ADVANCE BOOKINGS have increased for this year’s Taste of Dublin festival despite the recession and the difficulties faced by the restaurant trade.
With mostly dry weather forecast for the weekend, the organisers are expecting up to 30,000 people to visit the food and drink fair in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens which gets under way tomorrow.
Live chef demonstrations, wine tastings and exhibits by more than 100 artisan producers form the centrepiece of the four-day festival, at which many of the country’s leading restaurants will be represented.
Balzac, Bon Appetit, Chapter One, Diep Le Shaker, Roly’s Bistro and Venu Brasserie will be among the restaurants dishing up food in the open air for hungry attendees, while Jean-Christophe Novelli, Rachel Allen, Kevin Dundon and Darina Allen, as well as Paul Flynn, Clodagh McKenna and Oliver Dunne are among the celebrity chefs scheduled to appear.
This is the fifth year of the fair, and the fourth time it has been held in the Iveagh Gardens off Harcourt Street.
This year’s event is being sponsored by Superquinn, whose founder Senator Fergal Quinn started the business 50 years ago.
Comedian Maeve Higgins will perform while her sister and television co-star Lilly makes quirky food.
Sunday afternoon will be a family day, with face-painting, teddy bears picnics and storytelling for children.
Standard tickets cost €28.50, or €14.50 for children; under-6s enter free.
Tapas-size dishes from the various restaurants cost an average of €6. More information is available on tastefestivals.ie
