Bridgestone 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland 2003

Here we go again! The book we love to hate is just out; the new edition of 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland, bigoted and truculent as ever. John McKenna – “disagreement is the cornerstone of culture” – is one of those guys who goes into a quiet bar, lets drop a couple of contentious remarks, then retires to watch the overturning tables and the flying fists. I whizzed through the book along with a couple of other much travelled gluttons – only 43 of the 100 made our own, admittedly hasty, list. Dish? I reviewed this a month ago – was I in the same place as John and Sal’s inspectors? Nosh, good little diner but hardly stamped with the hallmark of greatness, is it? Aqua? Bruno’s? Tree of Idleness? Decent eateries all but none of them, in our opinion, worthy of being put on a plinth. Of course that’s the cunning marketing strategy, J & S want us to disagree – buy the book, then disagree. Which ploy we fall for, every year.
But never mind the omissions (where’s Jaipur, Pearl Brasserie, Wineport, Dunbrody?) or the canonisation of the occasional plaster saint. What makes 100 Best… worthwhile is the timely reminder it gives – of places we haven’t managed to revisit in the last twelvemonth and of those we’d always promised to visit but never quite made it– Fishy Fishy, Cherry Tree, Aldens, we’ll get there soon, honest. And for that, much thanks.
Rated ***

Bridgestone 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland 2003 is published by Estragon Press e10 UK£7.99