MORE THAN 60 Dublin restaurants will offer three-course dinner menus for €25 or €30 to mark ‘‘Dine in Dublin Restaurant Week”, which runs from Monday, October 12th, to Sunday, October 18th.
Participating restaurants include Fallon Byrne, Marco Pierre White’s Steakhouse, Saba, Bleu Bistro and Brasserie 66.
Up to 20 hotels will also participate by offering 10 per cent off their lowest quoted accommodation rates.
They include five-star hotels such as the Westbury, the Westin and the Conrad. Nine four-star hotels and six three-star hotels will take part.
This is the second ‘‘Dine in Dublin’’ week to be held this year. The inaugural event in April involved 50 restaurants and more than 17,500 people dined in those eateries during that week. It was worth €500,000 to the local economy, according to the Dublin City Business Improvement District, which organised the week.
Its chief executive Richard Guiney said it also provided a boost for theatres and bars. His organisation plans to hold the event twice every year in the hope that it will offer a boost to restaurants in the quiet periods.
Dublin Tourism is also supporting the promotion and Mr Guiney said he hoped it would encourage tourists to plan a visit to the capital during that week.
He said the participating restaurants must provide the special value menu to diners from 7pm each evening. Mystery diners would visit restaurants to ensure that they were offering the special rates.
“Everyone could do with a boost in business at this time of the year,” Mr Guiney said.
He saw the idea at work in Philadelphia last year and said it had a knock-on effect on all city business, with shops staying open later to benefit from the increased numbers of people around the city.
The Restaurants Association of Ireland said this was the “perfect answer for diners who have been watching the pennies but long for a gourmet meal”.
Its chief executive Adrian Cummins said the April event had made a huge difference to restaurants. “One restaurateur had 800 extra covers in his three premises that week so that’s a fair increase.”
He said it generated more positive feelings towards the restaurant trade by providing such value for money.
Details of the participating restaurants and hotels are available on www.dineindublin.ie
