KOI JAPANESE RESTAURANT AT ST. CRONAN’S HOUSE IN BRAY COUNTY WICKLOW
I very much like the building and the blue.
I really was hoping that restaurants would fully open at the beginning of July but there is now speculation in the newspapers that the reopenings will be delayed until August which could be a problem as my city visits programme was due to begin in the second week of July.
Years ago I worked for KAO, a huge Japanese multi-national, and at a distance I thought the sign on the building was KAO rather than KOI. I had the good fortune to visit Japan and really liked the food however I have never found a Japanese restaurant in Dublin that comes close to any that I visited in Japan mainly because many of them are nothing more than a Chinese restaurant offering sushi. I should mention that I have yet to visit KOI in Bray but I will give it a try later in the year if everything goes to plan..
Detached five-bay two-storey former presbytery, built 1826 but was extended and remodelled in the later 19th century. The building was used as a private house from 1963 until 1980 when it was converted to St Cronan’s Vocational School, and since 1998 it has been in use as Bray urban district council municipal offices until it became the home of a Japanese restaurant.
When I operated from in Bray in the 1970s McDonalds had not yet arrived in Ireland. In 1979 I moved to Santa Clara in California and, for various reasons, my first meal in the USA was at McDonalds and I cannot tell you how disappointed I was. While in California I visited some really good restaurants but I was not impressed by the burger chains but as the restaurants that I liked were expensive the comparison might not be fair.
To the best of my knowledge McDonalds came to Dublin in 1987 having established their first UK restaurant in 1974.
In the 1880s Bray more or less consisted of one long street of houses at the head of which are two long streets – Vevay Road and Killarney Road. The Town Hall was built where the three streets meet.
The plaque at the entrance to the building, dedicated to the Brabazons who commissioned the construction of the hall, reads:
“This Town Hall and Market house was erected by Reginald Lord Brabazon, son of William 11th Earl of Meath and Mary Lady Brabazon only daughter of Thomas 11th Earl of Lauderdale in the year of our Lord 1882”
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