It's in the new Floridita resaurant.
Any CC lovers coming to Dublin may want to check it out, remember smoking outside only.

www.floriditadublin.com

Be prepared to be shocked by the prices, though they are typical for Ireland. Prices are in euro, about 1 euro to $1.30 US at the moment. There are some errors on their cigars page eg. the San Cristobals that came out in 2006 are not Limited Edition and they are certainly not exclusive to LCDH, at least not in Europe.
I'd love to go to their cigar dinner on Thursday to check it out but the wife's in Marrakesh (she called me from the humidor in Heathrow for an order this morning, bless her) so I'm in with the kids. I'll be at the next one though.

Looks cool. I will have to check it out next time I am in Dublin. I may elect to bring my own cigars, however. The prices are amazing.

Visited the Floridita restaurant/nightclub in London's Soho (on Wardour Street) last month and had the best evening of my week in the city. Terrific food and music (with very efficient and friendly service), and after dessert they brought out their cigar menus to the utter delight of me and the galpal. Highly recommended.

I was pretty excited when I saw that they'd opened in Dublin too; I was at the Theatre over Christmas and spotted that they'd opened in the Irish Life Mall. After a summer holiday in Cuba I was anxious to try it out and myself, the GF and another friend went to check it out one night in late Jan.

Firstly, the location is dire: The previous two bars did terribly in this area and if they want somewhere with these prices to succeed in Dublin it should be on the Southside of the River or in Clontarf, Howth etc. Not being snobbish, just pragmatic. Thst said, there are exceptions: JM Keatings is doing ok on Mary St and I'd say they are looking for a similar customer, more central in the IFSC may also have worked.

Prices, high, location bad... Already I was a bit wary about the place. The only thing that could have saved the experience was good customer service, knowledgable cigar talk and good atmosphere. Sadly, in our 2 hours there we experienced none of that. Our barman could make a fantastic Mojito (and some damn fine other cocktails) but made our Mojitos in a bit of a huff because he "was sick of making them". Fair enough and I can understand where he's coming from, but try and be a bit friendly!

Cigar talk: I wandered over to have a look at the walk in humidor and one of the staff asked if I wanted to look inside. Now we're onto something! Some customer service! But boy was I dissapointed when I tried to engage the guy in conversions about cigars: The best I could get was "I like this one" while he held up a Siglo 1. Hardly the insight or expertise you expect in LCDH. I also noticed that the digital Hygrometers they had placed out aroud the Humidor read 55%: I wanted to say something, but I didn't know where to start with the guy as almost everything he was saying about cigars was so off base (and presuming me to know nothing about cigars he was making himself out to be an expert) so I left it at that. Final test for me, was the smoking area ok (a big deal in Dublin as all places of work, even bars are non-smoking)? I enquired about the heated smoking area and both the barman and the guy in the LCDH said it was ok (VIP's only apparently but they weren't enforcing it as they'd only opened up recently), so I went up with my frieds, some fresh drinks and lit up a RASS. 10 minutes into my cigar a security guy approached us and informed us that we were in the VIP area and would have to leave: I explained what we'd been told downstairs, but he said he was sorry they were the rules. I told him I'd finish my cigar, then we'd leave and he settled for that. Lest I not properly explain the situation, both the smoking area and the VIP area were completely empty, we'd altready been told it was ok to use, we'd spent over €100 (about $135-145) at the bar in an hours time.... Needless to say I won't be back anytime soon. Let me finish by saying that I hope that my experience was a one off/teething problems as they start up, but from anyone else I know who's been there I'm afraid it wasn't. If anyone's in Dublin, by all means check it out for a few drinks (and I've heard the food isn't too shabby either) but you would be better off checking out the other bricks and mortar cigar stores in Dublin for value, customer service and better prices on cigars...

Pity you can't smoke indoors there. And I hear what you're saying about the staff not having expertise. This is fairly universal among cigar store staff who aren't owners.

I'm looking forward to the Moscow opening of Floridita - which is coming soon. You can bet they'll allow smoking anyplace you want.

Harry L
Everything you say sounds familiar about new restaurants opening in Dublin. I was hoping that this place was different, the website looks so nice. The location is wrong, I live just off Merrion Square, about a 15 minute walk away, and I didn't know it was there until I read a newspaper article yesterday, it's in the city centre but just a couple of hundred yards in the wrong direction. Your experience with staff sounds familiar too, either pissed off, clueless, or both, it's a shame. How is Floridita or for that matter LCDH run, are they franchises? Is there any contractual standard of staff training etc.?
Restaurants come and go like herpes in this city, hopefully this place will sort itself out. The food looks good. I'll still get around to going when I get a chance.

Wow, I did have a bit of a rant yesterday, didn't I? I hear what you're saying, I have a feeling that it's a case of whoever brought the franchise to Dublin thought it was a "fantastic business model", rather than having a major love for Cigars. Hopefully it rights itself too soon, because as you say it's not gonna last long with that sort of service in Dublin (especially if the other cigar stores in Dublin don't reccomend it as a place to smoke/eat/drink).

That said, despite my major rant, if I wasn't going to Madrid tomorrow for 5 days on work I'd have been tempted to try out their dinner to see who they had in to talk about the cigars, see if he had any more expertise than the first guy I met, and see what the food was like. Instead I guess I'm gonna have to spend that €90 (and a bit more) on a couple of nice boxes to take home...