The Side Door Restaurant was one year old on Tuesday and rather generously its management decided to give a present, not to themselves, but to the Irish Hospice Foundation. Jean Barlow, the restaurant manager, dreamed up the idea of hosting an eight-course dinner with the finest of wines, for supporters and friends of the Foundation. And at the end of the meal the restaurant footed the bill for a change.
It was a suitably glitzy and intimate gathering as only 70 tickets were available. Chairwoman Marie Donnelly made the one and only speech and the only other interruption to an evening of eating and drinking was the raffle. This proved rather embarrassing to Pat Kenny's table (which included Brian Kennedy, promotions-man-turned-Coffee-Club-owner; Watermarque's Liam Gaskin and Universal Music's Dave Pennefeather) which won four of the five prizes. Amid good-natured cries of "Fix! Fix!", Cathy Kenny did the gracious thing and returned her prize to be raffled again.
Other diners dotted around the room were Kathleen Reynolds who was having a "girls night out" at her table; film-maker Katy McGuinness and architect Felim Dunne; Robert Power of Westchester Investments and Image Interiors' Laura George; Kathy Gilfillan; Suzanne MacDougald of the Solomon gallery and jeweller Mattie Ryan; Ken Hutton of 98 FM, a loyal supporter of the Foundation; designer Michael Mortell; jewellers John Farrington and Tom Dobson, and Rita Hughes of Hughes and Hughes.