Prestigious Georgina Campbell Award for The Left Bank Bistro
Athlone restaurant picks up Taste of the Waterways Award
Athlone's The Left Bank Bistro has picked up the Taste of The Waterways Award in the prestigious 2025 Georgina Campbell Irish Food & Hospitality Awards.
The annual awards celebrate gold standard champions of the food and hospitality industries, with the winners announced at a gala lunch at the InterContinental Dublin Hotel this week.
Ireland’s longest running food and hospitality awards, the annual Georgina Campbell Irish Food & Hospitality Awards were established by the well known food writer in the 1990s, with the aim of giving recognition where it is deserved across a broad range of destinations and lead customers - both Irish and visitors – to genuinely hospitable experiences where they will enjoy great food that ‘speaks of the real Ireland’.
Opening the event with an appeal for government support for the food and hospitality sector in next week’s Budget, the respected food writer said the immense countrywide contribution made by the sector seems to be persistently undervalued and the struggles that many businesses are going through are very evident.
“The VAT cut mooted for next week’s Budget, or some such relief, especially for restaurants, is urgently needed. It is shocking to hear endless news of closures – most recently Dublin’s much-loved Big Mike’s, a high profile example that is echoed by many less well known but equally cherished businesses elsewhere. Having a more positive business environment would have meant the world to them, their families and their communities – and once they’re gone, they’re gone," said Georgina.
"Yet there are businesses that continually invest in innovation and excellence against all the odds," Georgina said. “Ireland is rightly known especially for warm hospitality and it is a joy to visit, and to revisit, the places where standards are non-negotiable - and thank goodness there are still so many wonderful people demonstrating extraordinary resilience at a time when Ireland’s hospitality and food sector faces so many challenges.”
Very much an all-island event, a wide range of leading food and hospitality businesses of all sizes and specialities across Ireland are highlighted at the 2025 Awards, each one very special and contributing in its own way to the wonderful thing that is Irish hospitality. The Guide aims to build up a balanced picture of Irish food and hospitality, not only by assessing the big names but also seeking out great destinations and produce that may be found in less obvious locations and not often reviewed.
The prestigious awards ceremony featured an engaging panel discussion and a lively Q&A with special guest John Brennan and his wife Gwen, about life after The Park, the plans they have for Dromquinna Estate (including an ambitious 10-year garden transformation) and working together as a family now that their son Adam has joined them in the business. Not only a great hotelier, the unprecedented success of the RTE programme At Your Service, that he and his brother Francis continue to make each year, makes him a source of inspiration in the industry, thanks to his practical approach to the problem properties they visit and his honesty in offering solutions.