FOR those who did not win any of the prizes, the dessert seemed to have been the highlight of the night at last Wednesday's Santa Rita LIFE Magazine Irish Restaurant Awards 2009. Even those who didn't get the full seven raspberries, -- as promised by creator Ross Lewis, Best Restaurant winner -- pronounced his dessert the crowning glory of a unique evening of good food. And a few prizes.

Restaurateurs from around the country went home with their framed awards won in categories from Best Restaurant Design to Best Casual Dining, but Lewis, chef and co-owner of Dublin's Chapter One, and Neven Maguire, of MacNean House and Restaurant in Blacklion, Co Cavan were the big winners on the night. Lewis won Best Restaurant -- as well as Best Dublin Restaurant and Best Dublin Chef -- and his wife, Jessica, set the style standard high as she collected the first award of the night, Best Wine Experience, in a stunning pink bandage dress. Maguire scooped the Best Chef award -- along with Best Ulster Restaurant and Best Ulster Chef -- and he went home with the LIFE Magazine Celebrity Chef Award, one of the many awards voted on by Sunday Independent readers.

In his emotional acceptance speech for Best Chef, Maguire told a crowd that included his cooking peers and assembled sorts who like a good meal, such as Gerald Kean and Lisa Murphy, Virginia Macari, LIFE's Lucinda O'Sullivan, art dealer Michael Mortell and Oonagh Finn, actress Leigh Arnold and Marcus Sweeney and RTE's Anne Doyle, how he had dreamed of becoming a chef since the age of 12. He thanked his family for helping him realise his dream and mentioned his team in Blacklion, all 25 of them, or, as Maguire put it, "nearly half the village".

Maguire was one of five top chefs who prepared the exquisite meal at Dublin's Burlington with the head of the head chef of the hotel Mark Polton Smith. With no fewer than 41 awards to present, LIFE editor and host for the evening Brendan O'Connor kicked off proceedings early, and a four-course dinner followed Maguire's canapes. Stephen Gibson, representing Derry Clarke of l'Ecrivain prepared the starter of duck confit ravioli in a duck and mushroom broth, while Bon Appetit's Oliver Dunne made the second course of citrus cured smoked salmon, a sushi-like dish that eased the minds of the women who had worried that an evening of fine dining and fine dressing might end in bursting seams.

Before the main course of Slaney lamb in a sea vegetable brioche, cooked by Martijn Kajuiter of Cliff House in Waterford, awards were handed out for categories from Casual Dining, through Best Coffee Experience, to Best Gastro Pub. Notable winners were Farmgate in Cork, which won Best Casual Dining Munster and The Ice House Hotel and Spa in Co Mayo, which won Best Newcomer. Jaipur was voted the Best Ethnic Restaurant.

With many of the categories broken down into regions, the awards gave everyone assembled great pointers on which places are worth splashing out on around the country, and while many admitted they hadn't visited various winning establishments, there seemed to be general -- and informed -- agreement that the Four Seasons in Dublin was a worthy winner of the Best Cocktail Experience prize.

Lewis's dessert of Raspberry and Mascarpone Mousse Mille Feuille, White Chocolate and Coffee Bean Double Anglaise was delicate and creamy, and a fitting end to a stunning meal. The line-up on stage of the chefs who cooked was quite a show of Irish cooking strength and only surpassed by the sight of Lewis, Maguire, Kevin Dundon, Stephan Matz of Ashford Castle and Paul Flynn of The Tannery in Dungarvan, lined up as the Best Chef winners from Dublin and the four provinces. Winners in the Best Restaurant category, again from Dublin and the four provinces, were Chapter One in Dublin, Campagne for Leinster, Lisloughrey House in Connacht, MacNean House in Ulster and The Tannery in Munster. Standing ovations for several of the winners -- that went beyond their own table and supporters -- was proof, too, of the affection with which many of these establishments are regarded and with Mint a recent restaurant casualty of the downturn, there was much talk of how we must keep supporting our local eateries.

Chapter One was a popular win in the Best Restaurant category, with Anne Doyle insisting she wouldn't stand and clap if the prize went anywhere else.

After dinner, the framed awards -- and some recipients were loaded down with several of them -- were put aside and some of the calories were burned off dancing to the James Brown tribute band, while Paul Cadden, President of the Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI), divested himself of his chains of office and made sure glasses were kept filled with champagne. Some -- Leigh Arnold and Marcus Sweeney among them -- later brought the party to Renards and, later again, some might have found an appetite to try out contenders for the Best Late-Night Fast Food Award 2010.