The biggest influence on my cooking and my taste in food is, not surprisingly, my mother. She had me in the kitchen with her from a very early age, teaching me the rudiments of cookery. By the age of seven I was making my own breakfast before setting off for school. She is still a very good cook and, even in her late 80s, enjoys entertaining friends for dinner.

When I was young, our house was always filled with guests and my mother thought little of preparing meals for a dozen or more people. Between cooking at home and running restaurants with my father, making good food was an integral part of her life and it became a part of mine as well. It was her birthday this week and we decided to go out to a restaurant to celebrate the event. She had already decided where she wanted to go -- the Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire.

To be honest, it didn't strike me as an obvious choice. In the past few years on her birthday we've eaten in Mint and Chapter One among other restaurants, essentially places where I knew the food would match her exacting standards. "The Marine?" I asked. "Are you sure that's where you want to go?" It was. She'd been there twice with friends and had enjoyed her meal on both occasions. Was I going to argue with her choice?

As a rule, I never expect hotel dining rooms to match the standards of restaurants. That's partly because hotels have residents who mostly eat in the hotel, meaning they don't normally have to entice people to their dining rooms the same way that restaurants have to. Then there's the dining room itself. In a hotel it has to be multi-functional -- it has to be able to provide lunch and dinner, maybe a breakfast buffet and sometimes act as a function room as well. This gives hotel dining rooms a distinctive look and feel, and the one in the Marine is no exception. Big upholstered chairs, bright lighting and serviceable tableware mean that even if you were led into it blindfolded, you'd know you were in a hotel.

It's been many years since I last entered The Marine, so the complete refurbishment of 2007 was a surprise to me. You can see that a lot of money has been spent on bringing the hotel up to contemporary standards. From the moment you leave the new underground car park and take the lift up to the reception area, you can see where the money went: lots of gleaming marble and a general shine on everything. On the way upstairs we passed The Hall of Fame, which has photographs of the great and the good who have stayed here in the hotel's long life since 1863. Queen Victoria ate a 16-course breakfast here, Laurel and Hardy stayed a month, Frank Sinatra was a visitor and Guglielmo Marconi made one of his first radio broadcasts from the hotel.

It occurred to me that with such an illustrious history, it's odd that this hotel doesn't have a higher profile. There are very few hotels that have such a long history, so why this place isn't better known outside of its immediate environs is surprising.

We made our way to the dining room, which has a big bay window overlooking the sea, and took a table nearby.

We'd arrived quite early so we had a choice of two menus: an early bird and an à la carte. My mother isn't a big eater, so she chose just a main course from the à la carte and I chose from the early bird, which offers you three courses for €28, including a glass of wine. Since I wasn't drinking and mother wanted only one glass of wine, she got the complimentary glass. It turned out to be a big, generous glassful, but it didn't impress mother's palate much.

The wine list is pretty comprehensive, covering most of the major regions and Europe and the New World. I was glad I wasn't drinking from it because the mark-up is high: most bottles in the €25-€35 range are about €5 more than on other lists. It's something I notice often on hotel lists. It must be part of a food and beverage manager's training to push wine prices to the limit. I'm not convinced that it's a good strategy for this year and next.

I started with the smoked salmon plate, which was pretty much what you'd expect. The salmon slices had been rolled for presentation purposes, but apart from that there wasn't much for the chef to do with this dish. It came with decent bread and the salmon itself was moist and well flavoured.

The main courses were sea bass for my mother and pork loin for me. Unless I know that sea bass has been line caught I'd never order it, since the farmed fish tends to come from Greece, so I was curious to see what it was like. It was well cooked, well presented and, more importantly, it made my mother very happy. She was delighted with the dish and gave me a taste of it. It was firm and fresh and the flavourings were well judged. The pork dish was generous: a large loin chop on a bed of mash and shredded cabbage. It was a good winter dish, filling and wholesome and simply done.

After this neither of us was particularly hungry, but I still had a course to come. I chose the sorbets and ice creams, because I thought I'd be able to tempt mother with it. It worked: we shared some good and some okay sorbets. A pretty good espresso ended the meal, which came to €62.50 without service charge and including two bottles of water.

You'll get no foams, no balsamic reductions and no cheffy tricks in the Dun Bistro. It's honest and genuine and its style is mainstream 90s. If your tastes were formed a while ago this might suit well.

W

Dun Bistro, The Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. Tel: 01-230 0030

Read Paolo at www.tasteofireland.ie

email: paolo@independent.ie

- Paolo Tullio

Irish Independent