It's a boy thing, I know - that unhealthy fascination with numbers and numerology, that urge to classify. Nick Hornby had it right, only a man would organise his vinyls in chronological order, but hey, that's how we do things. I was having this conversation with my pal Nick Crawford and I said that my 300th restaurant review was coming up and I wanted to do something to mark the occasion. 'Tell you what,' he said, 'we'll go to Patrick Guilbaud's and it'll be my treat.' Now that's what I call an offer you can't refuse.

Last time I went to review Patrick's restaurant was back in 1999, so it's been a while. You could argue that that's one of the downsides of restaurant reviewing, you don't get to go back to restaurants that you like often enough, as there's always some new one waiting to be reviewed. So yes, it was definitely a treat to be going back to Patrick's. I'm old-fashioned about these things: real unadulterated quality in every aspect of a meal makes me happy. The bald truth is that that's what on offer in this restaurant - a place where the food, the service and the ambience all combine to create an atmosphere of distinction. It's expensive, of course it is. Just to sit at one of its tables and eat nothing at all would cost a lot of money. The floor space costs money in rents, the waiters surrounding you in great numbers are paid, the flowers are fresh, you're breathing the rarefied air of excellence and all that costs money. The cost of the food you're about to eat is the very least of the expenses.

The restaurant is housed in the Merrion Hotel and you can reach it either by its own front door, or through the hotel. The dining room is actually a new purpose-built building that overlooks the Merrion's inner quad and you reach it through a comfortable and elegant lounge where you can enjoy pre-prandial drinks whilst reading the bills of fare. Both the menu and the wine list need careful perusal, as they both have many choices. The wine list is long, well-chosen and, given the setting, not unduly expensive. The lower end of the list clusters around the €30 mark and from there soars to giddy heights that can only be the preserve of few. The way the list is divided brought a smile to my lips; red wines, white wines, wines from other countries. You understand the first two sections are entirely and chauvinistically French. Nick decided that if we were going to dine in style we'd do it right and get a decent wine. He picked us a delightfully velvety Chateau Labergorce 1995, a small chateau that produces a cru bourgeois in the Margaux, listed at €103.

Now the menu is a thing of beauty, not just for its presentation but for its content. There are however choices to be had for the less intrepid and the less rich. Mid week you can eat from the <it>menu decouverte</it>, a menu designed to let you sample what the kitchens here are capable of doing, for a modest €65 a head. If you like the idea of a full-blown gastronomic experience you can opt for the 'tasting menu' at €130, a nine-course menu that really shows off the kitchen's capacities. Otherwise you have to pick your own food from the a la carte menu, which is what Nick and I did.

The a la carte menu is divided into starters, fish courses, vegetarian, meat courses and desserts. Roughly speaking desserts are all about €20 and all other dishes are a few euro either side of €40, except for the fish dishes which cost a little more. It's axiomatic among foodies that a Michelin two-star will often give you better food than a Michelin three-star, the principle being the old adage that second place often tries harder. In my relatively limited experience of two and three star restaurants I can vouch for its veracity, so my hopes were high for a culinary delight. Nick picked the carpaccio of Cork City crubeens, a wonderfully alliterative dish that came with a truly excellent mustard ice-cream, something that tastes infinitely better than its description might suggest. I decided on the duck foie gras which was served pan-fried and with an asparagus coulis that was delightful. Nick and I tasted these dishes with total pleasure and complimented each other on our good sense for coming here.

For the main courses Nick had picked the belly of pork, a dish that was served with truffle, garlic confit and fondant potatoes. Nothing girlie about this dish - chunky, full-on flavour and enough of it to defeat Nick's appetite, and he's not a small man. I'd picked the veal sweetbreads, which had been slowly caramelised in butter and were served with a skewer of langoustines. I think the last time I ate sweetbreads was in my own restaurant back in the 80s and let me commend them to you as one of the great dishes of the gastronomic world. What I had on my plate was the culinary equivalent of an orgasm - something so perfectly delicious in taste, so sensual in texture, that I wished it would never end.

Neither of us could have eaten a dessert, despite the fact that Rum Baba and an assiette of chocolate was on offer. In a way I sometimes feel that after such a good meal I'd rather leave the table with savoury tastes on my palate rather than sweet ones. We finished with excellent coffees and after dinner drinks - a cognac for Nick and an elderly Calvados for me. If you're interested in the vulgar commercial details, the bill, including all drinks, came to €336.