Restaurants

Hello and welcome to Taste of Dublin 2025.

We have the pleasure in presenting your Restaurant Exhibitor Manual for the forthcoming Taste of Dublin 2025. We hope you find this manual a useful tool in assisting you with your preparations for the event this June. We strongly suggest each stand manager and staff member familiarises themselves with the contents of the manual and that access to the online manual is available to your team when onsite at the event

Key Points to Note:

• All builds must be completed by 20:00 on Tuesday 10th of June.

• Wednesday 11th of June is reserved for final dressing and stock deliveries ONLY.

• Due to waste disposal restrictions in the venue please be mindful of kitchen sink waste.

• The public will enter the event through the gate on Merrion Square West

• We will be unable to take deliveries during show or during the changeover between sessions. Please ensure that you have enough stock on site before the first show each day, however, hand deliveries will be permitted

• We have a requirement from our Corporate clients to provide currency that they can distribute to the clients they have invited to the event. This represents about 10% of the overall event attendees with the majority of Corporate clients attending on Thursday and Friday. We plan to facilitate this through the Food & Drink Vouchers, similar to the currency system that we have used in the past. Note, this is only being offered to corporate advance bookings; the general public are not offered the option of buying food & drink vouchers in advance

• If visitors attending the event cannot use the Contactless system at the restaurants and bars (e.g. if they only have cash with them) they will be directed to the Box Office to purchase food & drink vouchers, as all customers had to do in the past. We expect this to be a very small number of the overall attendance. All Exhibitors (i.e. exhibitors, sponsors, restaurants etc.) MUST accept these vouchers

• For more information on this, please visit our Customer Payment Methods and Rules

• There is no gas at this festival - all cooking equipment must be electric

• The EHO have requested that all food and drink vendors including restaurants and bars submit their HSE Acknowledgement Letter, for more information on this see Form 4 (below). This is a legal requirement. Please note that your primary restaurant / business you operate from is the premises registration number required. This should not be registered to Merrion Square

• For more information about your stand, venue access and services please click the buttons to the right of this page

Participating Restaurants must provide the following;

• A menu of three taster sized portions of signature dishes. As a guide; taster portions are approx 3 - 4 bites. To keep trading standards fair for all participants, restaurants must control portion size. To avoid doubt, restaurants may be asked to prepare signature dishes in advance for sign off on portion size. On site, the organiser’s will be checking portion sizes and reserve the right to request reduction if portion size is too large. Failure to comply will result in a reduced rebate on revenue intake

• All restaurants are expected to be able to serve 440-690 dishes per session

• Post event, we will ask you to provide a % breakdown of each of your dishes as a % of your overall turnover. This detail will not be shared with any 3rd Party and will simply be used by the Organiser in order to help them better plan and to ensure that the best range of dishes are planned for future Taste events. This information has proven invaluable for some of our other Taste territories

• In order to ensure ample provision of food throughout the event the organisers will update restaurants on expected visitor numbers. Restaurants must ensure they can fulfil demand for each session throughout the event. Any Restaurant not serving at least 2 dishes during a session are subject to a penalty of €250

• Restaurants must submit signature dishes no later than the 7th of May for review by the organisers who visit the restaurant to sample the signature dishes. New participating restaurants must submit their signature dishes for review and sampling prior to signing contract. This enables us to maximise the promotion time. By submitting the dishes, this should not be assumed as being accepted. Restaurants should not make any plans on the submitted dishes until confirmation is received from the Organisers. To ensure a diverse range of dishes, restaurants will be notified of duplications. Preference will be given to the restaurant who submitted first or to the restaurant that has historically offered that dish and if dish is representative of the restaurant

• Dishes should represent the participating restaurant menu as closely as possible –if they are not, the restaurant may be asked to resubmit their choice of dishes.

• We will not permit participating restaurants to offer burgers or sandwiches as a signature dish. (There may be an opportunity for a food feature (someone who pays a fee to be involved in taste) to provide a burger or sandwich but this must be agreed in advance by the organisers. In addition, Potato Fries will not be permitted.

• The Cost of each dish must be priced at *€7 and includes VAT at the relevant rate of 13.5%. Please note each dish should reflect the quality of the ingredients and not quantity. A higher price does not mean a larger portion. Taste Festivals provides the option to have 1 dish as an “Icon” dish which can be priced at €8-€12 (*Price guideline may change subject to agreement)

• Each restaurant must provide the organiser with a complete allergen list to match each dish. Please see details of allergen requirements further down on this page.

