Here's a list of some of the events that have affected the course of my life. One: the family farm in Italy was bought from the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino in the fourteenth century. Two: that same abbey owned most of the land in our valley, including most of my village. Three: most of my immediate forbears went to school in Montecassino Abbey. Four: I got sent to a Benedictine School in England. Five: I went to the Hungry Monk Wine Bar this week. Are these all merely co-incidences? Could it be Jungian synchronicity? Is it just a random list? Are monks a major factor in my life? You be the judge.

Monks are part of a community, either a priory or an abbey. If they're Benedictine - followers of St. Benedict's rule - then they're likely to have good food and wine as part of their monastic life, unlike some of their more austere brothers in the cloth. It's no accident that these same monks have given their name to Benedictine liqueur, or the wine from Buckfast Abbey. Benedictines have always enjoyed their food and wine - after, of course, their work and prayer - 'ora et labora'. If you ever intend to knock on the door of an abbey to ask for alms and a meal, I suggest you choose a Benedictine abbey, the food's better.

This explains why looking around the new wine bar of the Hungry Monk in Greystones, I was convinced that all the painting on the walls, which depicted monks at prayer and monks at work, could only have been portraits of Benedictines. This naturally made me feel at ease (see paragraph one), which is the right way to approach a meal. I should explain that the wine bar doesn't only have paintings of monks on the walls, oh no, this is a very themed space and the theme is mostly 'monks'. There are monk plates, monk goblets, monk bric-a-brac, monk pews and monk wine-glasses. It's a monument to the collector's passion for monk junk. They even have monk music, and I don't mean jazz. I went into the gents and heard Gregorian plain song on the speakers, which briefly transported me to the abbey church of my schooldays during matins and lauds, but only briefly.

In truth monks aren't the only theme of the wine bar. Wine is well represented too. The small ends of wooden claret cases, the ones that have the name of the chateau on the them, make a frieze around the tops of the walls. If you've ever wondered what those wooden cases are called in the wine trade, they're called rather cleverly 'woodeners'. Wine books are on shelves, there are proper candles everywhere, the place was humming with humanity mid-week and the service was professional and skilful right from the moment we walked through the door. The restaurant proper is upstairs and it has one of the most remarkable wine lists in the Dublin area. Downstairs in the wine bar there's a tiny list of wines, but if there isn't one to please you on it, you can order from the immense restaurant list.

The wine list is perfect wine bar fare. There are two Australian and two Chilean house wines which are listed at a very fair €17, there are two French house wines at €20, then three reds and three whites. The whites offer a Macon Lugny, a Pouilly Fume and a Chablis, the reds a Marques de Riscal, a Fleurie and a Chateauneuf du Pape, all very fairly priced. A house champagne comes at €48 if you're feeling flush. The philosophy behind the simplified and cut down wine list is the same one that underpins the menu. Enough choices not to feel forced, but few enough to keep things simple. A seafood chowder, vegetarian spring rolls, vegetarian pasta, Bombay chicken curry, mozzarella salad, a monk burger, goujons of plaice and scampi.

You can see from the menu that this isn't the place to come for three-course meal. If that's what you want you go upstairs to the restaurant, here's where you come for a one-plate dinner and a glass of wine or two. While we sat there tables changed more than once - this is more the quick snack end of the spectrum than the lingeringly long dining end. Susie wanted some seafood, and therefore chose the scampi, which came with chips and a little ramekin of tartare sauce to spice them up a bit. I chose the Monk Burger with extra cheese and onion rings, a decision that I think marked me down instantly as a gourmet. Both of these came with chips - what were once known as French fries in the US, but are now re-named 'freedom fries'. A bottle of Macon Lugny at a reasonable €23 and a bottle of mineral water completed our order.

Both of our main courses were well-made and generous in portion. They weren't complicated or sophisticated dishes - just good, plain food properly cooked. I really approve of this lack of pretension. This wine bar sits squarely in the middle of marketing territory that is little supplied in Ireland; the simple, honest middle ground. It's been a few years since I ate upstairs in the restaurant, but there too the emphasis has always been on quality ingredients rather than on overly sophisticated cuisine. There's something rather nice about having both of these eating choices in the same building.

But the best bit of all is when you get your bill. I don't know when I last got a bill with such a small number on it. €61 covered it all - service not included - which is beginning to look like great value in our over-priced country. Unusually I was sitting in a position that let me look at the main body of the dining room, and from this vantage point I could observe the unobtrusive skill of the waiting staff as they went about their business, doing what all experts do - making it look easy and effortless.