The 2003 Bridgestone 100 Best Guides

Despite the best efforts of an idiotic Government, the best cooks and hospitality folk persevere and triumph. Discovering and describing the new Bridgestone 100 Best Guides ­ The 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland and The 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland ­ has been a familiar whirl of excitement, with brilliant new places to eat and stay discovered in the usual remote, weird and way-out places.
As usual, the Bridgestone addresses are thriving, despite the best efforts of the Government to make running a restaurant as difficult as possible. In a year when U.S. bookings have crumbled, putting severe pressure on many places, the Governments decision to tack on that 1% of VAT has squeezed the living daylights out of everyone in the trade.
Before they opened their doors, restaurateurs could look forward to more VAT, higher rates of insurance and every imaginable economic pressure before a single customer walks in the door.
Can the Government not realise that a thriving restaurant sector breeds a thriving agricultural sector? Do they not realize that affordable eating will take people out of pubs and teach them how to drink moderately? Have they no concept of the civilising values of good food, and how the creative culinary arts must be protected as part of our heritage?
Has this exhausted Government actually got a clue about what is going on in the country? To us, and to the people who work in food in Ireland, it seems they not only don't know, but they simply don't care. The sickening self-satisfaction of the PDs and the incompetence culture of Fianna Fail is enough to make one despair.
But, despair not: there is great cooking, and great hospitality out there, and the new Bridgestones will lead you straight to it.

Buy the 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland 2003 online

Buy the 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland 2003 online

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Features

• New Discoveries in the 2003 Bridgestone Guides
• Red Star Biscotti
• Beaches at Kelly's Resort Hotel

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