There are 16 new entries in the Bridgestone 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland 2009 and one of these is a Kilkenny restaurant – Campagne in Gashouse Lane. In total, three Kilkenny restaurants have been declared as being amongst the top 100 restaurants in the country – this is an increase of one on last year.
Besides, Campagne, Bassett’s at Woodstock in Inistioge and Zuni on Kilkenny’s Patrick Street are listed in the Guide, which together with the Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Stay in Ireland 2008, has just been published. The guides are co-written by John and Sally McKenna and celebrate their 20th anniversary this year.
Both Guides class selected venues as ‘hot’ or ‘classic and Bassett’s features as one of Ireland’s ‘classic’ restaurants.
Two of the top 10 signature dishes originate from Kilkenny restaurants – Gravadlax of goatsbridge farm trout at Bassetts and Deep fried haddock, poached organic egg, spring onion hollandaise at Campagne;
Garret Byrne at Campagne is tipped as one of Ireland’s top 10 hot chefs to watch;
Campagne features again in the top 10 places with great service;
John McKenna comments, “Kilkenny is steadily establishing itself as one of the gourmet centres of Ireland. With the new Campagne, with fine cooks like Mark Gaffney in the Ormonde, with the high standards of well-established restaurants like Café Sol and Fleva and Rinuccini, interesting left-field places like Chez Pierre and Foodworks, great wine bars like Vendemia and great wine shops like Le Caveau and The Wine Centre – not forgetting award-winning delis like Shortis Wong and Blueberry – the city has all it needs.”
