We are excited to be in the planning stages for the Irish Restaurant Awards 2018. Every year we seek to improve the overall process and this time we have decided to change the way we collect online nominations.

In 2016, when a person wanted to nominate a restaurant, they had to select a county and then the establishment from a drop-down list. The sheer amount of eateries in the country meant that our list was inaccurate and we had to constantly update it.

The solution: We are going to incorporate an autofill Google Places API into the nominations form, which means a person can simply type in the name of their favourite restaurant, café or gastro pub, and it will automatically appear along with the business address.

However: We are asking you to please check that your business listing on Google is correct. You may be listed already, but you should also make sure to verify or ‘claim’ that listing so that you have control over what people see. This is completely FREE to do and if your listing is correct, people will be easily able to find and nominate you for the restaurant awards in January.

You can find further information on Google Business Listings here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3039617?hl=en

Further information about the 2018 Awards will be released in due course, but do keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook pages for all updates, and of course the Irish Restaurant Awards website.

We appreciate your assistance in making the Irish Restaurant Awards even bigger and better for next year, and if you have any queries please feel free to contact the awards team on 00 353 (1) 677 9901 or events@rai.ie