Everything you need to know about the Michelin Guide ceremony in Dublin
Ahmet Dede, executive chef and co-owner of Dede Restaurant in Baltimore, which is one of five Irish restaurants that could increase to three Michelin stars during Monday's ceremony in Dublin. Picture: Andy Gibson.
The Michelin Guide was founded in 1900 by brothers André and Édouard Michelin in France to promote automobile travel and crucially, the sales of tyres, which they just happened to manufacture, having invented the modern pneumatic tyre.
The little red book was free and provided maps, a list of petrol stations, tyre repair instructions and hotel and dining recommendations.
It was a huge success, finally becoming a paid-fore publication in 1920, and Michelin stars were introduced in 1926 for top tier fine dining establishments. The ranking hierarchy of one, two and three stars followed in 1931, becoming clearly defined in 1936.
Those definitions were as follows: one star for a ‘a very good restaurant in its category’; two stars for ‘excellent cooking, worth a detour’; and three stars for “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”.
In the years since, it might be argued that the Michelin Guide has become a globally recognised brand on a par with the tyre company itself and, for many chefs, achieving one or more stars is the ultimate professional goal.
However, a Michelin star is not the be-all and end-all of fine dining and there are more than a few great Irish restaurants cooking superb food that will never earn a star. The guide itself lists many more restaurants with no awards at all than those starred restaurants or those holding a Bib Gourmand.
The Bib Gourmand award is a step below the Michelin Star accolade, recognising restaurants for quality cooking at a price that equates to good value.
Earlier this week, five new Irish restaurants were awarded a Bib Gourmand, adding to the 18 Irish restaurants already holding the accolade.
The new Bib Gourmand restaurants are Bigfan, Borgo and Forêt, all in Dublin, Beau, in Belfast, and Farmgate Lismore, in Co Waterford.
There are three Bib Gourmand holders in Cork alone: Goldie and Ichigo Ichie, in Cork City, and St Francis Provisions, in Kinsale.
This award recognises restaurants at the forefront of sustainable practices within the culinary industry, acknowledging initiatives such as waste reduction, ethical sourcing, and energy efficiency. The award was introduced in 2021, with Michelin-starred Loam in Galway (now closed), the first to receive the inaugural award. Kai restaurant, also in Galway, is a current holder of a prestigious Green Star.
It takes a special commitment to achieve the levels of standards and consistency for a restaurant to earn even one star. Despite the long-held public perception that starred restaurants are snooty and elite establishments which hold no place for the average Joe or Josephine, The Michelin Guide insists that the award is solely for ‘outstanding cooking’.
Elaborating, it defines five criteria by which a restaurant is assessed: quality of ingredients; mastery of technique; harmony of flavours; personality of the chef coming through in the cuisine; and, crucially, consistency of delivery each time an inspector visits.
The guide insists that decor, style and service are most definitely not factors in deciding whether to award a star, noting that stars have been awarded everywhere around the world, from street food stalls to grand palaces.
The judges are all full-time employees of the guide and former restaurant and hospitality professionals, who visit anonymously under false names, returning as often as required to properly assess their experience and make a judgement.
To decide on a three star restaurant, various inspectors visit throughout the year, for lunch and dinner, on weekdays and at weekends. Dining solo and in teams, they try to taste as much of the menu as possible and then eventually arrive at a group decision.
Excitement in the Irish hospitality world is at near boiling point as the Michelin Awards come to Ireland on Monday for the very first time, with speculation rife that we will see a first Irish three-starred restaurant.
The Michelin Guide Ceremony for Britain and Ireland 2026 will take place at Dublin’s Convention Centre on February 9, beginning at 6pm, at an event packed with the biggest names and talents in Irish and British gastronomy.
And by 7.30pm, not only will the new Michelin Stars and Green Stars for Ireland and Britain have been unveiled, but we will also know whether any new members of that exclusive three-starred club are flying the Irish tricolour.
Despite earning its first Michelin star in 1974 — for Cork’s Arbutus Lodge — Ireland spent decades as an afterthought for the prestigious and internationally renowned dining guide.
It was only in 1997 and 1998 that our total haul of stars hit double figures and that included two stars for Dublin’s Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. It was a false dawn, numbers dwindling downward once more to single-digit figures even during the high spending years of the Celtic Tiger. It was 2014 before we hit the magic mark of ten stars again and, from 2016 onwards, that figure rose and has never since stopped rising.
Today, there are 23 Michelin-starred restaurants in Ireland and five of those restaurants hold two stars, a quite phenomenal achievement in a small country where the general public’s passion for fine dining only kicked off in earnest in the last two decades.
Michelin three-starred restaurants are generally acknowledged as being amongst the very finest restaurants in the world, fine dining’s elite of the elite.
By 7.30pm on Monday evening as the rejoicing Michelin-starred chefs head out for the night to paint Dublin town green, maybe one of them — or, dare we say, two —will have three very special stellar reasons to celebrate?
Established in 1981, it received its first star in 1990 and has held two stars since 1996, a phenomenal achievement in its own right and one that saw RPG as the international face of Irish fine dining for many years. While obviously in the mix for a third star, and speculation has been mounting, the only reservation would be that such an accolade would surely have happened before now?
Thought by many to be the greatest of all Irish restaurants, and not just for the star that chef/proprietor Ross Lewis earned in 2007, the re-imagined Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen who entered into partnership with Lewis in 2021, is the ‘bookie’s favourite’ to earn a third star this year. Viljanen not only earned a second star for Chapter One but also held two stars in his previous kitchen, at The Greenhouse, in Dublin. It would be most thoroughly deserved.
The rise of Ahmet Dede and his business partner Maria Archer’s West Cork-based restaurant is one of the great stories of Irish hospitality and The Michelin Guide are equally enamoured with the man who only began to cook when he moved to Ireland and was in need of a job, any job. He is a culinary superstar in his native Turkey on the basis of his achievements in Ireland but if ‘outstanding cooking’ is the criterium, then the astonishing pace of his ongoing culinary evolution must make the Baltimore restaurant a real contender.
New head chef Lewis Barker is even more experienced as a Michelin-level chef than his predecessor, Vincent Crepel, who eventually earned the Castlemartyr Resort’s fine dining restaurant a second Michelin Star. However, Barker is hardly in situ a wet week and the Guide will most likely allow him time to bed in rather than making such a momentous decision after just a few months. However, do watch this space in the future.
Chef/Proprietor Damien Grey’s bijou Blackrock, Dublin restaurant is the real dark horse, with both his first and then second Michelin stars coming from leftfield, surprising many pundits. A highly creative chef who sources superbly and then delivers balanced flavours in alchemical fashion, he equally appreciates the element of theatre when dining at this level, not unlike the now-retired Kevin Thornton, the only Irish-born chef ever to hold two stars. Should Grey prevail, it will be another entirely deserved 'surprise'.
