It was the new Bridgestone Guide that reminded me that I haven't eaten in Patrick Guilbaud's restaurant since the day after he was awarded his second Michelin star, an accolade that's unique in Ireland. Just in case you missed the brouhaha, it isn't because the Bridgestone Guide recommends it, it's because it doesn't even mention it. Not once. Not in the top 100 restaurants of Ireland. Mark well; the guide's title is 'The 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland', not 'My Favourite 100' or 'The Best 100 Restaurants for Under £20' - no, the best 100. And why would Guilbaud's not figure? You could, with some difficulty, make a case that it shouldn't be in the top five - but not in the top 100? Preposterous. Two possibilities spring to mind: either this is a cheap publicity gimmick, or it's plain old-fashioned begrudgery of the worst kind - and either way it's not a pretty sight.

Since I last ate Patrick's board he has moved to the Merrion Hotel, and as is often the way with these things I'd already been to the Merrion twice that week; once to meet some friends who had just finished a long and liquid lunch, and again to meet Sir Peter Ustinov on the occasion of his honorary doctorate from the National University. It turns out this is doctorate number fourteen, so if you were addressing him formally in Germany you'd have quite a mouthful of greeting: Herr Doktor Doktor Doktor etc, to the fourteenth degree.

A lunch in Guilbaud's was not an occasion my wife wanted to pass up, so she decided to accompany me. As you enter the restaurant there's a comfortable bar area where you could sip an aperitif while choosing from the menu, but Susie was keen to go straight to the table. The dining room is a few steps down from the bar and is high-ceilinged and flooded with day-light from the large windows that overlook the Merrion's inner quad. It's an elegant room with well-spaced tables and is visually well-divided by pillars which give a certain amount of privacy. There is a profound feel of quality to just about everything in this room, from the linen to the cutlery to the crockery to the tables and chairs. You just know, before seeing the menu, that it's not going to be cheap.

Actually you could have a lunch in Guilbaud's without spending and arm and a leg. There's a set lunch for £20 and if you stuck to that and had a bottle of mineral water you could have a beautifully made two-course lunch with coffee or tea to follow for £20. However we'd decided to go for the full experience, so while Susie found things that she really wanted on the set lunch menu, I went for the a la carte. Before I started on the menu, I worked my way through the wine list. It's impressive in length and in actual size; it's a huge thing about the size of small coffee table. There are many pages of wines listed on it and almost all are over £20. Some are very well over, up around the £2,000 mark. It's a very well chosen list and there are some wonderful wines on it, but it's heavily marked up and ideally someone else should be paying, preferably on an expense account. I picked a white Burgundy, a Macon Lugny, which at £19 was almost the cheapest wine on the list. We had a bottle of Perrier as well.

Susie was right, there were some interesting looking dishes on the table d'hote such as celeriac salad, crispy duck leg, ravioli of cod, pan fried calves' liver, John Dory and chicken breast. Susie settled on crab in a potato blini and followed with the the ravioli of cod. The a la carte was a much harder choice since there were so many things that I wanted to try: king scallops, duck liver, lobster ravioli, rabbit tourte, smoked bacon soup, terrine of salmon and celeriac, Dublin bay prawns all in and around £15 and then the main courses - sea bass, sole, turbot, hake, duck, deer, pigeon, veal sweetbreads, crubeens, veal cutlets and a vegetarian casserole all priced between £20 and £30. Then I noticed that there's another lunch choice as well; a surprise lunch menu at £70. I can see how that might come as a surprise. Eventually after much humming and hawing I made up my mind. Rabbit tourte and then the crubeens, otherwise known as pigs' trotters.

As is usual in good French restaurants the meal began with an amuse bouche of a sweet pepper mousse. It was truly delicious, subtly flavoured and beautifully made. Using a rather dainty little spoon we savoured each mouthful. The level of attention you get from the waiting staff is extraordinary. Choices of breads come and come again, water and wine glasses are continually refreshed, no matter what your wish there is always someone there to fulfil it. Which, when you come to think about it, is a lot to do with the price you're paying.

I could go on at length about each dish and tell you how perfect each one was, but I suspect that could become a little boring. But the fact is that this restaurant didn't put a foot wrong. My rabbit tourte was as good as I've tasted, Susie's crab blini had her in ecstasies while her cod ravioli - or more exactly one single raviolo - was a little jewel of food. My crubeens, which came off the bone, were quite simply a delight. Couple this wonderful food with impeccable service and an elegant room to sit in and you can see why people will pay this sort of money for this quality of dining. By the time we'd finished the main courses we were feeling exactly the way you're supposed to after being restored by a good restaurant: filled with the joy of living and comfortable with life itself. Susie was determined to try a dessert and chose the assiette of six fruit sorbets. Desserts are all £10, and the one Susie had chosen was culinary artistry. We shared tastes of each little pot and eventually named all the fruits. A good espresso finished a lunch that came to £96.50 without a service charge.

That's a lot of money for lunch, but for me it was worth it. It's restaurants like this that set the standards that others aspire to. Quality like this never comes cheap, but in Guilbaud's you do get your money's worth. Not in the top 100? If someone asked me to list the top ten food guides, I know which one I'd leave out.