It's probably beyond debate; food and wine go very nicely together. This simple truth has resulted in restaurants building up good wine lists over the years, and many producers - especially in France - will try to get their wine onto the list of a good restaurant in preference to selling to a negociant. Restaurants that take themselves seriously have always prided themselves on their wine list and it's also true that we expect good restaurants to have a good range of wines for us to choose from. The surprise is that is taken a long time for wine dealers to realise that the formula of wine and food works both ways - a wine supplier can usefully include food as part of the service.

A while ago I reviewed a restaurant called Bond at the bottom of Gardiner Street that uses its basement area as an off-license. You can go there and buy a bottle of wine on your way home, or you can take it to a table, pay a modest corkage, and eat as well as drink. It's an idea that seems obvious once it's described, but it's taken a while before I've found another example. And while I'm on the subject of broad generalisations, here's another: as our economy expands and more and more people eat in restaurants, there's an increasing need for restaurants outside the city centre. Firstly they're easy to get to; you can park a car in the suburbs more easily than in the centre and if you're lucky to have a decent restaurant near your house you can even walk to it. This has the added bonus that you can drink more wine, since if you don't bring your car you can enjoy a second bottle and still walk home.

A good local restaurant saves you time and car running costs, as well as removing the risk of exasperation with city traffic. Whichever way you look at it, they're a good idea. Now Foxrock isn't local to me, and it has been served well for a number of years by Bistro One, but there's a new addition to Foxrock Village and it's calles The Gables. What made it interesting to me wasn't actually it's location, but it was the fact that it's tied to an off-license; one of the McCabe chain. What this means is that you get a wine list available to you of some 700 wines, an if you can't get one to please out of that you really ought to stay at home. I arranged to meet my friend Shane Bisgood there, he coming from Wicklow townwards, and me going from town Wicklowwards, with The Gables as our half-way house. While I sat in the car outside waiting for him to arrive - 'why's it taking him so long?' - he was sitting inside the restaurant waiting for me wondering how come the traffic was so heavy to make me this late. And before you ask the obvious question, my 087 had a strong signal in Foxrock Village, his 086 had none at all. Boredom eventually drove me inside where I saw a solitary Shane at a table for two.

The Gables is a large building, at the traffic lights where you drive into Leopardstown Golf Centre. The left-hand side as you look at it is the off-license, the right-hand side is the dining room. The long side against the wall has leatherette-covered benches and there's a second line of tables and chairs running parallel. An open-plan kitchen can be seen at the far end, behind the off-license part. Shane had a glass of wine when I arrived and we sat and chatted for a while until I became aware of the fact that he had a drink and I didn't. 'How did you get that?' I asked. 'I went up to the counter and asked for it,' he said. I took that as a cue to go to the off-license and pick a white wine from the display fridge, a Vielles Vignes Chablis 2000. After a while it was brought to the table and it was indeed a good wine, priced at €23.

Waiting for food, or waiting to order isn't time that I'm normally concious of, but I did become aware of it in The Gables. I remembered Dorothy Parker's epitaph for a waiter in the Algonquin Club, 'God finally caught his eye', and then Shane finally caught someone's eye and we got to order. We'd had plenty of time to think about it, so Shane started with the calf's liver and followed with roast salmon, while I began with the carrot and coriander soup and followed with the roast cod, which is why we'd settled on the Chablis.

We weren't at any stage kept waiting inordinately long, but the delays were none the less noticeable. If we'd been in a hurry it would have made a difference, but we weren't and it didn't. The starters arrived, my soup was very good and I ate it all, but Shane's liver was a triumph. It's very easy to cook liver badly, making it tough and dry. This was perfection; wrapped in rashers and cooked just enough to leave it succulent and tender. Our main courses, too, were very good, both of our fish dishes cooked well, leaving the fish tender and moist. The Gables serves many of its main courses with little by way of garnish, but neither Shane nor I had any side orders, eating only the mash that came with the fish.

Neither of us had a dessert so we finished with a couple of espressos. By half-past eleven we were one of three tables left and the staff signalled their intentions by bringing the lights back to full strength. I could almost hear 'Have ye no homes to go to?' We got the bill, €94.50 without service charge, pricey enough I thought for just two courses each and amateur service. Still, the food was good, the choice of wines is vast and if you live nearby you'd be happy.