It was a rare night off for many of Ireland's top chefs. They left their kitchen whites behind and dressed up for a gala black-tie affair in the Four Seasons hotel.
Ten Food & Wine Magazine/Evian Restaurant of the Year Awards were presented, following an elaborate five-course meal, which included shitake mushroom and pig's trotters natural jus, prepared by Terry White, who was the only chef working on the night.
"You need to love what you do. I wouldn't say it's a gift but you need to love it," said Guillaume Lebrun, head chef at Patrick Guilbaud's restaurant, who is chef of the year. "You can be the best chef in the world but if you don't have a good team with you, you are nothing," said the man who is the son of a fifth-generation baker from Berry in central France. It's not bread but meat, which is the most challenging for him now.
For those who want to be chefs, he says, it's about "hard work, dedication - be prepared for long hours," He was there with is his wife, Anne Lebrun.
Paul and Máire Flynn, of The Tannery Restaurant in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, which was voted Munster Restaurant of the Year, say the acknowledgement of an award means a lot. Yes, they agreed, "there are easier things (than running a restaurant)".
"The toughest thing about it is the hours," said chef Flynn. A collection of his weekly columns in this newspaper's Saturday Magazine, will be published next year by Collins Press.
"There are days you love it and days you hate it," said Derry Clarke, of L'Ecrivain, which was voted restaurant of the year. Being a chef, says Clarke, "is rewarding . . . but it's a hard business to make the cut." He cut his teeth working with his aunt Carrie Roche and Peter Barry in their Kinsale restaurant, The Man Friday. "Peter had a good way about him. He gave me the vision."
"If you weren't putting the effort in you might as well be working in a factory," said Gary Masterson, chef with his partner, Winnie Lynch, at Fire and Ice in Clifden. The restaurant was voted runner-up after the winner in the Best Connacht Restaurant category, The Archway in Galway.
"It's total dedication, you have to put your heart and soul into it," said Lynch, who is originally from Middleton, Co Cork.
The winner in the Dublin's best restaurant category, is head chef and owner, Ross Lewis, of Chapter One. He had just one word for cheffing and running a restaurant: discipline. "It's like squash," he said. "The more times you hit the ball against the wall, the better you become."
Paul and Jeanne Rankin, of Cayenne in Belfast, who are well-known television faces, were runners up in the Best Ulster Restaurant category. How important is the creative, artistic input in cooking? "Cooking and art are more joined in concept than in production," he explained. "Art is a soulful thing and soul can come into food in the concept," he conceded.
The restaurants were nominated by the readers of Food & Wine Magazine, while the final decision belonged to a panel of judges, all associated with the food industry.