The Grand Canal - well, it ain't exactly Venice is it? Nice foliage, lovely wildlife, great poetry etc, pity about the gunk. Not quite the sort of place where you might expect to find Ireland's gastronomic bourgeois larking about. Still, a generous helping of culinary gentry clambered aboard the smartly attired corporate hospitality barge, MV Riasc, on Monday for the Restaurants Association of Ireland's inaugural national awards ceremony - the bombastically monikered "Restaurant Oscars". And terribly Celtic Tiger it was too.
If these were the Oscars, then hulking Peacock Alley proprietor and full-blown celebrity chef Conrad Gallagher (he's been on TV a bit) was the evening's Phantom Menace. Enigmatic, laconic, positively sweating moody detachment, Conrad spent the night dropping coy hints about his new venture - apparently it's going to be called Ocean, will be at Charlotte Quay and should be open by autumn. Can't wait.
He did perk up slightly on being presented with Chef of the Year award by RSI president Terry McCoy - whose own establishment, the Red Bank in Skerries, is on the up and up - although he seemed a tad nonplussed at the unconventional design of the trophy: a speckled bowl-shaped thingy created by feted Galway potter Judy Greene. The Donegal maestro was cheered on by fans including food writer Georgina Campbell - her recently published guide to eating out in Ireland is a near permanent fixture in the bestseller list - and model Vivienne Connolly, who would have been in the running had there been an award for most impressive cheekbones.
The Best Restaurant Award - the gastronomic equivalent of best director, the RAI literature informed us without even a hint of irony - was handed to a harassed looking L'Ecrivain owner, Derry Clark, who had dashed from Wexford with wife Sallyanne. Derry later decamped to the riverbank with Roly's Bistro owner Roly Saul (flush with the success of his recent Palm Beach restaurant venture in Florida) where Derry outlined plans to transform his Baggot Street eaterie into a split level affair incorporating a weekend piano bar. Also catching the rays was Declan Ryan from the Arbutus Lodge, Cork, a Best Winelist nominee. Declan has just sold the Montenotte establishment to a mysterious Mr Carmody for a cool £2.5 million.
Subsequent "Oscar" winners included a rather underwhelmed Patrick Guilbaud, named Best Restaurateur, and Le Coq Hardi owner John Howard, who won Best Wine List. So sternly did John and wife Catherine stare down at the assembled hacks that nobody plucked up the courage to inquire whether Charles Haughey and Terry Keane are partial to a few bottles of the house special on their regular visits.
Things took a turn for the surreal when the Best Restaurant Appearance award was presented to La Stampa on Dawson Street. The prize was collected by an anonymous bearded chap who was roundly feted and applauded, although it later emerged most of those on board had not the faintest idea who he was. The mystery man was, in fact, restaurant manager Declan Maxwell, who was to be commended for shrugging off all the mystified gawps with Keanu Reeves-like cool. Clearly a star in the making.