My son had been back from Florence for the Christmas holidays and was shortly to be leaving to continue his studies, so I thought we might do one of those father and son things - you know, male bonding, quality time, quiet talks about what planet precisely young women come from - that sort of thing. I'm constantly being told that Temple Bar is young, kicking and happening so I suggested we might go there for our soiree a deux. I had in mind a newish restaurant called Botticelli, partly because it's Italian and he's getting to like Italian food, and partly because he's studying art, so a Florentine like Andrea Botticelli would give us something of a conversational backdrop.

Botticelli the painter figures quite prominently in Botticelli the restaurant: Venus rises from the sea in a scallop shell on the menu, and behind where we were sitting was a print of part of the Rape of Daphne hanging on the wall. Although we were into the middle of January, Christmas decorations abounded a little incongruously in what are otherwise fairly minimalist surroundings. A polished wooden floor, plain walls with large wooden areas, smallish tables and hard chairs complete a somewhat Spartan decor. We looked at our menus and wine list and talked of Greek mythology; of the metamorphosis of Aphrodite into Venus, and of the metamorphosis of Daphne into a laurel tree. And this Grecian conversation brings me, rather deftly I think, to Plato.

One of Plato's contributions to philosophy was this: the world of the senses is split between appearances and Essential Ideas. When we look at a table, for example, we compare it with the Ideal Table that we have in our mind - we compare the world of appearances with the Essential Ideas that we already possess. I introduce this brief grace-note of philosophy because in a sense that's what a food reviewer does - compares what he gets on his plate with an ideal version of the dish that he has in his mind. Which brings me to my antipasto or hors d'ouevre, Caprese salad. As its name suggests this simple salad originates in Capri and has only four ingredients: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and olive oil. For something this simple to work you need a good mozzarella, ripe plum tomatoes, leaves of fresh basil and a good extra virgin olive oil. I've had the ideal version of this salad in Ravello looking over the Amalfi coastline, so I compared what I got with that and by that ideal standard it failed on all counts. Unripe tomatoes, unsalted mozzarella and no basil, just pesto.

I give you all this detail because it's possible that someone who has never tasted the Ideal version of this dish would have found what I had on the -plate perfectly palatable, but I didn't and I didn't finish it. Rocco, my son, had chosen crostini with Parma ham and mozzarella. Crostini are served on toasted bread and are effectively little canapes. What Rocco got was more like a French marmite, an oven-to-tableware dish that had melted mozzarella on the top and slices of Parma ham on top of that. Underneath the topping there was what appeared to be a slice of white pan. Tasty, pronounced my neo-Florentine son, but not an Ideal crostino.

Next we'd both ordered pasta: a carbonara for Rocco and a tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms for me. Rocco's carbonara was tasty but very salty, probably as a result of the smoked rashers that were taking the place of pancetta in the dish. Mine, on the other hand, was very undercooked and undersalted. It was described on the menu as having 'an intriguing sauce' and I was intrigued to discover that there was no taste of mushroom at all.

So you might conclude from all of this that we had an unhappy night in Botticelli, and if you do, you'd be wrong. Despite what I've said about our first two courses we had a really fine Chianti Classico - Badia a Coltibuono - and excellent, attentive service. What happened after our second course had been removed from in front of us is an object lesson in how a good restaurateur can turn around what might have been a disastrous meal by the simple expedient of trying to put things right. The owner had noticed that our plates were far from finished and came to ask if all was well and I told him what I've just told you. He told me that both the head chef and his assistant were out with flu, so the kitchen wasn't running as well it might. He apologised and promised us a good main course.

True to his word, our main courses were very good. A escalope Milanese for Rocco and veal in a white wine sauce for me; both well-cooked and well-flavoured although I would have preferred to find my side salad dressed and with no raw peppers. While we were enjoying these dishes the music began. A guitarist who could play not only Leonard Cohen's songs-to-commit-suicide-by, but Neapolitan songs as well. I began to feel very happy indeed. Then I discovered that our waiter, Gianni Brandi, was a scion of the Brandi family from Naples, who have the oldest pizzeria in the city, and whose great-great-grandfather invented the pizza Margherita for Margherita, the then Queen of Italy. The basil, mozzarella and tomato make up the green, white and red of the Italian flag.

Three savoury dishes are enough for anyone, so neither Rocco nor I had a dessert. We did have two really good espressos each and were offered and accepted two post-prandial drinks on the house, a Grappa for Rocco and a Limoncello for me. Which all goes to show that even with a less than perfect start it's still possible to enjoy an evening if everything else comes right. It wasn't the best Italian meal that I've eaten, but I'm prepared to give this place another try, since all the other ingredients for a pleasant evening are very much in place. And not only did we get our digestivos on the house, the cost of the pasta dishes was removed from the bill, leaving me looking at a total of less than £50 including the excellent Chianti, which was more than reasonable. It seemed only right to add a tenner to that.