Anglesea Street, Temple Bar

The old Percy French Bar, at street level in Blooms Hotel, has been completely refurbished as The VAT House. It takes its name from the vat house in nearby St James Gate Brewery where, in the final stage of the brewing process, vatfuls of frothy black Guinness are left to mature and from where the timber floors of The VAT House pub were salvaged.

There's a nice irony in the name, since much of the price you pay for your pint can be accounted for by the State's value added tax, or VAT. The spelling of The VAT House's name in capitals suggests that the pun may not be entirely unintended by proprietor Martin Keane.

I used to drink in the old bar quite frequently when I worked in Temple Bar. The staff there are great: friendly and attentive to regulars and hotel-guests. Their new surroundings are a lovely recreation of a traditional bar, with careful attention to materials and details. What's more, they're brightly lit, which is a refreshing alternative in Dublin and allows you to read the paper or see what's happening around you.

Martin Keane has targeted this pub firmly at the tourist market, with quality Irish ballad music on many nights of the week. (They also make great play of the quality of their Guinness.) strangly, this has had the effect of drawing a large local crowd, who find this kind of music increasingly hard to find in good pubs. So The VAT House is one of the few places in the city centre where you'll meet genuine Dubs of all classes.

For smokers, they've recently added a small semi-outdoors area in what must have been the only space available to them. They've made a good job of continuiing the theme of the pub into it, with windows through which you can niew the action inside (I'm sitting there as I write this). So full marks for the effort.

Complaints? They don't actually serve my preferred tipple. It hasn't stopped me coming back though.

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