Mark Moriarty's Studio in Wilton Park in Dublin is both a working creative studio and a restaurant where diners can experience his food in what is also a TV and content space.
It has been a difficult time for the hospitality industry, but chef Mark Moriarty might have found the secret to success with his new restaurant.
Mark Moriarty's Studio is a creative space where he and the team shoot content for TV and social media and also has a restaurant.
How do they manage to balance everything in the one space? Well, the restaurant is actually only open one day a week.
When speaking about the restaurant on The Pat Kenny Show, the top chef explained how it all works.
He said: "People [were] saying, 'Why can you be on TV or have a book [without a restaurant]?' What I needed was a HQ for everything I do and there is more on top of that that we do.
"I wanted to open a restaurant, but I didn't want to be chained to the stove for 80 hours a week for the next 30 years to then not know who my family or friends were.
"So I said, OK, let's open a dedicated space that this hasn't been done anywhere, definitely in Ireland, probably not in Europe.
"There are very few examples of it in the world where we're essentially a TV studio. We can produce all the things [we do].
"We shot this cookbook here. We do the TV show there. We do the podcast filming there. And we open one day a week as a restaurant on a Friday.
"So we do lunch at one o'clock. We do dinner at seven o'clock. We have 20 seats in each sitting.
"The demand obviously is huge because there's so few seats, but then what we encourage people to do is sign up to our mailing list on the website.
"And then every month, a couple of weeks, a few weeks ahead, we release a couple of secret dates that only people on our mailing list can get into.
"So it almost feels like this. It's hidden at the back of an art gallery down in Wilton Park, and it's in behind a painting down a corridor. You feel like you step away from Dublin into this completely unique space for a couple of hours."
While the restaurant is only open Fridays aside from the secret dining experiences, they are also open for private dining, which Mr Moriarty calls "key to the business".
He continued: "I was hoping it was going to [succeed] and it has gone well. Like the week just gone there, we had one of the big techs in, we had a secret restaurant date on a Wednesday, we had a Middleton very rare launch, [and] we had a restaurant on a Friday.
"And next week's the same. So I'm very happy with that part of the business is going well."
Main image: Mark Moriarty
