Carnaross has only Michelin-rated restaurant in county

The publication of the annual Michelin guides for hotels and restaurants is awaited with bated breath across the hospitality sector. Being the only truly acknowledged impartial and fully informed standard bearer of hospitality grading by the industry itself, the guides are an accurate reflection of not just an individual business but of a region"s ability to be assessed against the real level of tourism competition in the industry both at home and abroad, as the same judging criteria apply. This year"s guide to Ireland was published last week and Meath has 12 establishments listed for recommendation. The Forge Restaurant near Carnaross, run by Pauric and Irene White, remains the only standalone restaurant listed for the county. The other Meath entries for 2009 are the Marriott Hotel and Broadmeadow Country House in Ashbourne, the Bettystown Court Hotel, Dunboyne Castle Hotel, the Station House Hotel, Kilmessan; Navan"s Newgrange Hotel and the Killyon and Ma Dwyer"s Guesthouses, and in Trim, the Trim Castle Hotel, Highfield House and Crannmor guesthouses. The famous Michelin stars for food are uniformly accepted as the Oscars of the cooking craft, with only seven restaurants on the island achieving this status currently, the nearest one to Meath being Bon Appetit in Malahide. The original Dunderry Lodge, outside Navan, run by the Healys, famously attained a star for five years back in the 1980s.