It's been going on for ages; my friends kept telling me to go to Cavistons in Glasthule. They said things like 'It's great, terrific fish, you'll love it.' But here's the thing, I find the idea of meal that ends with a coffee and no cigarette hard to deal with. And that's what I had against the idea of eating in Cavistons - it's a no smoking restaurant. I admire a place that has its principles, but then I've got mine. Just as non-smokers can avoid places where there's too much smoke for their liking, smokers can avoid places where there isn't any at all. I feel strongly about this - in an age where air-extraction technology is in its second century, there isn't much excuse for not being able to please everyone.

So why did I bend my principles? Well, there's a member of my immediate family that I haven't written about yet, and she likes the place. Which is why, on my mother's birthday, I had lunch there with Susan Morley and my mother Irene. Sons of Italian mothers are supposed to make all kinds of sacrifices for their mammas, even going for an hour or two without nicotine, so we booked in for the 1.30 pm sitting. There are three sittings here, an earlier one at midday and a later one at three. The reason for three sittings is apparent as soon as you enter; it's a small dining room - which probably also explains the no smoking policy. There's not much space between the tables or indeed on them, but for lunch I don't find that a problem. Also, even though the seats aren't upholstered, they've put cushions on them and I approve of that.

It has an air of efficiency about it - perhaps three sittings keeps everyone on their toes - and there's an unmistakable touch of gentility about the customers and the atmosphere. Being as it is in the heart of hautebourgeoisie-land, that comes as no surprise, but there's a definite sense of good manners and decency here; of quiet, well-brought-up middle-class values - the sort of thing the English shires pride themselves on. Hard to pin it down exactly, but it's sort of, you know, Church of Ireland.

As you'd expect at lunchtime in a fish restaurant there's a preponderance of female customers, although we had a large table of business men sitting beside us just to prove my generalisations wrong. Actually, let me clear about this; you can only have lunch in Cavistons; they don't do dinner. It's been well-known as a fishmongers and delicatessen for years, but the restaurant is a somewhat newer venture which makes perfect sense. It's what supermarkets call 'added value'. Why not sell a finished product as well as just a raw ingredient? With space this tight, being a table of three is good. You get to sit at a table just big enough for four people and can enjoy 25% extra space. We sat and we given menus and the wine list, plus there's a blackboard of the day's specials on the wall, and a small hand-written note of the specials as well, just in case you can't read the board, I suppose. While my mother and wife were becoming increasingly unable to make a choice given the sheer number of dishes that they wanted, I read the wine list. The first thing that you notice is the modesty of the mark up. Chateau La Bertiniere at £14. I've seen that on a Dublin list at £28, so you get the idea. I was looking at a big sheet in a plastic folder and idly thinking they should list a red wine or two rather than just whites. After some musing on this point something made me turn it over, and then I found the reds on the other side, which are pitched, just like the whites, between £11 and £20. I nearly went for the Montagny 1er Cru - I mean, when did you last see a premier cru white Burgundy for under £20? But in the end it was the rose from Chateau Vignelaure - David O'Brien's holding near Aix - that was the final choice, listed at a very reasonable £13.

By the time I'd come up with that decision, the ladies had made theirs. Mother had decided on blinis to start, with scallops for her main course and Susie had picked mussels meuniere followed by fillet of John Dory. I can't resist blinis, so even though mother had chosen them, I ordered them as well and asked if I could have squid rings, which were listed as a starter, as a main course portion. This presented no problems and we sat back and awaited our food, while nibbling on some very good breads and enjoying the first sips of our rose.

The blinis that arrived were very good; fluffy, yeasty pancakes which were served with slivers of smoked salmon and sour cream. Maybe it's Pavlovian conditioning, but I prefer blinis with caviar and chopped onion as well - the combination of flavours and textures appeals to me more. But Susie's mussels set the tone for what we could expect. A huge bowl of mussels was put before her, a Gargantuan plateful of fat bi-valves, which did indeed defeat her. Thankfully I was on hand to help out. Mussels are probably my favourite shell fish.

This generosity of portions continued unabated into the next course. Several good-sized squid had laid down their lives to fill my plate, there were thirteen scallops on the mother's plate - yes, thirteen - and Susie's John Dory seemed to be one of the larger specimens of this fish. It has to be said that nothing we ate was complicated to prepare; these were all fairly straightforward dishes, but they were prepared with the very finest of fresh fish. Give me that any day of the week in preference to the opposite. When I thought back on what I'd been told it seemed that my perceptions were in line with my friends' on this. Possibly the best sea-food in Dublin and served simply and well, retaining its major asset, it's taste.

Cavistons is a nice place to have lunch, and I'll go back. But don't imagine that because it's lunch it'll be cheap - you can easily spend £20 a head on just two courses. But then again, there's no apparent reason why food cooked at lunchtime should cost any less than food cooked in the evening. Two bottles of wine, our food, some water and coffees brought the bill to £82.10, and I finished the meal as any tobacco refugee might, standing on the pavement puffing on a fag.