Passing the acid test

The Coq Hardi of the northside, The King Sitric in Howth, is doing a roaring trade having reopened late last year after a lengthy makeover. This is a favourite place of Dermot Desmond, Charlie Haughey and any amount of other heavy hitting businessmen who like a fine bottle of wine, a nice bit of fish and the attentions of a highly professional staff led by owners Aidan and Joan McManus.

The restaurant is in a charming two-storey Georgian house on Howth's East Pier and it's one of the very few places in Dublin where you get a seaview with your dinner. Previously, it was a bit on the dowdy side, as one might expect from a restaurant going since the 1970s. The couple of times I had lunched there before left little impression beyond nicely cooked fish, served with regulation lemon wedges, at a shocking price.

Now it's a totally different kettle of the same. It still looks like a Georgian house on the outside but inside is very smart in a contemporary nautical style with porthole windows, white walls, recessed lighting, and lots of light oak detail.

It is always interesting to walk into an old building and find a spanking new interior. Sitting in the downstairs bar before being shown to the diningroom upstairs, we spent quite a while admiring the windows, the walls, the light fittings, the colourful armchairs and sofas and the slate floor, but you can only admire for so long and meanwhile there was no sign of menus coming our way. One woman was in charge of fetching drinks for everyone and though she was doing her best, it wasn't very good.

The bar was thronged with business groups and favoured clients were being whisked off to the back of the room to the cellar - a tantalising room with floor to ceiling bottles. Here you can sip your way through aperitifs, and ogle the £600 clarets.

Smart and all as it was, the room began to get on our nerves. It was chilly and getting noisier by the minute. We were near the bar and could hear lots of crashing of bottles into bins, ice being dug out, glasses being dropped. There was no soft music or nibbles on the table to draw our attention away from the noise and still no sign of menus. At last Joan McManus hovered into view and things got moving. Despite the upbeat modern feel to the place, the ambience is oldfashioned and it is clear that McManus rules the roost by taking all the orders, advising on wine and serving it as well.

We had menus and a wine list and a friendly word from her about the native oysters being the very last consignment expected from the West this season and which Chablis we should choose. There are 21 of them on the wine list and she steered us to one of the least expensive bottles - it was perfectly delicious. We liked her, though there's a bit of smarm in her charm.

There is a £32 set menu with four courses, and a la carte choices with starters ranging up to about £14 and main courses hovering in the low to mid £20s. It's certainly not cheap but if you want to impress someone, or just treat them to a lovely evening, then it is worth the expense. Also it would be an ideal place to take foreigners. There are all Howth's sights to show them first, the name of the restaurant to explain - it was called after an 11th-century Norse king of Dublin who was a cousin of Brian Boru - and the menu, carrying an exhaustive glossary of fish names in several languages. Perfect, in other words, for those Japanese business contacts.

Finally, we were led upstairs to the diningroom and up here it is entirely different. Carpeted, quietly buzzing with well modulated voices - many of them foreign - and a team of ultra-efficient waiters, wearing grey shirts and ties stamped with bright red lobsters. Our table was small but nicely placed so that we could see through the tall modern windows into the dusk. The chairs are tall, backed with a nautical rope trim. Opposite was a big porthole-windowed cabinet of expensive brandies and armagnacs.

Bread arrived promptly. The brown wholemeal slices were nice and crumbly but the white bread had been sliced earlier and left to harden a little.

A teeny appetiser of fish pate had a delicious dab of a dense tomatoey sauce underneath. My starter of haddock roe with blini, chopped egg and onion came on a transparent fish plate, with all the ingredients arranged in tiny separate heaps. There was a spoonful of lovely smoky dark roe in the middle, tiny amount of chopped egg yolk here, white over there, parsley, onion and the blini, which was thick, and might have been better warmed instead of chilled. It was a pretty and witty little dish, and amounted to three or four delicious forkfuls.

David's native oysters were pure and fresh as they should be and he followed them with a rich crab bisque, with a stupendously intense flavour. Meanwhile I was having a tiny three-layer omelette with spinach and tomato through it. It didn't add anything in particular to the meal. Again it was too chilled by far - health regulations no doubt. There was a decent interval before the main courses arrived and we had a good look around at the other diners. These were overwhelmingly business, although at the next table a 70-something smoothie with greased back white hair was charming a woman who looked remarkably like Cher.

My main course was the King Sitric mixed grill of fish, and was absolutely faultless - several different fillets of fish including monkfish, brill, mackerel, salmon and red gurnet, lightly grilled with butter and served with a touch of hollandaise.

David had fresh brill with a creamy mustard sauce and declared it very good and obviously straight from the sea to the pan.

Vegetables were French beans and braised cherry tomatoes, skins bursting. One potato in its skin each was just enough.

We finished with a superb selection of cheeses, and a shared creme brule that was deliciously silky under its blackened sugar and had been livened up with ginger. A big plate of chocolates arrived with the coffee - the waiter joking they would go well with the cheese for a really good nightmare.

I would have loved to have stayed the night - there are eight newly built bedrooms called after lighthouses - at about £45 for B&B and all with a view of the sea. The bill, gulp, came to £101.

The King Sitric, East Pier, Howth, Co Dublin. Tel 01 832 5235

Orna Mulcahy can be contacted at omulcahy@irish-times.ie