In the swiftly changing social and culinary society of modern Ireland, Dublin's Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud (RPG) feels like a nostalgic lair. Not in terms of its design, for Arthur Gibney's room is strikingly bold and quite beautiful: the central crew of tables colonnaded by rows on either side of the room, with those at the window looking out on the courtyard garden of the Merrion Hotel, of which RPG is a distinct part. Rather it is the ambience of RPG which is relentlessly nostalgic. And, in creating what is effectively a retreat house for the country's rich and nouveau riche, Patrick Guilbaud and his team have directly answered an urgent need among today's Irish haut bourgeoisie. For Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud is exclusive.
As such, in decisively turning its face against the modern Irish trend of creating more democratic, affordable, accessible restaurants, it answers the desire of the wealthy to be alone, among their own.
Eating in RPG offers a certain, predictable, ruthlessly efficient event, from which surprise, spontaneity and passion have been excised. It is a restaurant whose concern is as much the conferring of status as the cooking of food. And when you heard people saying that Dublin "needs a top-flight hotel and a top-flight restaurant" - as so many said in the months before the Merrion and RPG opened - what they really meant was that the city needed a place where, merely by virtue of your presence, you are accorded status. RPG does this to perfection.
My guest, on a Wednesday night when the restaurant was packed, read the menu and said: "I guess I'm tonight's cheap date, 'cause I'm the one having the £8 bowl of soup to start".
And there, in a nutshell, is a precis of the values of RPG. The cheap starter is pea soup, with wild mushroom tortellini and morels, at £8 a pop. Expensive dates will, no doubt, go straight for the scallops with watercress and deep fried leek, or the terrine of foie gras with a spicy Szechuan pepper jelly, at £15 each, and not waste time messing about with anything under a tenner.
The expensive dates will also most likely want to drink some wallet-busting Burgundy, or even the £351 Sassicaia, so let me quickly point out that we drank an excellent Raimat Chardonnay and a terrific Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon, and got the two for just under £60. In comparison to everything else on the huge list, they were a steal.
Remarking on the prices of food and wine in RPG is an irrelevant exercise, of course, for most of its customers are corporate folk who don't pay their own bills. The wealthy of the city have the money, and are mad keen for somewhere to spend it - and for somewhere to be seen spending it. The movers and shakers of the capital are conspicuous in RPG by their absence. And while we may traditionally associate the value of food and wine with the basic ingredient on the plate or the liquid in the bottle, it is a fact of RPG that it has decisively shattered that connection. Value, here, is what people will pay.
So, if you decide to pay £14 for a starter dish of confit of autumn vegetables, as I did, what you will get for your money is a handsome assemblage of carrot puree, turnip, squash, red and yellow peppers, cauliflower, sugar-snap peas, fennel and baby corn, delicately spiced and herbed and delicious - though I was disappointed that one of the peas had not been properly de-veined. The pea soup, likewise, was precisely executed, the flavour balanced and poised, little parcels of tortellini paired with tiny morels.
From among a dozen main courses priced between £23 and £27 (Challand duck, for two, is £49) we chose black sole, and pigeon. The sole was steamed and then roasted, accompanied by a quenelle of potato with truffle, a delicate egg-yolk dressing, and a tiny side plate of vegetables. The pigeon was boned and roasted, served with Bunratty mead and an almond jus, along with a scattering of whole almonds and a side dish of potato gratin. Both were good, both were respectfully cooked, and both demonstrated chef Guillaume Lebrun's tactic of seasoning his dishes very decisively indeed.
This robust seasoning is just one characteristic of RPG which has not changed in its move to Merrion Street, and regulars of the old restaurant will feel right at home with a menu which offers many of Lebrun's signature dishes - lobster ravioli; Dublin Bay prawn spring rolls; crubeens; Connemara lobster - and with the presentation of main courses under silver cloches, which are taken away in in a synchronised way.
Where the cooking in our dinner ascended into the stratosphere was with the arrival of the desserts. An assiette au citron offered a lemon mousse, a lemon biscuit and some blackcurrant sorbet in a tuile basket. The three pieces were stupendously good, especially the sorbet which was as fine as I have tasted. My own creme brulee was also stunning, the vanilla flavouring pitched exactly right and the caramelised helmet covering it as well achieved as could be. But if the desserts were star-struck delicious, they accentuated the fact that the rest of the cooking, while honourable and considered, was rather unremarkable in terms of modern Irish cooking.
I think it has been an aspect of our previous culinary uncertainty that has led people in the past to describe RPG as "the best" restaurant in Ireland. There is no such place as "the best" restaurant in Ireland, simply because any such notion is utter nonsense. Judged within the terms of its own ambition - which is what the business of criticism is all about - Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud is professional, efficient and expensive; a dedicated, bourgeois French restaurant which caters to clients who want a serene, certain experience. They do not appear to demand attributes such as creativity and passion in their food, and so RPG does not offer these qualities.
Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, 21 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01 6764192. Open: Tues - Sat, 12.30 p.m. - 2 p.m.; 7.30 p.m. - 10 p.m. Major Cards. Private dining room.