There are many people in the food business who are convinced that there is a formula for creating a successful restaurant, and that all you need do is discover that formula, and people will suddenly be queueing up to sit at your tables.
These people - usually businessmen with money to invest - probably take as their proof the success of Morels restaurant in Glasthule, which came out of nowhere a few years back and which, despite being in the most unlikely location, has been the success story of recent years in Dublin.
Morels is now owned by John Dunne, the head chef there in recent times, and Stephane Couzy, the front-of-house man, who bought it from Alan O'Reilly. O'Reilly retains the Leeson Street Morels, and has recently opened Carmines, a pizza and pasta restaurant attached to the Charleville hotel, in Rathmines. Those who believe that a formula accounts for success will probably look for further evidence, then, in the opening, by Dunne and Couzy, of Blueberry's, on Main Street, in Blackrock, a place predominantly strewn with fastish food places.
They will point out that the owners have once again gone for a room over a pub (this time O'Rourke's - in Glasthule it was The Eagle House), have pitched their prices at mid-market level, have offered an early evening dinner at inexpensive prices, and have decorated a room in bright colours, with modern paintings and tableware.
The food, once again, is modern and cosmopolitan, the music is good, and so success, the formula advocates argue, is surely imminent. If it looks like a formula, they will insist, then it is a formula.
Except it isn't, for the two things that cannot be formulated in any food equation are the quality of the cooking, and the bite of the ambience. Where Dunne and Couzy have shown just how smart they are is to ensure that the cooking in Blueberry's is top dollar, and also that the room has a gorgeous, welcoming feel, created by good lighting and the right music, but above all by the service.
The cooking is the responsibility of Michael Rath, who has been cooking outside the capital for some years, in places such as Rock Glen Manor in Clifden and the Nuremore Hotel in Carrickmacross. Rath is an intense character, and his intensity is spelt out in the purity and unvarying directness of his cooking.
He makes a starter of filo discs with smoked salmon and creme fraiche, which ostensibly should be a relaxed dish, into a challenging, vivid combination of flavours by adding a fine red onion preserve to bolster the lightness of the filo and the rich, oily smokiness of the salmon.
It's a real pleasure to see someone take a simple idea and turn it around like this, and Rath showed he can do it also with a Thai crabcake, served with perfectly cooked bak choi, the soy sauce-ish dressing of the latter acting as a sharp foil for the delicate and sweet crab-cake.
The a la carte menu offers five starters and four main courses and from the latter we chose chargrilled tuna with a herb crust, new potatoes, rocket leaves and pepperonata, and marinated supreme of chicken with fried bak choi and a black bean dressing.
The tuna was cooked exactly as ordered - pink in the centre - and was moist and delicious, sitting on top of some slices of courgette and a little onion confit with a rich tomato sauce. The potatoes had been cooked, sliced and chargrilled, with a fine pesto spooned on top, and this was a truly lipsmacking dish, with punchy, takeno-prisoners flavours.
While the tuna was all about Mediterranean flavours, the chicken had travelled East. The supreme of chicken had been flattened and marinated, and was served with a noodle cake underneath, with excellent bak choi and a scattering of the year's most-fashionable-to-be accompaniment, salty black beans. What was clever here was the salty, garlicky assault of the beans, as Rath took advice from Chinese cooking, which uses the black beans as an intensely flavoured form of spice, often paired with fish. But both the chicken and the noodle cake in this dish were not as fine as everything else in the main courses, the texture of the chicken proving a little dry, and the noodle cake simply uninteresting.
Frying cooked noodles and achieving a balance between crispiness and succulence is a tricky task, and while Rath may well get it right with more experience of the dish, here it erred on the side of dryness.
Puddings were right back on top form, with a sublime rich chocolate marquise, served with a coffee essence and an orange preserve. It was light as a breath, the flavours expertly balanced and summoned. My own almond biscotti with a mascarpone and lime cream and warmed blueberries was an interesting revision of the traditional hard biscotti, for this was a little trench of tender biscuit which housed the blueberries, and it was, again, utterly delicious. The wine list, from which we drank a half bottle of a rich St Veran from Chateau de Chassels and Chateau Bonnet, is excellent, but it should be annotated with brief notes describing the varying styles of the wines.
Prices are very keen, with starters between £3.95 and £5.95, and main courses between £13.75 and £15.95. Puddings are £3.95 each. Early evening menus offer two courses for £10.95 and three courses for £13.95. A service charge applies only to groups of eight or more.
Service, by the relaxed David Thomas, was superb, and put the perfect crown on the head of an assured, confident, professional operation. It all sounds easy, and it sounds like you can do it according to a formula. But you can't, for there is one vital factor which Blueberry's has that cannot be bought, and that is the vital spark of ambition and dedication, which makes it work so well.
Blueberry's, 15 Main Street, Blackrock, County Dublin tel: 01-278 8900, 01-278 8902.