The decor may be dubious, but the cooking at this hotel restaurant is outstanding, writes CATHERINE CLEARY

If we judge books by covers do we rate restaurants by their decor? I’m the first to confess a library of prejudices when it comes to my surroundings. And restaurant decor has become a series of cues designed to set us up for what comes on the plate.

So my inner decor snob makes a couple of silent assumptions as I pull up a padded chair in Samphire, the hotel dining room of the Waterside House Hotel in the north Dublin seaside town of Donabate. There’s a wine glass filled with shells, water, blue beads and a tealight. The curtains are made of a filmy shockingly blue material. Chocolate boxy canvases of lighthouses and seaside stuff are hung around the room. There’s a wall of mirrors. The fitted carpet is brown and flowery.

Not hot, as we say in magazines. And not hot in the literal sense. We’re given a seat by the window, which must be bliss on a summer’s evening, but proximity to that much glass with a black winter sea beyond is not cosy. We move to a table by the wall which is a big improvement.

When the dishes come from the kitchen all these grumbles dissolve. It starts with two lovely loaves of delightful bread, dollshouse size, one tomato and one brown soda loaf, with soft butter (the kitchen must be warmer than the dining room) and a gorgeous black olive tapenade. Assumptions overturned. Bad curtains do not a bad restaurant make.

Before the starters arrive we get a mini cappuccino cup with a “tomato and basil” soup. The vivid red soup is thick and piping hot and it’s topped with a truffle foam. It tastes like the tomato soup my mother used to make, with a flourish of cheffiness. And that sets the theme for our dinner, food that is both cooking and cheffing, both equally good.

The cheffing is in the parsnip crisps that sit on top of three plump, perfectly-seared scallops. They’re in my garlic and potato soup, which is more like a warm nutty sauce to the seafood. Marsh samphire is draped over it.

Juliana’s fish cake jumps into the chip shop realm. If she has a gripe, it’s that the fish cake is more of a potato cake with a few shards of salmon and smoked fish in the floury depths. But the Japanese panko crumb is tasty and a lovely tartare and side salad complete it.

Dinner comes under two cloches, which are lifted simultaneously by the excellent waitress, a move that feels very retro. Underneath my cloche there is enough Wicklow lamb to feed a small hungry army, done lusciously rare and pooled in beetroot gravy.

Three “navet” sit in the vivid sauce with their green tops and their sliced white bottoms soaking up the beetroot. Navet is French for turnips. Calling them navets doesn’t take from their turnipness and the age-old problem of turnips (even beautiful baby white ones like these) that they should be made to taste of anything but turnips. That’s my only quibble with the plate. There’s a perfect tower of sweet potato fondant and the lamb is divine.

Juliana’s pork belly comes with some gorgeous pickled carrot strips surrounding a light orange, carroty mousse. Very cheffy, very good. Clonakilty beignets are like something from a chocolate box, rounds of black pudding rolled in light crumbs and roasted. They are cute and clever and nicer than a big wodge of black pudding. The pork is great.

Desserts are a lemon posset and a chocolate tart that comes with an excellent raspberry sorbet and a less excellent sprinkling of popping candy (I hate popping candy). Once it’s scrapped off the tart is perfect. A shared pot of peppermint tea finishes everything off superbly.

The final pleasure is the bill which, with sparkling water and a glass of house Sauvignon Blanc comes to €76.75. Decor be damned, the cooking in Samphire is something special.

Samphire at The Waterside House Hotel Donabate, Co Dublin, tel: 01-843 6153

Music: None

Wheelchair access: Yes

Facilities: Old-fashioned hotel standard

Food provenance: Lots on location, less on suppliers, Wicklow lamb, Tipperary pork, Atlantic cod

SECOND HELPING

New Year’s Eve can be a tricky night to find a good table, with many of the country’s restaurants booked up by the more organised amongst us weeks in advance.

The Ely Wine Bar (the original one on Ely Place) is doing New Year’s Eve food for the first time this year.

An early-bird option (at 5pm-7pm) for families planning to go on to the fireworks on St Stephen’s Green is €25 for two courses, €29.95 for three.

The full monty celebration menu starts at 7.30pm with Dravigny champagne, and the meal with desserts and coffees is €55 a head.

According to Ely staff, the options will include king scallops, dry-aged sirloin, pan-fried halibut or juniper-braised quail.

Ely Wine Bar, 2 Ely Place, Dublin 2, tel: 01- 676 8986, elywinebar.ie