When I first moved into the Wicklow Hills many years ago, there was no motorway and no easy access. My Dublin friends though I'd gone to live so far beyond the Pale that I might as well have been on a different planet. 'Annamoe?' they said, 'wear the fox hat.' Quite why, I'm not sure. Still, remote as it may have seemed, there are bits of Wicklow that are even more remote, even today. I'd been hearing recently about a new development in Aughrim - and even drove past the building site some months ago - where there's a hotel and holiday village.

The hotel - Brooklodge - has a restaurant called The Strawberry Tree and first reports seemed promising. Should you decide to drive there don't expect to find any signposts for Brooklodge; there were none that I could see. It's part of the new Macreddin Village about three miles outside Aughrim, where the village is signposted but the hotel is not. After a few wrong turnings my wife and I found it, arriving on the dot of our 8.30 reservation. Just inside the entrance there's a brass plaque with the name Brooklodge on it, so you'll know it when you've found it. I've banged on about the importance of greeting people before, but it can't be said often enough. We walked into a comfortable lounge decorated in a style once known as fin de siecle bordello, that's to say red velvet on the walls, heavy gilt mirrors, a smoky, shimmering mirrored ceiling and attractive lighting. The place is brand new and clearly there's been a lot of money spent. We stood for a while in our coats, then sat and waited. After ten minutes a waiter appeared and handed us menus but no wine list, and disappeared. Susie wanted a glass of mineral water but there was no one to ask. In my perfect world, when you walk into a restaurant someone comes up to you immediately saying 'Hello, good evening, can I take your coat? Would you like a drink? Can I show you to your table? Be welcome, make yourself comfortable.' Fluffing the customer is a good start to a meal; a complete lack of it makes me cross and irritable. Crotchety. Cantankerous. Curmudgeonly even. I called loudly to a passing waiter who seemed to have no intention of coming near me. 'Can I have a drink and a wine list?' Both arrived eventually.

The menu looks interesting and there's a long preamble about organic food and the importance of good ingredients - none of which I'd argue with. A set dinner at £25 was on offer, starters included crab cakes, goats cheese salad, smoked mushrooms, rillette of duck and smoked mackerel. Then two soups; a prawn fish soup and carrot and ginger soup, and then main courses like wild boar, hake with a Mediterranean crust, fillet of beef, caramelised roasted scallops and organic chicken breast. (Reader A. Thornton of Blessington please note, this is a list of things from the menu, not a list of what I ate.) From this Susie chose the mushrooms to start and the scallops to follow and I picked the crab cakes and wild boar.

There's a well-chosen wine list with two pages of wines at £15, some of which are good value, and a longer list of wines pitched somewhat higher. Quite a few decent clarets, none of which were in my budget, and some good Burgundies, none of which were under £20. Eventually I chose the Stellenzicht 1994 from Stellenbosch, a big South African red made with a Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend.

Forty-five minutes after we walked in we were called to our table. The trouble with arriving at a table in a grump is that things that might have pleased you had you been in a good mood, invariably don't. Thus, not for the first time, I was unimpressed with my crab cakes. They were okay, but I do hate getting bits of crab shell stuck in my teeth. Susie was poking unenthusiastically at her six button mushrooms ensconced in salad leaves. 'Nothing wrong,' she said, 'just a little dull.'

The dining room is decorated in the same style as the lounge, except the walls are blue rather than red velvet. The furniture is all repro Victorian which goes well with the room. Good quality cutlery, some beautiful plain white crockery and stylish accoutrements completed the table. Outside the window a rather incongruous dwarf picket fence marked out what will no doubt be a flower bed in time. I was footling around looking for somewhere to put my ash when Susie handed me the ashtray which had been hiding on her side of the table. A handsome thing of weighty pewter, I turned it over and found a solitary word underneath - 'Authentic' - the furniture may be repro, but the ashtrays are authentic.

Our main courses arrived and Susie found herself with a big bowl of salad, in which hid the not very caramelised scallops. Somehow the menu description hadn't prepared her for yet another salad, but the scallops were properly cooked, if a little lacking in flavour. My wild boar turned out to be a stew with lots of fruit in it, which meant I had no taste of boar whatever - which is a pity, since it's a meat that I like. A tray of plain broccoli florets and Jerusalem artichokes - no potatoes - accompanied the main courses. I found myself thinking that the greatest culinary art is managing flavours, as well as knowing how to use salt. This last sounds banal, but there's truth in it. Some of the bread on the table had too much salt, so did my crab cakes, the scallops not enough. Deftness of hand with flavours is what differentiates the excellent from the average.

There were five desserts to choose from; a pear and rosewater tartlet, a chocolate mousse cake, a lemon pudding with a berry compote, a cardamom creme brulee and an amaretto and hazel parfait. Susie had the creme brulee and I had the chocolate mousse. Both of these were beautifully presented and well made, by far the best part of this meal. Two good espressos completed our dinner.

Although this was an uneven meal, there was good service once it eventually got started. A plushly decorated and comfortable dining room made it a pleasant place to sit, and the bill came to £73.20, to which I added a tip.