Paperwork and deadlines

The following are a number of important forms that need to be completed. Some are returned to the Taste team and others returned directly to various contractors.

Please pay particular attention to the deadline dates on each form. Compliance with these forms will assist in ensuring a trouble-free build and a successful event.

Storage

Both dry and cold storage options are available to exhibitors at the event. All storage must be booked in advance. Please note that storage space is limited and should be booked no later than the 19th of May.

Deliveries to Storage will be via Merrion Square East where you will be directed to the Organisers Compound where storage is located. Vehicle access is very limited to this space so please liaise with the Taste Team on load in as we are working to strict load in schedules this year. The onsite forklift is also in high demand on site so please raise if this is needed in advance of arriving on site. We would advise having a trolly to help bring stock in otherwise

Any palleted deliveries for dry storage should be delivered on Friday 6th June between 10:00-13:00 and Saturday 7th June between 10:00-18:00. Pallets that arrive on site must be removed by the Exhibitor, any pallets left in storage on Monday 16th June will be subject to a €80 disposal fee, per pallet.

Dry storage costs €150 per sq metre or per pallet.

Cold storage costs €280 per sq metre equivalent.

A combination of a metre sq of both Dry and Cold Storage is available at a cost of €390.

N.B pallets cannot be dropped into the cold storage fridges, items have to be ‘hand-balled’ into the fridge onto the shelves, a staff member will be present to control and assist with this.

For any queries in relation to storage facilities contact Jordan at operations@equinoxevents.ie

Allergens 

IMPORTANT – LEGISLATION THAT ALL FOOD PARTICIPANTS MUST ADHERE TO FOR TASTE OF DUBLIN

Legislation on the provision of food information to consumers came into effect on 13th of December 2014. This requires ALL food businesses providing non-prepacked food e.g. restaurants, delis, canteens, takeaways, cafes, retail outlets etc., to indicate to consumers the use of any of the 14 listed allergenic ingredients in the production or preparation of food.

Food ingredients that must be declared as allergens in the EU

1. Cereals containing gluten, namely: wheat (such as spelt and khorasan wheat), rye, barley, oats or their hybridised strains, and products thereof, except:

(a) wheat-based glucose syrups including dextrose (b) wheat based maltodextrins (c) glucose syrups based on barley (d) cereals used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin

2. Crustaceans and products thereof

3. Eggs and products thereof

4. Fish and products thereof, except:

(a) fish gelatine used as carrier for vitamin or carotenoid preparations (b) fish gelatine or Isinglass used as fining agent in beer and wine

5. Peanuts and products thereof

6. Soybeans and products thereof, except:

(a) fully refined soybean oil and fat (b) natural mixed tocopherols (E306), natural D-alpha tocopherol, natural D-alpha tocopherol acetate, and natural D-alpha tocopherol succinate from soybean sources (c) vegetable oils derived phytosterols and phytosterol esters from soybean sources (d) plant stanol ester produced from vegetable oil sterols from soybean sources

7. Milk and products thereof (including lactose), except:

(a) whey used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin (b) lactitol

8. Nuts, namely: almonds (Amygdalus communis L.), hazelnuts (Corylus avellana), walnuts (Juglans regia), cashews (Anacardium occidentale), pecan nuts (Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch), Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa), pistachio nuts (Pistacia vera), macadamia or Queensland nuts (Macadamia ternifolia), and products thereof, except for nuts used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin

9. Celery and products thereof

10. Mustard and products thereof

11. Sesame seeds and products thereof

12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre in terms of the total SO2 which are to be calculated for products as proposed ready for consumption or as reconstituted according to the instructions of the manufacturers

13. Lupin and products thereof

14. Molluscs and products thereof

In Ireland the information will need to be provided in a written format and the precise requirements are detailed in national legislation which has been published by the Department of Health. 

The FSAI has published two guidance documents to assist both food businesses and enforcement officers:

·         Guidance Note No. 28 - Food Allergen Information for Non-Prepacked Foods in Ireland

·         Leaflet – Allergen Declarations for Non-prepacked Foods

For further information & details on this please follow the below link: https://www.fsai.ie/