Initiative offers cheap eats in Dublin

More than 60 Dublin restaurants will offer three course dinner menus for €25 or €30 to mark ‘Dine in Dublin Restaurant Week’.

Participating restaurants include Fallon & Byrne, Marco Pierre White's Steakhouse, Saba, Bleu Bistro and Brasserie 66. The week which runs from Monday October 12th to Sunday October 18th.

Up to 20 hotels will also participate by offering ten per cent off their lowest quoted accommodation rates. They include five-star hotels such as the Westbury, the Westin and the Conrad hotels. Nine four-star hotels and three five-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 ate in those restaurants during that week. It was worth €500,000 to the local economy, according to 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 at the beginning and end of the tourist season.

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.

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".

Details of the participating restaurants and hotels will available on www.dineindublin.ie this afternoon.