IT has certainly given me a new lease of life, says Des Donnelly, the man responsible for that labyrinthine emporium of good things which is Roy Fox's, of Donnybrook.

And just what is it that has put the hop back in Mr Donnelly's step? Simple. His customers.

"At the weekends it's fabulous. We open on Sundays now, when all the produce has just come into the country and is at its freshest, and you get couples who come in with their cookery books and with their shopping lists, and they just love to find the foods and then take them home and cook. People love cooking."

It is this hunger among their customers for good things which is the most constant refrain, echoed by one after another, as you talk to the shopkeepers and restaurateurs of south Dublin. Des Donnelly's near neighbour in Donnybrook is Richard Douglas, of the Douglas Food Co., and he vividly describes the change in attitude.

"We wouldn't have been in existence 10 years ago," says Mr Douglas. "In that 10 years, people's attitudes have been transformed, and I feel it is largely down to an affluent young class who have jobs, the very people who maybe 15 years ago would have been working in the States, but who are now in Dublin. They are making the difference."

"I started out in this business nearly 30 years ago, and I've seen a lot," says Des Donnelly. "Back then we just did fruit and veg and I couldn't stand that, and it was a struggle to get people interested in anything new. But now, with all the exposure for food and cooking in the media, it has become a struggle for us just to keep up.

"But it is certainly more difficult for us, the good side is that people are interested and educated. They want the authentic ingredients, they know a lot more, and so there is a ready demand for new things."

But how has this switched on shopper emerged, with such speed, out of the bland Ireland which offered only incinerated beef and watery vegetables and toasted ham and cheese sarnies? The shopkeepers and restaurateurs are united in regarding foreign travel as the impetus which has opened people's eyes to the whole concept of a food culture.

"You can fly direct from Dublin to Agadir, and anyone who has enjoyed Morocco and its cooking is the sort of person who will come to the restaurant," says Margaret Beskri.

Mrs Beskri runs the little Marrakesh restaurant in Ballsbridge, one of the jewels in that necklace of eating houses at the junction of Shelbourne Road which includes Roly's, The Lobster Pot, Kites, the Espresso Bar and the Chandni.

Mrs Beskri feels, however, that aside from those devotees who appreciate that Morocco enjoys one of the world's great cuisines and who are familiar with its riches, that North African food doesn't enjoy the same cachet here as the cooking of the Far East.

"In Paris, where there are many more Moroccan restaurants, the pace of change is much faster, but here there is far more coverage of the cooking of the Far East and people are more familiar with it."

This surprising love of things Eastern has been noticed by both Richard Douglas and Des Donnelly.

"It's amazing how people will accept anything which is hot, and which has coriander," says Mr Douglas. "In a shop like this it is mainly the simple dishes which sell best, but people will try anything which is Thai, their tastes have changed that much."

"Thai ingredients are the best sellers," says Mr Donnelly. "Fish sauce, coriander, chillies.

It would be easy, of course, to see this as simply a Dublin 4 phenomenon, with the well heeled keen to assert their social status by virtue of colonising new cuisines ahead of anyone else. But for Richard Douglas, the change is symptomatic of a broader revolution which applies to our entire attitude to food.

"Fifteen years ago, when we opened Lock's Restaurant, there were few places to eat in Dublin Snaffles, The Hibernian, The King Sitric, a few others and look at it now. Then, the first shop which was something like ours was Patrick Guilbaud's, on Baggot Street, and there wasn't the business then to keep it going. Now, there exists a huge eating out population, and we find that while we have a good regular client base, many of whom are professional people, we also draw from a very broad cross section of the city, and to be honest I don't really know where they come from.

"People want to enjoy the whole life of food and wine," says Frannoise Gilley, who, with her husband Sean, runs Terroirs in Donnybrook, the brightest and best new arrival on the Dublin scene in recent times. Its rampant success as a wine shop which also offers a brilliantly original array of foods, has been founded on the idea not just of service, but of expert service.

We have been to the vineyards and we have visited the producers," says Mrs Gilley, "and we do that because you have to know just what you are selling. Service is so much better these days for that reason.

Personally, I believe that the extraordinary changes in our attitude to food and to eating in restaurants is intrinsically linked to the social liberations which have transformed Irish society in recent years.

The acceptance of food as something to be enjoyed and appreciated, and its escape from the self consciousness of Friday fasting and self denial, what Francoise Gilley defines as the desire "to enjoy the whole life of food and wine" is merely another element of a social liberation which values the importance of pleasure.

The marvellous thing, of course, is that it is not merely a fad which describes the social cachet of certain people. That ghastly Harrods Food Hall culture is absent from the villages of south Dublin, and instead one finds an impressive discrimination, a maturity in terms of appreciating food and wine, which is remarkable given its tender years.

The relationship between the shops, the shopkeepers, the restaurants, the restaurateurs and their fortunate customers is logical and organic, and this will surely enable our food culture to get better and better.