A season of expanding gastronomic choices

It's only a couple of months away, but very fast approaching Christmas dining out. Many offices and factories are already organising Christmas parties in hotels, restaurants and pubs, while many families are also making plans for meals out. There's just one small problem: the question of choice, since so many hotels, restaurants and pubs are planning to serve up delicious and often original Christmas menus. Then right on top of Christmas comes the millennium, which will no doubt present some more opportunities for feasting and drinking.

First of all, there's a great choice in hotels around the country, not just in Dublin, where hotels like Jurys, the Conrad International and the Shelbourne are all geared up for Christmas meals. Many hotels across the nation are equally well prepared for the festive season. As an example of how ubiquitous good hotel food is, just the other day I had an excellent lunch in the Crover House Hotel, near Mountnugent in Co Cavan. The hotel is American in its spatial splendour, overlooking the waters of Lough Sheelin.

Well-known hotels with fine restaurants include the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin and its sister hotel in Belfast, the McCausland; the Hodson Bay, near Athlone; the Galway Bay in Salthill and another new spot, the Faithlegg House hotel, just outside Waterford, which opened earlier this year.

Many of the tried and trusted restaurants are already well prepared and, indeed, well booked for the weeks coming up to Christmas. Roly's in Dublin's Ballsbridge is a perennial favourite, while so too are the various Fitzers restaurants in town, including Dawson Street and Temple Bar. The various Cooper's restaurants are also popular venues.

Some districts lend themselves to festive eating, like the Temple Bar district of Dublin, laden with restaurants and cafes, and the Great Victoria Street/Dublin Road/university area of Belfast. Ballsbridge has quite a cluster, apart famous Roly's the Lobster Pot and Le Coq Hardi included, with Dobbins not too far away.

Pubs are always very much into festive food: these days, you can go to many well-known pubs in Dublin, as well as Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, as much for the food as for the drink. In Dublin, noted pubs that will be putting together some special menus for pre-Christmas include Ashtons of Clonskeagh, the Punch Bowl and Gleesons in Booterstown, and Davy Byrne's in Duke Street.

Just outside Dublin, pubs noted for their food include Johnny Fox's in Glencullen and the Roundwood Inn in Co Wicklow.

"Ethnic food" has also become a very strong feature of eating out and it makes an often welcome change from the omnipresent turkey and ham. In Temple Bar, you can sample Belgian and Mongolian food, just to serve up two examples. Belgium may have an undeserved reputation for being a boring country, but its food certainly isn't and it's not all frites, contrary to popular perceptions.

Chinese restaurants, such as Wongs on Dublin's north and south sides, are still very popular, but there are many more ingredients in the ethnic restaurant mix these days. Japanese is going strong, and so too is Malaysian, while the Khyber Tandoori restaurant in South William Street, Dublin, has a first-class selection of Pakistani dishes. At night, this restaurant has a special "greeter" outside, dressed for the occasion.

In Upper Leeson Street, Milton's restaurant has Cajun dishes from the southern US, as well as European dishes. The long-established Old Dublin restaurant in Francis Street does lots of Russian and Scandinavian dishes, but also plenty of European ones. The Kapriol in Lower Camden Street has been specialising in classic northern Italian cuisine for nearly 25 years. Two and a half years ago, Ronan Flanagan took over from the founders, Guiseppe and Egidia Perruzi and has changed the menus very little since then. Il Primo in Montague Street, off Harcourt Street, Dublin, does lots of Italian wines and dishes such as sea bass and venison steaks.

Spanish tapas dishes will soon be very much the order of the night when Henri's, which already has a coffee shop in the district, opens its new evening tapas restaurant soon in Pembroke Row, just off Baggot Street Bridge. There are lots of other new places to consider this Christmas. Suffolk Street, Dublin, has the new Nude restaurant, with a cool, stylish, very modern interior. Ayumi-Ya in Blackrock, Co Dublin, has long been a bastion of Japanese cuisine and now there's the new Ayumi at Brown Thomas, in Clarendon Street. O'Connell's restaurant in the new Bewley's Hotel in Ballsbridge has been winning plaudits. The new Jam restaurant in the Hot Press Hall of Fame in Middle Abbey Street, Dublin, has been relishing rave reviews. It features the best of what's hot in global cuisine and has put together an exciting Christmas dining package. The Harcourt Hotel in Harcourt Street has started a new Sunday jazz morning, combined with brunch, being marketed as "Brunch and all that jazz", just right for weekends coming up to the festive season.

Another very new spot in Dublin that's been well received is Messrs Maguire at Burgh Quay, a microbrewery, pub, cafe and restaurant all rolled into one. With plenty of imaginative food served on all floors, including the Dining Room at the top of the house, it's a great spot for a pre-Christmas feast. The library and conversation room is an ideal place for flopping down in afterwards.

The new-look Bewleys in Grafton Street has a very full Christmas menu, that includes dinner, live entertainment and spot prizes until well into the night. Browne's Townhouse in St Stephen's Green is another new accommodation and restaurant concept, says Ronan Branigan, general manager. It's a sumptuous place, and Browne's Brasserie has quickly become one of the "in" places to dine in Dublin.

In Cork, Proby's restaurant at Crosses Green reopened last month with its new look, and an atmosphere described as "warm and intimate". The restaurant will be doing special menus for evening diners and Christmas parties over the next few weeks. The choice is startlingly fresh, with so many new places complementing the tried and trusted favourites. Lots of intriguing dishes, often of ethnic origin, are also guaranteed to make Christmas eating out really exciting. These days, turkey and ham is often just for starters in the Christmas recipe stakes: the gastronomic rewards will go to those brave souls willing to experiment.