Reviews

Downtown New Haven's got a new Playwright. Not a person: a dramatic new restaurant and pub, across the street from the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale.

How dramatic is it? Well, its decor is dominated by massive chunks of architecture rescued from ancient buildings in the British Isles.

The main bar looks like a Gothic altar; the deejay booth is hidden behind a pulpit built in 1885; the arched windows on the building's facade once graced a chapel in Wales ... and did I mention that The Play-wright has three floors, four bars, 15,000 square feet of space, special function rooms and seating for 500 or so?
If you — or any of your friends — doubt that downtown New Haven is experiencing a renaissance, I invite you to raise a pint at 144 Temple St. tomorrow, or sooner.

This is no one-hit wonder. Various members of the Guilfoyle family, who hail from Kilkenny, Ireland, have previously launched four successful eating and drinking establishments in the U.S.: The original Playwright in Stamford (1994); Paddy Reilly's in midtown Manhattan (1996); The Playwright in Hamden (1998); and a third Playwright which opened last year in, of all places, Miami's South Beach.

There are seven Guilfoyle siblings, each more ambitious than the other. The first to grace our shores was Dennis, an architect, builder and designer who came here in 1986. He started the Play-wright dynasty and has put his brains and brawn behind each pub's distinctive interior.

Over the years, he has been joined by his twin brother, Richard; sisters Ellen and Catherine; and brother Eamon, who now heads up the Miami operations. ("We're all American citizens now, and proud of it," notes Richard Guilfoyle in a charming Irish brogue.)

When it came to developing their fifth restaurant, the Guilfoyles — plus partner Eamon Ryan from Limerick — could have followed their tried-and-true prototype. But the New Haven project was different.

"We wanted to do a superpub," explains Richard, who has a degree in hotel and catering management. The plan was to create a multi-purpose establishment that would not only serve up lunch, dinner, live music and good beer, but also host cocktail parties, private functions, corporate events and weddings. Yes, weddings. Why not? The place could be a cathedral, if it wasn't for the brass spigots dispensing Guinness and Harp.

"Dennis saw it all in his head," says Richard. That was back in 1999; the following year, the partners found a building grand enough to accommodate Dennis' vision. The space on Temple Street was bigger than they'd originally wanted, but the location had such potential that the team expanded their plans and started gutting the building in January of 2001. "We kept the bank vault where it was," says Richard, "and turned it into a walk-in cooler and freezer." Talk about cold cash.

The next step was for Dennis, Richard and Eamon to tour England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Their mission: to seek out decorative architectural treasures in abandoned churches, cathedrals and schools; buy them; and have them shipped, piece by piece, across the Atlantic.

The antiques that they acquired on that shopping trip — including a pipe organ, stained-glass windows, carved archways, and an iron grate that was once embedded in a London sidewalk — could fill a museum or two.

The boys rescued at least one sentimental artifact as well: the double doors to the Guilfoyles' great-grandparents' house, which they installed near the back bar and now affectionately refer to as "Granny's doors."

In keeping with the "superpub" theme, The Playwright expanded its menu beyond typical pub fare. "We still have standbys like Irish stew," assures Richard, who serves as executive chef, "but the menu here is a bit more Continental and a little more contemporary than in our other restaurants."

That doesn't mean that it's more expensive: in fact, managers Ellen Guilfoyle, Catherine Guilfoyle and Eamon Ryan are dedicated to keeping prices friendly and affordable.

The Playwright opened on Nov. 15, and it couldn't have come at a better time. As a new downtown destination, it promises to serve as an anchor for a once-bleak stretch of Temple Street that, in recent years, has bravely shed its boarded-up storefronts and revealed Lalibela, an Ethiopian restaurant; Neat Lounge, a stylish martini bar; a Mediterranean eatery called Sahara; and a-soon-to-be-opened Italian restaurant masterminded by the legendary John DelMonaco.

"We're ready for pre-theater, after-theater, business lunches, Sunday brunch, whatever," says Richard Guilfoyle. The Playwright has already hosted a few private functions, and the majestic space is filling up fast with bookings for holiday parties. You shouldn't wait for a special occasion, however.

In the long-standing tradition of good Irish pubs, The Playwright has an open-door policy, which means you can stop in almost any time for a bowl of soup, a pint of ale, a hearty supper, or whatever restores your soul. In another, perhaps more important tradition of good Irish pubs, The Playwright has the power to transform a struggling block of downtown New Haven into what it was always meant to be — a neighborhood.

©New Haven Register 2001