Profile: Simon and Christian Stokes

He will decide on Wednesday whether to continue court protection for Missford Ltd, the holding company for Residence, which owes Zurich Bank €2.3m. The Stokes have indicated to the court that a former financial director was to blame for the under-payment of taxes.

Round the corner from Residence, their restaurant Bang has gone, well, bust. Opened in 1999 as the Celtic tiger began to roar, it surfed the wave of corporate prosperity for a decade. Surprisingly, the most recent accounts show that Bang lost almost €450,000 in the year to February 2008, well before the downturn. Clearly, all has not been well in the Stokes's business empire for some time.

A third company, Auldcarn, is also facing insolvency, with a liquidator due to be appointed on Thursday. It once owned the Clarendon Inn, a city centre pub later sold to Bernard McNamara, another businessman who went belly-up last week. The most recent Auldcarn accounts, to early 2008, show it owed €2.7m, including €1m in taxes. The auditors, FGS, expressed concern that the company had failed to keep proper books of account. Last year, FGS resigned as auditors to all three Stokes companies.

In a way, the twins saw this coming. In a misjudged foray on to television, an episode of Boomtime in 2001, Christian complained that all of Dublin was waiting for them to fail. Jealousy is endemic to the capital, he reckoned. "A friend of mine has a Z3 convertible and he gets terrible abuse when he drives down the road," Christian grieved.

In fact, there was a distinct lack of schadenfreude last week at the Stokes's misfortune. Anyone who has dined in Bang would have suffered a tinge of regret at the thought of never again tasting its bangers and mash in onion gravy, succulent seared scallops, Thai-baked sea bass or warm lemon meringue.

"They are two affable and capable men and I would be hugely sympathetic to them," said Trevor White, a former editor of The Dubliner, who was at primary school with the Stokes in Sandford Park. "They are well regarded in the business and were known as decent employers. I think they will bounce back. I reckon someone will bail them out."

Born on September 19, 1975, the twins are the only children of Jeff Stokes, a former model and owner of the Unicorn restaurant in Dublin, and Pia Bang, the eponymous owner of a ladies' fashion shop on Grafton Street until 2004. The Bang restaurant was named after their mother, who arrived in Dublin from Denmark at the age of 17 with her parents. She retained links with her native country, maintaining a summer house in Tisvildeleje, a fishing village north of Copenhagen where the entire Stokes family go on holiday regularly.

The brothers grew up in a converted millhouse in Kilternan, south Dublin. At Sandford Park, they were not noted for their academic prowess. "They were middling at school," White recalls. "My memory of them is being well-behaved and polite. There was always a warmth about them."

After secondary school at Wesley College, they were awarded degrees from the Dublin Business School. As well as modelling, the brothers began to learn the restaurant business in the Unicorn. They were inseparable - until the age of 19 they never spent a week apart - and so identical were they that some friends still cannot tell which is which. They swear they never did the identical-twin trick of swapping girlfriends.

Their apprenticeship at the Unicorn (better known for its clientele than its mediocre fare) was brief and brass-tacks. "I made coffees," Simon once said. "I'd clean bathrooms in the morning. I worked behind the bar. We didn't mind because you have to learn all that stuff. We still do that in our own restaurant. I make coffee, I'll get a drink, I'll clean a bathroom. The key to success is being willing to do everything yourself. You can't say 'Oooo, I'm in a pretty suit, I can't do that'."

The twins' sharp attire, no doubt inspired by their mother, was a constant feature of their business careers. "They were glamorous; always immaculately turned out," said a social diarist. "The beautiful suits were a sign that they were publicity conscious, and keeping up a brand.

"They were always on the floor of their restaurant, hugely polite and well mannered. But while they were sociable, they were also hard to get to know."

Simon has agreed that the clothes were part of the brothers' act. "We've always been big into our fashion," he once said. "In this game, it's important to have an image. You've got to look smart."

They opened Bang in November 1999, when they were 24. The site on Merrion Row seemed jinxed - the graveyard of several other cafes and restaurants. Their father was not sure whether it would work. After a couple of bad reviews, they were not either. Christian later recalled: "The head chef wasn't really working out, and we thought, 'Have we made a big mistake here?' But instead of panicking, we nipped it in the bud."

In came Lorcan Cribbin, a chef from Conrad Gallagher's brasserie, and while Bang continued to be associated with a stylish clientele, its reputation was based on top nosh. "This restaurant is so popular that people arrive for dinner at 11pm on a week night," noted the 2003 edition of The Dubliner 100 Best Restaurants guide. "None are over 35, and most of them are bored of modelling."

As the coffers began to fill, the twins enjoyed living off the fat of Bang. They played lots of golf - Simon at Carton House, Christian at Powerscourt - and drove fashionable cars. Gossip columnists reported that Christian paid €200,000 for David Beckham's former Ferrari and gave his girlfriend a blue Mini Cooper as a Christmas present.

Christian was the more footloose of the two brothers. Simon got married in Denmark in 2003; however, his twin's engagement to his long-term girlfriend Lisa Dillon ended at the end of that year. When he was in New York two years later, Christian bumped into an old friend and jeweller, Louise Delaney. Smitten, he moved to America for a year, selling his share in Bang to his twin. He and Delaney eventually married and later moved back to Dublin. Their first child is due in the summer. In 2002, the Stokes boys spread their business wings, buying the Clarendon bar for €2.7m. Having refurbished and relaunched it at an enormous cost, they sold it only two years later to McNamara and leased it back for a hefty €420,000 a year. The two sides are still in a legal dispute over the rent.

The brothers' next venture was even more high risk. In retrospect, the idea of opening a gentlemen's club at the end of the boom might seem the height of folly. In fact, it was a decent business proposition. Maybe it still is.

The stuffy old boys' clubs at the far side of St Stephen's Green were never conducive to the nouveau-riche thirtysomething business types who wanted somewhere to chill and swill after an evening out. Opening its doors in May 2008, Residence attracted 1,450 members, each paying a joining fee of €250 and an annual subscription of €1,600. Nobody has cancelled their membership since an interim examiner was appointed, the Commercial Court was told last week.

It was the start-up costs that became a millstone around the twins' necks. Residence cost €3.4m to fit out, and the rent was €225,000 a year. The building is owned by Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings, also a habitué of the club. The expectation is that Ronan might ride to the rescue, much as he did with his favourite eaterie, Town Bar & Grill on the neighbouring Kildare Street.

The twins half-suspected they might come to this pass. When he was interviewed for this newspaper's Fame and Fortune column seven years ago, Simon said his top financial priority was security. "Who knows what's going to happen in the future?" he mused. But he added: "My parents worked hard all their lives to make sure Chris and I don't have to worry. With two major investments under our belt and a lot of hard work, it's unlikely we'll ever have to worry about the future." Now they do.