This week I have to start with a breast-beating mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. My apologies go to all you trekkies out there, some of whom were kind enough to email me and put me right. Faulty memory was the cause of my disgrace, prompting me to write that the 'T' in James T Kirk stood for Theophilus. It doesn't of course, I know that now, it stands for Tiberius. So with my humble pie duly eaten, on to a different kind of dining.

I'm often struck by the incongruities of dining out. There are times when in the most salubrious of rooms the food can be unremittingly mediocre, and conversely there are times in unprepossessing rooms when you eat remarkably well. As a generalisation I'm not inclined to hotel dining rooms. Maybe it's a suspicion that anywhere with a captive audience needn't try as hard as places that don't have this ready-made customer base. Of course there are exceptions, if you don't mind spending the money you can eat well in the Four Seasons for example, but never the less I'm inclined to believe that really good chefs want to stamp their own mark on a dining room.

There does seem to be a way to circumvent this sense that hotels don't often have the best fare in their dining rooms and that's giving the dining room to a restaurateur to run rather than the hotel itself running it. When Patrick Guilbaud opened his restaurant in the Merrion Hotel it was a symbiotic relationship that benefited both parties. An ultimately less successful venture on the same lines was Conrad Gallagher's Peacock Alley in the Fitzwilliam Hotel. Now you can add another to the list; O'Connells in Bewley's Hotel in Ballsbridge.

My guest on the night of my visit was Alexis Mitchel, who lives nearby and has eaten the occasional lunch there. She confirmed what I'd already heard, you can eat well in O'Connells. The Hotel itself is centred around the old Masonic Hall, the square and compass emblazoned on the floor of the porch. Beyond the old building are the blocks of bedrooms, the area between these is covered in glass, creating a large and airy atrium. From here steps lead you down to the restaurant, through an very large sitting and bar area, at the far end of which is the dining room. It's a big room, shaped like an 'L', and surrounds an open area filled with cafe-style tables and chairs. Had the weather been a tad more clement it would have been a very tempting place to sit and eat.

The room itself is partitioned to make it feel less cavernous, there are paintings by Guggi on the walls, the tables and chairs are simple but comfortable, and the whole effect creates a sense of a casual bistro. Thankfully we were given a table for four by the window, which gave us plenty of room when the other settings were removed. Bread and a jug of iced water arrived with the menu and wine list, something that's taken for granted on the continent, but is still something of a rarity here.

The wine list is remarkable; not for its length or depth, but for the care taken in its assembly and for the extraordinary detail that it contains. Each page of it lists four wines only, because apart from the wine's name and vintage you'll find the region, the grape varieties used, the name of the grower, the Irish merchant from whence it came, tasting notes and suggestions for which foods it might accompany. Someone has taken the trouble to source wines from just about every Irish importer, no easy task logistically, and the mark up is very reasonable, especially in the more expensive wines. In the end we picked a good Gewurztraminer, a wine Alexis is fond of, which was priced at €29.95.

You'll find exactly the same attention to detail on the menu as well, where the various suppliers are listed. Once again sourcing the best product has been given priority and the naming of the suppliers does instil a sense of confidence in the diner - after all these are companies and individuals prepared to stand over what they do. These ingredients are turned into some interesting dishes - a big plus in my view being the use of wood-burning oven, a device that imparts a special magic to foods. From the menu Alexis picked the ciabattini to start, baked in the wood oven, and I couldn't resist the fish plate, which was a mixture of smoked salmon, eel, mussels and mackerel. Good quality mozzarella gave Alexis' dish a real flavour of Italy, while mine reminded me of how good the best of Irish can be.

For main courses Alexis had chosen the medallions of monkfish, which was served with a courgette mash and a lemon and garlic sauce. In recent years we've all been a little leery of beef, but when as here you know the provenance it's hard to resist - especially a monstrous 16-ounce piece of prime Hereford. I had to have it. Both of these main courses were perfectly prepared and presented, and at €19.95 hardly expensive by Dublin's new standards. It was nice to discover that our excellent waiter was from Naples, which naturally prompted a small exchange in Italian. To my surprise Alexis joined in - I now know that Italian is one of her languages.

Neither of us were able to finish our generous main courses, but we had just enough appetite for a crème brulee between us. We followed this well-made dessert with a couple of espressos and basked in that warm contentment that comes from eating well. The bill came to €96.20, not including service charge. Good food, good value and a well-thought out wine list. I liked it.

web: www.oconnellsballsbridge.com