A few metres from Bray’s Dart station is Albert Walk, a dinky Victorian laneway, which, with its 19th-century houses, has always been home to little artisan shops, cafes and businesses.
Introducing herself, with a notebook in hand, a waitperson in the new Caladh in Greystones approached our table and said, “What are your names?” Diarmuid and Steve, though a tad surprised, obliged while I, with my nose in the menu and smelling a rat, said nothing. Persisting, however, she looked directly at me, saying, “And what’s your name?”, whereupon Diarmuid, bursting out laughing, quickly relieved the pressure by jumping in with “How’s the beef?”
As Michelin was preparing to dole out its 2024 stars, with all the young bucks chomping at the bit in anticipation of a rubber-tyre accolade (not deterred by the fact that a number of starred or bibbed restaurants had shut up shop or dumped their stars in favour of less-confining casual dining), I was having lunch in Ireland’s longest-standing Michelin restaurant 48 hours before. Some might say it’s the ‘Daddy of them all’ the 2-star Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud (RPG) on Upper Merrion Street.
In his role as chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI), Adrian Cummins has tirelessly advocated and cajoled the Government for support, not just for his 3,000 members countrywide, but for thousands of other restaurants, coffee shops and various eateries across the hospitality industry. He frequently appears on TV and radio, particularly in times of crisis as is the case now for restaurants and cafes with rising costs, taxes, wages, and warehoused debt from the Covid-19 lockdowns.
?Over the past few months we’ve unfortunately seen lots of restaurant closures, but on the flip side, there’s been plenty of new restaurants opening as well. And then there are the great survivors of the restaurant industry who’ve been in business for decades.