Acclaimed chef Adam Nevin surprised the Irish fine-dining scene in April this year when he said he was leaving The Morrison Room at Carton House in Maynooth a little more than a year after the restaurant was awarded a Michelin star. Just a few months on, he’s ready to launch his next Michelin project: leading Glovers Alley in Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Hotel on St Stephen’s Green.

At 31, Nevin is already a Michelin veteran, having won his Morrison Room star in 2025 and retained it in 2026. Glovers Alley also holds a star, awarded under previous head chef, Andy McFadden. Having hopped from one starred kitchen to another, Nevin still has his eye firmly on the Michelin prize.

“The main thing is to retain the star and to create a successful, busy restaurant,” he says.

Despite the clear ambition, he says he had decided to leave Carton House, a Fairmont hotel, before the Glovers Alley opportunity arose a few months ago. “I just thought I had done the best I could there, and I was really proud of what we done. It was time to move on and challenge myself with something new.”

He saw himself becoming an elite private chef in Britain, where he had worked as a younger chef.

“Originally the plan was, I was going to go back to the UK and work with my friend for a bit. He’s a private chef over there,” says Nevin.

“So I was probably a week away from going, and then this job [came] up. Fergal [O’Connell], the CEO [of The Fitzwilliam Hotel], got in touch with me, and then we started meeting on a weekly basis.

“I really liked the vision for the restaurant, and I liked the way he wanted to do things, so I thought it was the right move for me.”

Located upstairs in The Fitzwilliam Hotel, the reimagined Glovers Alley under Nevin is similar in design to its previous iteration, although instead of a black leather banquette and pastel pink armchairs, Glovers Alley 2026 has a more autumnal palette. It will open on September 9th.

The 70-seater restaurant is the kind of environment where you could imagine Mad Men’s Don Draper swigging whiskey, with gold fixtures, plenty of mirrors, wood panelling and plum accents. It’s a big change from the Georgian style of The Morrison Room.

“It’s a more modern room, which suits the style of food we’re doing. The team are really young and ambitious as well, so it’s going to be a very energetic restaurant,” says Nevin.

He will offer two tasting menus for dinner service; the classic menu and the discovery menu, priced at €155 and €190 respectively, plus a 10 per cent service charge. Lunch will commence later in the autumn.

Dinner service will be available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5.30pm to 9pm, and from Thursday to Saturday from 6pm to 9pm.

In what he describes as “a little nod to our location on the Green”, Nevin will be serving some Dublin classics. The Green reference holds particular resonance for him because he worked in nearby Shelbourne, also on St Stephen’s Green, for a time more than a decade ago.

“We’re going to be cooking a Dublin coddle. Don’t picture the boiled sausage or the boiled bacon in your head, but it’s very sharp looking, and it’s really tasty.”

The new coddle will feature sausages made by Rick Higgins from Higgins Family Butcher to a specific Glovers Alley recipe.

“I think it’s absolutely amazing. It’s an elevated coddle,” says Nevin.

Other featured dishes will include Clogherhead lobster with yuzu, coriander and satay, as well as a 60-day dry-aged beef. Although, Nevin warns: “I get bored of things very quick, so we’ll be changing the menu a lot and developing new dishes.”

While he can’t carry his Michelin star over from his previous workplace to this one, as stars are awarded to kitchens not chefs, Nevin does plan to bring his diners with him to Glovers Alley.

“I’ve had a lot of guests from The Morrison Room text me on social media saying they’re coming in and they can’t wait to try. So it just goes to show once you do something good, people will follow. It shows that we did something special there.”

Nevin has a short working window in which to retain the Glovers Alley star tin advance of the 2027 Michelin ceremony in February. According to a Michelin Guide spokesman, who said he was unable to comment on specific restaurants, “consistency is one of the most important elements of the assessment process”.

“For that reason, when there are significant changes within a restaurant, such as the appointment of a new head chef, Michelin Guide inspectors will naturally seek to ensure that the restaurant continues to deliver the same standard of cooking and dining experience for which it has been recognised.”

And while Nevin wants to retain the star, others on his team see it as only the beginning of the restaurant’s Michelin recognition.

Glovers Alley general manager Dylan Shannon, formerly of Lewis Baker’s Michelin-starred Terre in Castlemartyr in Co Cork and Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, is much less coy about the kitchen’s potential.

Shannon says his role is “to manage the orchestra and just to showcase in the best way possible by providing the best service possible”.

He says not only is Glovers Alley “100 per cent” looking to keep its one star, it wants more.

“Two, three – we’ll go for everything, I suppose.”