If you are having trouble finding one of the top restaurants in Galway's Good Food Guide it may be because the Garda has closed down De Burgo's of St Augustine Street.
For all the best reasons, of course. It has paid a sum quoted at £450,000 450,000 to transform the restaurant into a private social club. The exclusive establishment will be open to all gardai, currently serving and retired, along with family and friends and visiting officers.
Still, the city and surrounds boast at least 26 alternatives for mere civilians, according to the guide, which has just been published by Atlantic Enterprises, with support from Galway Irish Spring Water (Clada Group). The booklet aims to help "discerning diners explore the innovative cuisine being created by master chefs in kitchens throughout the county".
Such masters include Gerry Galvin of Drimcong House, Kevin Dunne of the White Gables in Moycullen, Dermot Gannon of Destry's in Clifden and Richard Casburn of Moycullen House. Also included are Paul Fogerty of Fogerty's in Clifden and Mathias Salesses of the Merriman Inn in Kinvara.
Galway's McDonagh's Seafood House in Quay Street needs no listing, such is its popularity; while outlying establishments to the south and east, such as The Blackthorn in Gort and Toher's in Dunlo Street, Ballinasloe, are also mentioned.
Copies of Galway's Good Food Guide, which includes pen-pictures of each establishment and contact numbers, are widely available in tourist offices, shops, hotels, guest houses and restaurants. A website may be created, and plans for a Galway food festival are in the offing . . .
The Western Health Board is also planning a restaurant guide - but one listing smoke-free eating establishments, or establishments with a smoke-free section. You'll remember how Galway's experiment in a smoke-free drinking house didn't quite take off; undeterred, the health board is planning to advertise in regional newspapers, inviting requests for inclusion in its brochure.
The colour brochure will be produced next year, and those premises publicised will be presented with a certificate.
"The more people that actively seek no-smoking facilities from management, the greater the likelihood that such facilities will be provided," Mr Paul Hickey, the board's senior environmental health officer, says.