I know I've said it before, but it's a point that so relevant it bears repeating. Good food in restaurants is dependent on the chef. Arising from this simple little dictum come some other truths; for example a change of chef will result in a change in the quality of food. That's so obvious you could accuse me of triteness for repeating it, but the fact is that this simple truth can often get overlooked under a welter of other considerations.

One result of the temporary occlusion of Conrad Gallagher's empire is that the site that started the chain of events - Lloyd's Brasserie - became available. It opened up again a few months ago with a new management and was renamed Pearl. I was in Dublin to meet another journalist, Gayle Killilea, and she being a city centre sort of girl, I thought Pearl would do very nicely for our review meal. After I met up with Buffy, as she is affectionately known, we walked over to Pearl without a reservation and left it to Gods to decide whether or not we'd get a table. Thankfully they were able to accommodate us in the smoking section - sadly I'll admit to being back on the fags.

The restaurant is in a basement and you walk down a flight of steel footplate stairs to get to it. Someone must have been watching them, because before we got to the bottom step the door was opened for us to let us in out of the rain. It's become cosier and less hard-edged since was Lloyd's; there's carpet in places now which muffles the sounds and two fine brick fireplaces, which had been closed up, are now open and blazing with a real fire. There are paintings on the pastel walls and there are marble topped wooden tables with comfortable chairs. Where we sat the seats lining the wall were well-padded banquettes, so not surprisingly Buffy immediately occupied that side of table. Because of the supporting pillars which are throughout the dining room, there's a sense of privacy - from most tables you'd only get a view of a few others.

There's a very French feel here: from the maitre who greeted us at the door to our female sommelier, to the waiters who served us. To some extent that Frenchness is in the menu too, although not entirely. Apart from the pan-fried duck foie gras at £12.95, most of the starters are between £5.50 and £7.50. On the night in question the menu offered French onion soup, crab bisque, a vegetable mosaique, a blue cheese salad, six rock oysters, pan-fried quail and a smoked duck maigret. There was plenty of fish on the main courses, which ran from £12.50 to £17 for the beef fillet. John Dory, salmon, sea bream, curried monkfish, and seared scallops were the sea's offering, while the meats listed chicken cous cous, roasted duck, fillet of beef and the day's special, which was a Toulouse sausage. Aficionados of the cuisine grand-mere might have liked either the shepherd's pie or the braised oxtail.

The wine list is moderate in length and moderate in mark up. It starts with a Vin de Pays at £12.50, and works its way slowly up the price ladder, taking in Pinot Grigio at just under £15, a Sauvignon Blanc at £21 and then Chablis, Sancerre and Pouilly Fume going up to £25. There are five half bottles, then the list shifts to the red end of the spectrum. It begins with a Corbieres at £12.95, a Rhone at £14, a Languedoc at £16, a Pinot Noir at £19.95 and then a few over £20. Five red half bottles follow. Sensibly, although not a long list, it isn't dominated by French wines and most wine producing countries are listed. I've become very fond of New Zealand Sauvignons; the grape seems to produce better wines in that country than it does elsewhere, so I picked the Lawsons Hill Sauvignon at £21.

Meanwhile breads had arrived with a tomato based dip and we had the excellent Sauvigon and a bottle of mineral water to occupy us. A couple took up position at the next table and it slowly dawned on me that it was Chris Heaney, who also writes about restaurants, but in another place. I looked around the room; half of the tables were occupied by food critics. This thought was interrupted by the arrival of our starters; a crab bisque for Buffy and the quail for me. The bisque was good and flavourful and unthickened with cream. 'I could easily get a craving for this,' said Buffy. My quail had been expertly de-boned and was cooked perfectly - very slightly underdone. I began to think that almost by accident we'd stumbled upon an expert kitchen.

Buffy had ordered the seared scallops for her main course and I'd picked the Toulouse sausage; a long, thick, Priapic-looking thing, that reminded of me of Mrs. Miggins of Blackadder fame, who thought them to be 'horses' willies'. The scallops were cooked exactly as they ought to have been and my sausage had all the rugged, chunky flavours of a dish designed and eaten by Gallic peasantry. No doubt, we were being fed by a chef who knew his onions. I even enjoyed the lentils which accompanied my saucisse, a pulse I more often ignore than enjoy.

The dessert menu made its appearance and we did what I fear is becoming a habit; we had one between us. For a moment we were tempted by the day's special of crème brulee with banana, but in the end we settled on a chocolate thingy that broke every dietary rule and was perfectly delicious. The fire that we'd spotted earlier in the bar area was subliminally summoning us, so we answered its call and chose to have our coffees sitting in front of it. While we sat and sipped espressos in that smug way that well fed people do, I noticed the chef having a coffee at another table and it dawned on me I'd met him before. He was Sebastian Masi, who had been the chef in 'The Commons' for five years. Suddenly the quality of our fare became instantly explicable as I discovered that Pearl is his new venture.

A couple of Armagnacs seemed meet and proper to end this fine meal along with another couple of espressos. The bill came to £87.80, which is above average, but then the food was excellent. And if you'd sampled Sebastian's food in The Commons, you'd have paid a great deal more.