TWO DUBLIN CITY restaurants owned by celebrity chef Dylan McGrath have closed without notice.

In a statement today, McGrath said it’s “hard to put into words what has happened to restaurants and the city centre in the last four years” as he announced the closure of Brasserie Sixty6 and Rustic Stone.

Brasserie Sixty6 had been in business for 25 years, while Rustic Stone was in operation for 15 years.

Both restaurants are on Dublin’s South Great George’s Street.

McGrath remarked that the “time has come where we have decided it’s simply not sustainable”.

He added: “No doubt we will miss the restaurants, but selling on the leases and concentrating on Fade Street Social currently is what’s needed.”

McGrath further remarked that the focus will now be on making Fade Street Social “the best it can be”.

McGrath also said it’s a “very challenging time for stand-alone restaurant models” and noted that both Rustic Stone and Brasserie Sixty6 have been “very successful restaurants in Dublin City for a long time”.

“But hospitality is changing,” said McGrath, “and we believe our strong work ethic is better applied to new and different opportunities.”

In a statement to The Journal, Adrian Cummins, CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said that an “average of two restaurants, cafés and other food-led businesses continue to close each day across the country”.

He described this as “disturbing but, unfortunately, not surprising”.

Cummins added: “Rising costs and a pressurised consumer has meant our industry now faces a fundamentally broken model.”

He said that “only the reinstatement of the 9% VAT rate on food, reversing the Government’s 50% increase in the rate last September, will return long-term viability to the sector”.

VAT for the tourism and hospitality sectors was reduced to 9% during the Covid-19 pandemic, at a cost of €1.2bn to the exchequer.

The previous 13.5% rate was reinstated last September, despite the sector’s opposition.

Last week, the Restaurants Association of Ireland said 577 restaurants had closed since the VAT rate was reinstated to 13.5%.

It added that in a recent survey of its members, 74% of respondents said they will have to close their businesses if the VAT rate on food is not reinstated to 9% in the Budget.